CCIA applauds the recent
agreement we have helped broker between leading content creators, RIAA and MPAA
and leading companies in the Internet, technology, and communications sectors
in an effort to rewrite copyright law so as to avoid the type of future confrontations
we all experienced in the recent battles over PIPA & SOPA.
We especially applaud
Content’s willingness to negotiate within a framework agreement which includes
the following elements:
·
recognizes the
importance of getting the underlying law right before expanding sanctions and
enforcement;
·
agreement to greatly shorten arbitrary
terms for copyright protection, in exchange for new ways to calculate new terms
sufficient to reward and encourage continued creative efforts, adjusted to
reflect the economic realities of different sectors of industry;
·
guarantees that
no less that 50% of copyright royalties will go to the actual original artists
and creators of a work and not to intermediaries such as brokers, studios,
agents, who should, however, be well compensated by fixed or contingent fee
arrangements only;
·
agreement to
immediately suspend use of inflated unscientific calculations of economic and
job numbers related to infringement issues;
·
support
for an independent economic research commission to study the actual financial,
and innovation, costs and benefits of various key aspects of the current
copyright system, including different types of infringement, fair use, and
other types of limitations and exceptions;
·
elimination
of liability for secondary and non-intentional infringers in return for more
stringent sanctions on willful and intentional violations;
·
replacement
of statutory damages with an objectively developed economic formula to measure
actual damage, including perhaps treble damages;
·
acceptance
of the obligations that go with property ownership, including willingness for
their copyrights to be fairly taxed as property assets, whether by local,
state, or federal tax regimes, in
the same way as real property or hard goods’ are taxed, including depreciation
rules that recognize that copyrights retain their full functional value till
the end of their term.
HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY FROM CCIA!
