!@!Re: [Upd-discuss] a longer term strategy for promoting the public domain? (fwd)

[Lars Aronsson]

Richard Stallman wrote:

> The article
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=554102 is
> worth looking at.  It exemplifies another propaganda campaign to label
> unauthorized copies (which may be perfect copies) as "counterfeit",

Besides BSA and RIAA, there is a jungle of industry organizations
addressing the "counterfeit" issue.  Some pointers are:

 - Global Anti-Counterfeit Group, www.gacg.org
 - Anti-Counterfeit Group (British), www.a-cg.com
 - Alliance Against Counterfeiting & Piracy, www.aacp.org.uk
 - ABAC / BAAN, Belgian Anti-Counterfeiting Group
 - ACFE - Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, www.acfe.org.uk
 - ACGI - Indian Anti-Counterfeiting Group
 - DACG - Danish Anti-Counterfeiting Group
 - FACG - Finnish Anti-Counterfeiting Group, www.facg.net
 - SACG - Swedish Anti-Counterfeiting Group, www.grundengozzo.a.se

When trying to map these organizations, one cannot help but thinking
of the medieval guilds and trade organizations that dominated life in
every city in Europe.  Important purposes were to eat and drink
together and to find new ways to keep non-members out of the trade.  
It doesn't take a powerful king and aristocratic hierarchy to keep
society in a feudal state, because trade organizations will take care
of this in a perfectly organic way.  Their rules will make it into the
laws of cities and countries.  Laws against quackery (the Swedish one
dates back to 1675) come from this background, not from concern about
the public health.  Anybody can have a good health, the difficult part
is to fend off competition from a profitable business.

I think this background is a better explanation of current copyrights
(and patents) in Europe than the usually cited Statute of Anne and the
U.S. constitution.  All current talk about "industry self-regulation"  
(regulation by those already in the trade, against those who might
want to enter) and lawmakers listening to "stakeholders" falls into
this pattern.  The users of copyrighted items are never counted among
these "stakeholders".  Perhaps because they don't invite politicians
to lunch.


Lars Aronsson.
-- 
  Project Runeberg - free Nordic literature - http://runeberg.org/