Concerns raised about Colombian copyright reform #nopupitrazo

[Michel Bauwens]

Via Carolina Botero:

This week the Colombian Executive introduced a draft law it says is required to implement its obligations under the Colombia-US Free Trade Agreement. The Congress has been called upon to do the necessary paperwork in three weeks to have the law in place before President Obama visits Cartagena in mid-April.

You can read more here http://infojustice.org/archives/9130

From the reform I do have 2 main concerns that come from the free culture concerns

1. there is a very broad definition of “for profit.” It is defined “as the gain or profit to be drawn from something.” This definition is not in the FTA, nor does it need to be. Moreover, when in the FTA there is a need to describe the concept of “for profit”, the definition is much concrete. When the FTA mentions the concept “for profit” it does so as “commercial advantage or private financial gain” (art. 16.7.4 (a) last part).
I think the broad definition is very problematic since this is the new "boundary" on copyright, it is not anymore the copy. We from CC know the difficulty to define commercial use, so, imagine if in Colombia we have this definition given to judges... anything will be for profit.

2. the implementation of TPMs as requiered in the US FTA is very troublesome, since requiring legal protection for TPMs independent of copyright violations is likely to undermine countries’ existing copyright limitations and exceptions and national competition policies.

Still, since there is a political agreement on the matter, I am afraid that there is little we can do to introduce even some changes

However if you feel like helping sign here
http://redpatodos.co/blog/que-nuestro-futuro-no-se-decida-a-las-car...

And if you twitt please use #nopupitrazo

Thanks
Carolina


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http://www.karisma.org.co/carobotero