EUCD and Belgian Software Law

[Rudy Gevaert]

On Sat, May 11, 2002 at 09:23:16AM +0200, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
> > Like I could have thought the guy didn't know about FSF/OSS, but he did
> > tell me that the improvments that are going to be made to the Belgian
> > copyright law are good (Yikes!) and I should "cry with the wolves in the
> > forrest".

should be: "and I should NOT "cry...".  The guy maked fun out of me :(
in front of my whole class :)

> What are the arguments ? The proposal-law include multiple modification 
> (historical issue, compatibility to other law and,of cours,e the EUCD part 
> (mainly Article 13)) 
> 
> As a teacher, the best way is to argue about that ;-)

Well he didn't have any arguments, only did he say it was good for us...

> > 
> > Well, I took the proposel in my hand of new Belgian copyright law, and I
> > did see it only changed the law about copyright and databases, but not
> > the Software law!
> 
> The Directive (2001/29/CE) is regarding the author right law in respective 
> contries in europe. 
> 
> The belgian pre-proposal law is regarding "Droit d'auteur et droit 
> voisin". The software is protected by the Berne convention because it's a 
> way of expression (like books or any other of expressions). 

Yes indeed, as I see now my translation was not correct.

> What do you mean by the software law (there is multiple law, ordonnance 
> for each part of country) ? 

Well I mean the law of 30 june 94 concering the transpositon if Belgian
law from the european guideline of 14 May 91, about the protection by
law of computerprograms. (Trying to translate from dutch to english) 

(BS. 27 juli 1994, 19315) 

> So the proposal is modification of the author right law.  It's covering 
> software but any other way of expression (like music, books and so on..) 

So the law I stated above will be useless?  Now one has to look first at
the law I stated and when it doesn't apply you have to look at the
author right law.

> > 
> > The Belgian Software law also states the concerning software one has to
> > follow the software law and when this doesn't handle the specific case
> > you have to look at the copyright law.
> > 
> > Why are they changing only the copyright law?  
> 
> Because copyright (the anglo-saxon terms of "droit d'auteur") is 
> a protection (for defined period : life of the author + 50(variable) 
> years) way of expression for the author. (cf. Convention de Berne)
> 
> The copyright law in Belgium is an application of the Berne convention. 
> 
> The EUCD came from the modification of the article 11 of WIPO (OMPI) about 
> the addition of security extension. 
> 
> 
> > As a second question could somebody give me several examples why the
> > EUCD is bad for FSF/OSS developers?  I'm having an oral exam of that
> > course :).
> 
> I invite you to read the two letters that we have sent to the Prime 
> Minister and Minister of Justice. 
> 
> http://www.ael.be/action/2002/eucd/lettre-eucd.html (before the law 
> proposal)

> After the pre-proposal law :
> 
> http://www.ael.be/action/2002/eucd/projet-de-loi-belge/

I'll certainly take a look at it!  But my french isn't that good, so I
will have to do it one passe at a time :)

> Maybe we could have a discussion with your teacher. ;-)

A debat at the uni of Ghent would be better :) (I could prolly fix
that...)

Thank you for your answer :)
-- 
Rudy Gevaert - rudy at zeus.rug.ac.be  - http://www.zeus.rug.ac.be  
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