Fermasoft.com

I do not usually blog about this matters but this is something I care about. Two weeks ago ( March 1st ) there was an important vote in the Legal Affairs committee (JURI) of the EU parliament : the weakening of a copyright law .

Preamble .

When a work has gone orphan, it means that it is effectively lost until the copyright monopoly expires, 70 years after the creator’s death. You can only hope that somebody has kept a copy illegally and copied it across new forms of storage media as they go in and out of fashion as the decades come and go, or it will be lost forever.

What they claimed it happened

in the JURI commetee is, quoting MEP Engström’s assistant - Henrik Alexandersson, “a temporary form of democratic surplus”. You have to understand that the JURI commetee has the responsibility of safeguarding the integrity and trustworthiness of the legal framework as a whole in Europe. Are you still with me ? Ok. That committee counts 24 individual votes. This particular reform was rejected counting 12 votes for reform and 14 against . Yes, that counts 26. If you also note that there was a person not voting you understand that if there were 12 votes for reform there must have been 11 against it and the reform should have passed. The other fantastic thing that is claimed to have happend two weeks ago was that, unfortunately, when this was done, along with formally requesting a re-vote, that re-vote was denied.

Conclusion

What can I say ? I have checked out the minutes and the docs about that meeting on the EU website and honestly did not find anything, BUT according to Rick Falkvinge there are eye witnesses : you might put enough pressure on him and they might come out in the open.

IMHO : I can't honestly believe that something like that can happen ( I refer to the denial of a re-vote ) in a democracy. Someone might argue that we may not be in a democracy but have the illusion of it . The point is that YOU have to commit : follow what's going on. Ask your representatives to share documents, minutes and everything that can possibly help you make up your own opinion.; put pressure on your members of the parliament, let your voice be heard : it doesn't matter if we don't agree, just don't stay silent.

my own 2 c.