A year ago, Walled Culture wrote about an extremely important case that was being considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the EU’s top court. The central question was wheth…

The key problem is that copyright infringement by a private individual is regarded by the court as something so serious that it negates the right to privacy. It’s a sign of the twisted values that copyright has succeeded on imposing on many legal systems. It equates the mere copying of a digital file with serious crimes that merit a prison sentence, an evident absurdity.

This is a good example of how copyright’s continuing obsession with ownership and control of digital material is warping the entire legal system in the EU. What was supposed to be simply a fair way of rewarding creators has resulted in a monstrous system of routine government surveillance carried out on hundreds of millions of innocent people just in case they copy a digital file.

  • @[email protected]English
    2•5 months ago

    So Disney and Nintendo can keep doing what they are doing

    After 30 years not even Disney or Nintendo will pay a billion for exclusivity.

    but also the same companies can steal the work of smaller artists almost immediately?

    Let’s make copyright non-transferable. For a company to retain copyright it must employ the creator.