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Written by Network administrator
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Sunday, 11 April 2010 22:26 |
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In this article published in Counterpoint, Octavio Kulesz discusses the need to revisit traditional copyright:
EPISODE 1. ‘What is virtual can have real effects’. This was the conclusion drawn by the Argentinean Professor Horacio Potel in 2009 right after the trial against him had come to an end. What had happened? Since the early 2000s, he had been managing a few websites related to European philosophers where he included information about their lives and ideas, as well as PDF versions of their books. The problem was that some of those works, such as Jacques Derrida’s, were not in the public domain, which led the rights-owners to take legal action against his unauthorised copies. However, the public reaction to the process was immediate and overwhelming: thousands of students and researchers flooded online social networks to express their discontent, the general claim being that Potel’s sites were vital, since very few people could otherwise enjoy those expensive translations imported from Spain. Eventually, on 13 November 2009, the Argentinean justice decided that Potel’s actions did not justify penal prosecution and all charges were dropped.
Read the full article...
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