Copyright working party discusses advice with parliamentary committee for Justice

Yesterday evening, the Dutch parliamentary Justice committee discussed that advice of the copyright working party, supervised by Arda Gerkens of the Socialist Party.

Especially the proposed ban on downloading was discussed in detail. Green party GroenLinks bared its teeth in striving to prevent criminalising Internet users. The party fears that enforcement will come with big privacy breaches. Gerkens emphasises that enforcement of the ban is meant purely as a last resort, that it is a means to achieve the goal of behavioural change, not making criminals of Internet users.

Both the Socialists and GroenLinks favour abolishing fees on data carriers as well as legalised downloading. However, this proves contradictory to EU regulations. These prescribe that member states need to make a choice: either a system of fees or a ban on downloading.

GroenLinks further stated that copyright should primarily serve network-enbabled innovation like mash-ups, mixing and video posting. The party blames Gerkens for not providing these new creatives with enough stimuli. The working party agrees that copyright should favour innovation and argues that the working party has paid much attention to this, for example by emphasising the importance of Creative Commons. But Gerkens states that the permission of an author should be leading: “In the end, it is the right of the maker to decide what happens with his creation.”

Furthermore, the working party mentioned it will remove a passage about DPI, because this elicited an emotional big brother discussion that stood to poison the real discussion. However, Gerkens stated to still support the passage.

15 April 2010