Last month Walled Culture wrote about an important case at the Court of Justice of the European Union, (CJEU), the EU’s top court, that could determine how VPNs can be used in that region…
That made sense at a time when media was physical and could be stopped at the border. There are no border posts in the internet.
So now we could either a) make the copyright industry draw up new licenses that make sense for the internet, or b) make everyone else spend billions to create and suffer border posts in the internet.
Yeah it’s outdated. But should the worldwide license cost the same as the licence just for lithuania? What if you were a small upstart just trying to do something online for your local community? Or a school hosting licenced media for study purposes.
While you are right there are theoretically no borders on the internet. They can be built, Netflix US or Netflix AUS for instance are geo blocking so they can pay smaller licences. And that is their right just as much as it is for a school which is fenced with a .edu login. At least in copyright laws current iteration. Who should be responsible for an outside actor getting access?
That made sense at a time when media was physical and could be stopped at the border. There are no border posts in the internet.
So now we could either a) make the copyright industry draw up new licenses that make sense for the internet, or b) make everyone else spend billions to create and suffer border posts in the internet.
Yeah it’s outdated. But should the worldwide license cost the same as the licence just for lithuania? What if you were a small upstart just trying to do something online for your local community? Or a school hosting licenced media for study purposes.
While you are right there are theoretically no borders on the internet. They can be built, Netflix US or Netflix AUS for instance are geo blocking so they can pay smaller licences. And that is their right just as much as it is for a school which is fenced with a .edu login. At least in copyright laws current iteration. Who should be responsible for an outside actor getting access?
Fun to think about.
Or c) abolish copyright law entirely.