a New draft bill is being hammered out by US Politicians and sofar it has received widespread support from both the ‘free Internet’ organisations as well as the entertainment industry. The bill proposes that ‘digital citizens have a right to a free, uncensored Internet’ as well as ‘digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property’
It is still not clear how the bill addresses the core problems:
1. In an Information age, the length or period of copyright protection is completely unjustified and far too long. The terms of patents being granted in terms of ‘years’ is also patently unfair and seeks to enforce extreme capitalism and unfair economic exploitation, way beyond the recovery and reasonable profit granted to developers of intellectual property.
The above point only seeks to allow multinational corporations to make 1000% – 100000000% profits over many many decades. Whilst using the same gains to enforce an even larger footprint in whatever industry they occupy. This makes it harder and harder for small or new players to enter, partake, compete and develop in certain industries.
2. The protections afforded content and intellectual property creators are those required by the Industrial age, where the costs for the machine to reproduce, the costs for the distribution and other costs where exceedingly high and protection was strictly required to allow for the economic survival of the creators of intellectual property.
The Information age sees content created, distributed and assimilated all in the period of even one single hour. To afford a fifty year legal protection to such content is ridiculous and completely contrary to the best interests of the global society. It only seeks to promote the recurring creation of empty wealth and does not seek to protect or to deliver products that would see growth, employment and innovation. The nett result would be to deliver economic benefit only and on a recurring and long term basis.
Society cannot afford to pay for air as it is just not sustainable, consumers need to be protected by mass ongoing extreme profiteering and other exploitation.
Poor countries, young people and many others need to be able to enter markets, to produce and to survive economically.