[Ecommerce] Dialogue re French Copyright and Related rights law (DADVSI)

[Manon Ress]

Volker Grassmuck trying to decipher "media echo" re DADVSI asked
Philippe Aigrain:
What's your impression Philippe? There's a German blogger following
this. He asked himself
whether the global license stands a chance. Short answer: probably
none. Long answer: probably none, but who knows.
http://froschblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/licence-globale-historisches-
zeichen.html
Would you agree?

Philippe Aigrain:

My own answer (developed also in a paper in Le Monde Diplomatique of
February,
will be available on-line in several languages beginning of March) :

- The global license is not the key question in the DADVSI law : key is
obtaining that the legal protection of TPM does not extend to the
prohibition
of circumvention when it is needed for legitimate use (legal use
corresponding to all "exceptions", interoperability, security, etc),
and of
course rejection of any attempt to make DRMs compulsory. Second come
exceptions, in particular those for research and education (which we
don't
have yet in France and extended recognition of the right of quotation as
applying to all media and as fit for purpose of usage).

- The global license is important because it raises the issue of
societal
funding of the conditions of creation and culture, and because it
highlights
that there are other solutions that the total usage control scenario.
Thus I
suggest not short and long answers but short-term and long-term answers.

- The short-term answer to your question is : there is little chance
that it
will be adopted this time : it has become a symbol for the government
(obtaining the cancellation of the amendement vote is the only way
they can
walk out of this without appearing defeated). However, it would be
silly to
drop standing for the license as it brings a key leverage on other
topics.
Note that it is a credible leverage : the MPs are truly infuriated by
how
they have been treated by the governement (last minute amendments
drafted by
lobbies deposited during the debate in Parliament, representatives of
Virgin
download platform being given government cards to enter the
restricted access
part of Parliament and distributed free bonus cards for downloads to
MPs,
etc).

- The long-term answer : some form of societal mutualization of
returns to
creators and funding to future creation is needed when Internet-based
free
non-commercial exchange fo digital representations of works develops.
The
global license proposal is/was a first approximation of it, important
because
a significant coalition of artists, consumers, family and education NGOs
endorsed it. Some elements of tuning (compulsory for all subscribers to
broadband or optional for those who wish to share, applying to all
media or
only for music) presently weaken support for it. I personnally stand
for the
compulsory for all broadband subscribers version, and I recognize
that in the
present situation, there was insufficient debate and empirical
studies to
justify applying it moving image contents. Regardless of media, there
are some
technical problems (solvable) on measuring usage in a way that can
not be
abused, but it takes all the bad faith of some collecting societies
to claim
that it would be worse for artists that receive presently little
attention
compared to the present scenario (not speaking of a total DRM scenario).
There are also some elements to include to make sure that users/
prosumers can
express preferences beyong usage statistics (see fyi proposals by
Jamie Love
on possibility for each to allocate part of the fee to special
communities of
support of creation - competitive intermediaries in Jamie's vocabulary).
Global licenses will be back ... if only because DRM-based scenarios can
simply never work (though they can make us loose much time).

Best,

Philippe Aigrain
>

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Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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