Copyright Culture

Yesterday, the Europian Union Court of Human Rights made a declaration about the Copyright monopoly laws. Here's a news clipping about it.

"The European Court of Human Rights has declared that the copyright monopoly stands in direct conflict with fundamental Human Rights, as defined in the European Union and elsewhere. This means that as of today, nobody sharing culture in the EU may be convicted just for breaking the copyright monopoly law; the bar for convicting was raised considerably. This can be expected to have far-reaching implications, not just judicially, but in confirming that the copyright monopoly stands at odds with human rights."

You can read the full article here:
http://falkvinge.net/2013/02/07/court-of-human-rights-convictions-for-file-sharing-violates-human-rights/

I'm not going to discuss the whole article here, so I'll just summarize some points a bit outside it's area that I found important as well. In short, the European Convention outlines that an individual has the right to produce, reproduce and share culture and the current monopoly laws concerning copyrights limit this freedom, which is considered a base right of all human beings. It's a bit more defined and refined version of the 1st Amendment, for any American (or other) readers that may not be familiar with it.

There's been discussion about how the monopoly laws could be considered unjust, even degrading towards a single person, persona and personal rights, but no one's really done anything about it. Until yesterday. The EU Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg isn't exactly a small fish in this pond: it could be considered the single largest authority on issues concerning human rights, since the UN council and other chairs don't really give declarations anymore.

Some have lauded this as a victory for online piracy, which it is not. Piracy is still illegal, as it should be, but an individual is allowed to use and share culture without fear of unjust prosecution, what could be considered corporate blackmail and wholly unbased reimbusements that will leave an individual and his seventh son's seventh son in debt to a company that serves no one's rights, despite very vocal claims otherwise. It's still possible to get convicted for sharing content clearly owned by someone else, but now there needs to be a reason to do so in the EU.

What this is, is the first step towards copyright laws and copyright culture that could be viewed as even close to modern. It is a victory of the individual and the culture over unfeeling corporate power. (Not a socialist victory, just an individual one, mind.)

It's a start.