[Fellowship-Slovenia] Konferenca o avtorskih pravicah v digitalnem okolju

[Matija Šuklje]

Torej še moja ocena:

		~ Conference itself ~

Luckily I was feeling somewhat better by Friday, so I attended the conference.

I counted cca. 40-50 people in the conference room and was told that online 
cca. 80 people followed the live stream. So the audience was not too big, but 
decent nontheless.

There were stake-holders from all sorts of parts — from ISP's and 
broadcasters, over MEPs, journalists and Pirate Party, to artists performer's 
associations and even MPAA. In broadly speaking our camp, was Maja Bogataj 
Jančič (also Creative Commons Slovenia co-founder), the Pirate Party (very 
broadly) and some of the audience (notably Maja Lubarda, Creative Commons 
Slovenia).

Oh, I managed to spam about a third of the papers that everyone got at the 
conference with FSFE material ;)

There are plans of publishing online or even in a book our talks. Damn, if I 
knew it was more of a lecture instead of a debate (as was said!) I'd write 
something up :\

The videos are already online; see the links in the panels below.

		~ Panel 1: Pirates in Slovenia[2] ~

moderator:
 - Gregor Štibernik (Collecting society for asserting rights of performers and 
producers of phonograms of Slovenia)

speakers:
 - dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič (Institute for Intellectual Property)
 - dr. Jurij Žurej (Slovenian Intellectual Property Office)
 - Andrej Čremožnik (Pirate Party Slovenia)
 - Boštjan Menart (record label owner)

Maja started of with some slides and music samples of how some popular 
(Slovenian) artists were copying others in their music. Her goal was to 
agitate and provoke a debate.

Menart was complaining a bit about how hard it is to have a record label in 
Slovenia and how they have to produce toys in China in order to survive. He 
spoke a bit about how they lose revenue from album sales and how it's nearly 
impossible to survive with digital markets in Slovenia, since we're small.

To be honest, I can't really recall Žurej's talk in detail, but it was 
something in between of both extremes.

Because others were late, Andrej had only 5 minutes to speak, so he very 
shortly summaried what the Pirate Party thinks about “intellectual property” 
and why they think so. He also challenged Menart that there are reports that 
say the music industry is doing better then ever, also due to “piracy”. Menart 
disagreed, unless he provides such a study for the local market.

[2]	Pirati iz Slovenije 1.del
	http://tanja-fajon.on-net.si/tv.php?video_id=40

		~ Panel 2: Digital — Global — Local / Who are We?[3] ~

moderator:
 - mag. Simon Delakorda (Institute for Electronic Participation)

speakers:
 - mag. Jože Zrimšek (T2 — ISP, TV and stationary and mobile phone provider)
 - Janko Čretnik (CENEX — video and cinema distributor)
 - Matjaž Zupan (SAZAS — collective rights management organisation; but mainly 
author of music and video)
 - Boštjan Dermol (musician; but also president of performing artists' 
assembly)
 - Matija Šuklje (FSFE —  Free Software Foundation Europe)

To be honest, I don't remember much what Zrimšek said. He talked a bit about 
the financial trouble of T2 is now in and something about porn, which eluded me 
completely (although I'm their customer).

In short Čretnik was complaining that it's getting harder to sell videos to 
cinemas and mentioned that the cartoons for kids under a certain age in 
Slovenia have to be synchronised, which should also be taken into 
consideration.

Zupan, performed as a typical artist, with a story about how we are going down 
like the Titanic and everyone (he pointed out lawyersespecially) complains 
about how there's a pipe dripping in their room, while we're crashing into an 
iceberg. He complained that there's too many middle men, who take money from 
the author and that the authors — by that he meant professional artsts only — 
themselves have to decide upon copyright.

Boštjan Dermol (otherwise law student), was talking as a musician and 
complained that it's hard to survive with music. He also had a whole story 
written up.

I started my talk by introducing FSFE and that we fight for Free Software and 
open standards/formats. From there that we're part of this conference because 
we are both authors of code, and since code runs everything in the digital 
environment, as well as making available to everybody the infrastructuture to 
create, distribute and enjoy culture and knowledge. I explained that open 
formats are the only way to make sure everyone will be able to listen, watch, 
read or use some work, that DRM is bad because it hinders use of e.g. blind 
people who would like to listen to an e-book. I also splipped in that FSFE is 
10 years old this month. I expressed a great concern that throughout the day 
there was talk about “intellectual property” and “consumers”, since these 
terms are not suitable (named the standard reasons) and degrade the artistic 
and scientific works to a consumable thing, which they are not. I explained 
that our view is that copyright (et al. laws) is just a tool to a goal, but 
now it seems that the status quo is that we see copyright as a holy hammer and 
think everytime we see a problem, we make an ever bigger sledgehammer and 
start flailing it around. I proposed that we take two steps back and try to 
solve the bigger picture — which is make a social ecology in which culture, 
knowledge and innovation would foster. I mentioned Free Software as part of a 
solution (infrastructure) as well as a good example how without monopolistic 
rights great things can be accomplished (example: Android, since it was not a 
geeky enough audience). As further threats I exposed ACTA and TPP(A). All 
things considering, it was not bad, but could be better.

[3]	Pirati iz Slovenija 2.del
	http://tanja-fajon.on-net.si/tv.php?video_id=42

		~ Panel 3: European Perspective of Copyright in the Digital Environment[4] ~

moderator:
 - mag. Tanja Fajon (MEP)

speakers:
 - dr. Stavros Lambrinidis (MEP, vice president of the EP)
 - Mike Holderness (freelance journalist)
 - Chris Marcich  (MPAA - Motion Picture Association of America)
 - Xavier Blanc  (AEPO ARTIS - The Association of European Performers' 
Organisations) 
 - Martin Spence  (BECTU - UK's Media and Entertainment Trade Union)
 - Rick Falkvinge (Pirate Party founder)

This was the only panel that was actually a round table also in practice! So 
I'll just summarise some of the most important bits.

Holderness commented that it's sad that we're talking about copyright in EU, 
while we should be talking about authors' rights / droit d'auteur. He also saw 
a (partial) solution in micropayments, but added that the banks would revolt 
then.

Falkvinge represented his and Pirate Party's view in general — get rid of 
copyright and/or make all file sharing legal.

Marcich, well, for an MPAA guy, seemed pretty OK. Only occasionally and very 
subtly suggested that Falkvinge is talking crap in his view. Nothing new 
though either.

Blanc commented that although he's against HADOPI, it's not as bad as many 
portray it. That there is some sanity in it, and is a better solution then 
some others in the EU and elsewhere.

Spence commented that there's people like performers, cameramen etc. are 
not taken in consideration either and have to be. He also said that there has 
to be a system that supports professional artists (and performers), otherwise 
we'll just listen to remixes all over again. This sentiment was shared by some 
others as well.

Lambrinindis seemed to favour the digital era and thought that inventions like 
iTunes were great to foster music and art. Also he agreed that access to 
internet, privacy etc. are basic human rights and a test of proportionality 
and need will have to be done whenever such a right is to be limited. Sadly 
someone commented that author's rights are human rights in Slovenia as well 
(which is kinda true).

Oh, there was a raising of hands how many of us would be willing to pay for 
downloading if it were reasonable and the author got the money. The majority 
did so, which reflects the outcome of a recent study as well.

It was concluded that we don't have any final solutions and that that it would 
be useful if we would hold more such meetings. But although we're coming from 
very different backgrounds and interests, it is nice that we can see eye-to-
eye and debate this issue.

[4]	Pirati iz Slovenije 3. del
	http://tanja-fajon.on-net.si/tv.php?video_id=41


lp,
Matija
-- 
Namestnik pravnega koordinatorja, FSFE
in Koordinator Fellowship skupine Slovenija
www: http://fsfe.org       █▉   || priv. www: http://matija.suklje.name
e-mail: hook at fsfe.org    █▉█▉█▉ || priv. e-mail: matija at suklje.name
xmpp: hook at jabber.fsfe.org ▉▉   || priv. xmpp: matija.suklje at gabbler.org
sip: hook at ekiga.net             || gsm: +386 41 849 552
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/fsfe-si/attachments/20110320/2d808bde/attachment.sig>