[access-uk] Copyright Law
- From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Access-Uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 17:22:10 +0100
I hope some here at least will find this interesting - discussing as it does
the right to distribute (and charge for) some free software. It also
reminds us that private copying of material here is still not strictly
legal.
Well, maybe I'd better start selling CDs of my copies of Firefox, and maybe
throw in some of the plug-ins I use?
Of course, ignore if not interested.
From Ray
I can be contacted off-list at:
mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
Trading Standards get in a tizz over free software
Posted by Suw Charman in Copyright at February 24th, 2006
It seems that the concept of giving away software and, shock! horror!,
allowing other people to package that software up and then sell it on, was a
bit too much for one Trading Standards officer...
A little while ago, I received an e-mail from a lady in the Trading
Standards department of a large northern town. They had encountered
businesses which were selling copies of Firefox, and wanted to confirm that
this was in violation of our licence agreements before taking action against
them.
I wrote back, politely explaining the principles of copyleft - that the
software was free, both as in speech and as in price, and that people
copying and redistributing it was a feature, not a bug. I said that selling
verbatim copies of Firefox on physical media was absolutely fine with us,
and we would like her to return any confiscated CDs and allow us to continue
with our plan for world domination (or words to that effect).
Unfortunately, this was not well received. Her reply was incredulous:
"I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from
something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the
case?" she asked.
"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes
it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce
UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice
to businesses over what is/is not permitted."
Oh dear. Trading Standards are supposed to be the people who understand the
law, not the ones who need quick lessons in free software licensing from a
Mozilla volunteer.
It never ceases to astonish me how many people who really should know better
don't understand copyright, let alone copyleft, public domain or Creative
Commons. I've been quite active in a number of writing communities, for
example, and the very people who you would think would be well up on all
this stuff turn out to be quite uninformed, and make dreadful assumptions
about the effects of releasing work under an enabling licence such as CC.
This is an issue that also came up during the APIG DRM hearing, that few
people understand even the basics of copyright law. Most people don't know
that in the UK there is no right to private copying. The majority of people
think that it's perfectly fine and legal for them to make a private copy of
a work, but strictly speaking, it's not. It wasn't until technology made
that copying both easier to do and easier to find out about that the
copyright holders felt moved to crack down on it.
We really need some sort of educational program to teach people about
copyright law that could then feed in to a wider understanding and debate of
the need for copyright reform. (To include, say, a right to private
copying.) I guess that's another thing to go onto the ORG To Do list.
Source:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2006/02/
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