Developments re Copyright Legislation

Since the Draconian law that everyone here except the representatives of Keskusta (Centre Party) and SDP (Social Democratic Party) hates, has been passed, some quite interesting developments in the field of copyright legislation have occured.

Foulness?

Minister of Culture Tanja Karpela claimed that a document from the European Commission exists, which states that circumventing copy protection for personal use must be forbidden by the member states. However, subsequently she has been unable to show any such document. This implies she has been lying to the Parliament and its committees.

At least five complaints have been made to the Parliamentary Ombudsman about the fact that the civil servant responsible for the preparation of the new law text, Jukka Liedes, has a position in Gramex, one of the main beneficiaries of the new law.

Wide renewal imminent?

This is huge if it is going to happen. Presidential candidate of the Green League, Heidi Hautala, writes in her blog (translation to English by me):

I'm now in the middle of a fascinating correspondence with the Ministry of Justice and I'm going to concentrate on changing the problems of the law following the example made by France and Norway. The Grand Committee wants also that Finland will, during it's EU precidency at the latter half of the next year, let the cat, the completely outdated copyright legislation, out of the bag. Oh, minister Karpela could NOT bring out the "very specific information, black on white on what the directive means and what it does not mean". The x-files were not found, which means the minister spoke to the Parliament against better knowledge. I am waiting for an apology.

Seems that the emails, demonstrations and other campaigning have actually started something. And given that different civic organizations have actually learned the methods of very effective lobbying, chances that something good comes out, are good. I'm reminded of what MEP Alexander Stubb said to the industry lobbyists during the software patent schism:

Your lobbying was miserably bad. The Open Source folk beat you hands down, by 100 to zero.

Categories: Advocacy

Posted by Matias at 17.10.2005 21:58 (2 years ago)

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