[pp.int.general] copyright vs. "droit d'auteur"

[Carlos Ayala Vargas]

Reinier Bakels wrote:
> The issue was whether the human rights argument works. Of course, the 
> *victims* you quote are all happy with any argument supporting their 
> cause.
The thing is that *we all are victims* -don't know other countries' 
cases: in Spain, everybody (even those who legally are not obliged to 
pay) pays levies-. The challenge when talking with anyone about this 
issue is to be able to prove that fact, and once you prove it, the 
connection is suddenly done.
> But in my opinion legislators are not easily convinced by the human 
> rights argument to reduce copyright - as said, there are even "human 
> rights" argument to increase copyright and copyright enforcement.
Yes, I know your opinion, and you know mine about

- human rights working as an argument to reduce copyright
- other human rights /arguments/ being actually lies and distortions to 
be countered and denied

I think we know each others opinions, but maybe it's not enough for you: 
maybe you won't be reassured until you convince people (including me?) 
that only your viewpoint is the valid one.
>>> And the propaganda of the IFPI and its allies is strong. But the 
>>> counter-argument is easy. No outsider ever believes that one should 
>>> pay also for copying his OWN (legally obtained) CDs onto a MP3 
>>> player or PC disk.
>> Mmm ... that's not private copying, at least in Spain; that's not the 
>> only private copying scenario. e.g., *if Cuatro channel broadcasts 
>> */*House*/*, and I save the episode* in a tape/CD/DVD, the episode 
>> has been legally *accessed* -there is no need for me to purchase 
>> and/or own
> Yes, it is a private copy, and levies are designed to compensate the 
> author. 
Wrong. If levies were designed to compensate the author, levies would be 
received by authors of the copied works, what doesn't happen. In Spain, 
levies are solely collected by a minority of authors, and massively 
collected by a tiny, tiny percentage of authors -namely, Serrat, Victor 
Manuel, Bisbal, Bose, etc (/casually, the 1.000; casually/, those who 
are members of the /Plataforma PAZ/)-; furthermore, which works are 
copied doesn't matter anymore, as you'll be able to read in this mail 
.... they just want money; or like SGAE Chairman /Teddy/ Bautista said 
"/what matters is that people pay/".

At least in Spain -though I think it happens the same in the rest of 
countries where levies exist-, *levies are designed to pay back the 
enormous favor made by pro-copyright lobbies by supporting a concrete 
political party* -what, by the way, makes amazing the fact that the 
biggest opposition party also supports the pro-copyright lobbies (maybe 
due to dark interests, or maybe just due to being afraid of them if some 
day that party regains power)-.
> You proved my point: it is entirely counter-intuitive.
No, it's not: RMOs in Spain defend that copying House episodes wouldn't 
be private copy -as you don't own the original/source copy-. Well:

- HispaLinux -a huge Linux-related association- got tricked
- Jordi Guillot -a United Left senator- got tricked
- and many more significant people and organizations got tricked

and even in spite of being told by us the opposite thing. Reinier: 
again, I believe you are too optimistic when talking about certain 
people, who almost never will be willing to change their mind or, at 
least, their public stance. Maybe they have no intuition to be aware of 
it being counter-intuitive? I don't think so, simply they don't care.

Fortunately, that doesn't happen with most citizens I have the chance to 
talk with. So, again, I'm concerned on those citizens, not on lost causes.
> In NL private copying is allowed, but is not exempted from copyright: 
> the levies serve tje purpose to compensate the author.
Oh, I see; well, as I said, in Spain that's not the case. Author's -most 
of them, specifically those whose works are privately copied- don't 
receive levies or receive a quantity pretty lower that the right one 
-according to the proportion of copies made from their works-.

The thing is that the only way to verify who copied what would be 
surveillance and ... then, we come back to human rights -namely, privacy-.
> Don't try to start another flame war. Some translations got general 
> acceptance even if they are not enirely correct. Perhaps I should 
> refer to "derecho de autor" if I talk to you?
Author's rights would serve, if referring to Spanish legal framework. 
It's not flame war, but trying to be as accurate as possible; when I 
make mistakes, it's useful having other people fixing those mistakes 
made by me. Don't you agree? Then I try to be useful for you.
>>> No human rights are needed to explain this!
>> Except PROMUSICAE pushes Telefonica SAU and brings the case to ECJ; and
> I admit: privacy is basically a human right of its own kind, and here 
> human rights relevant. Still, the argument is easily reversed: "we 
> shouldn't be overly concerned with privacy and risk the lives of 
> people due to terrorist attacks".
/Easily/? Not without lying and, if they lie, I think our duty is to 
counter and deny their lies.
> Or, like Angela Merkel once said: we should not refrain from using all 
> available technology to protect our citizen ... And, again, in 
> copyright the argumentis even more easily reversed: infringement is 
> stealing and it is a human right of the author to be protected against 
> theft.
More lies from them, more need to counter and deny them.
> The basis of this article is wrong. It says that levies serve the 
> purpose to compensate the author for economic loss. But in the "droit 
> d'auteur" perception the author is simply entitled to the money 
> *because he is the author* (and nothing else). Likewise, infringement 
> does not require a monetary damage to be illegal, unless a plain tort.
 From the Decree that sets the tariffs for the private copying levies in 
Spain: "/compensation is aimed to compensate intellectual property 
*rights that won't be perceived due to the reproductions made for 
private use*, which implies the need of estimating the prejudice caused 
by those copies to the intellectual property rightholders/ [...] 
/*compensation* that applies to each of the devices *is calculated by an 
estimation of sales of those devices that can differ in practice from 
the effective sales actually made*/"

http://www.boe.es/aeboe/consultas/bases_datos/doc.php?coleccion=iberlex&id=2008/10443

Thus, and read this carefully, Reinier, *in Spain levies are not paid 
just because of rightholders losing the exclusivity to authorize 
reproduction of intellectual works: levies are paid because of supposed 
economic losses** caused by supposed differences in sales, supposedly 
caused by people buying those devices to make private copies of 
protected works* -they were unable to calculate how many copies were 
done, so they invented a profit caused by an increase of devices sales 
in order to make private copies; thus, by binding sales of devices with 
private copying, they were /legitimated/ (rather legalized) to demand a 
fee from those sales (fee that is actually paid by customers)-. If 
things are different in Netherlands, I don't know, however I do know 
about the Spanish case and I swear that *our reply to the EC 
consultation is not wrong anymore*.
>> We are going to use -we are actually using- human rights as part of 
>> our arguments. It is necessary for us.
> Sorry you are not open to my advice. I wonder why this"we" should 
> actually be replaced by "I" (+ Carlos). Using the wrong argument can 
> actually be very detrimental, for the reasons I tried to explain above.
Because I talk about /we/ (PIRATA). If I were talking about PPI I would 
say /we all/ -review my mails, you'll discovered that I've used /we all/ 
(when not explicitly saying PPI) several times-; the thing is that I'm 
not talking on behalf of PPI but on behalf of PIRATA -and only about 
certain issues; about others you can also review my mails to check that 
sometimes I specify that what I say are my own opinions-.

I don't know if that comment about usage of /we/ and /I/ is due to my 
complaint on you talking about lawyers /never/ using human rights as an 
argument -don't know if the few names I gave to you were enough-.

 
                                                                                                
Carlos Ayala
                                                                                                
( Aiarakoa )

                                                                         
Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman