[Bradford] UK Government Moves To Legislate Against Free Software

[David Spencer]

Damn! That's two replies today that I've sent to individuals instead
of the list.  But you don't get off so easily.  Here they are again,
apologies to Brian and Rob for repeating mesen.

-------

What can we do locally?  Maybe move a Bradlug meeting to Shipley,
invite P. Davies (in his DCMS select committee role) to tell him about
**Free** Software (play up the freedom bit), put on shirts and ties,
stress that many of us are small business owners, and then tell him
loud and long that this is an expropriation of private property?  And
tell him that tying us up in administrative fees, collective
agreements and Digital Exchange bollocks is a massive intrusion of Red
Tape (red, boooo) where there was none before and an imposition of
unwanted government interference.

A quick and dirty fix would be to exempt from compulsory licensing all
works that are less than, oooh, thirty years old.  (would settle for
twenty ;-)

And if some twat pretends moral rights are unaffected, smack the
****er in the face, because, in a disgracefully discriminatory move
that puts software in an underclass below all the other creative
professions, CDPA 1988 has always exempted "computer program" from the
right to be identified as author (79.2.a) and the right to object to
derogatory treatment (81.2).  That just leaves false attribution!  So
you can object if someone says a program is yours (but it isn't), but
you can't object if someone says your program is theirs!

-------

There's also the proposed EU Directive on Orphaned Works
to throw into the mix.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120629/09204819536/eu-directive-orphan-works-so-bad-it-makes-things-worse.shtml

"the proposed EU Orphan Works Directive is an utter disaster, which
actually manages to make the situation worse than it is today. So how
did this come about? A clue can be found in an earlier Techdirt story,
which reported on a curious 113% turnout during crucial votes of the
Legal Affairs (JURI) committee. The topic? Why, orphan works...."

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/12/st10/st10953.en12.pdf

And yet, looking on the bright side: "it could compel country members
of the European Union to comply with the standards of the proposal
instead of more flexible solution available in their domestic law".
Alas, asking P. Davies to help shelve shitty UK legislation pending
potentially less shitty EU legislation might not be a winning strategy
:-(

-D.

ps. a conspiracy theorist might conjecture that the synchronicity
between London and Brussels might be caused by the same pigopolist
lobbyists working both UK and EU civil servants with the same cunning
plan at the same time.