Kunstfreiheit.ch

Aus England kommt im Moment ein Report nach dem anderen, der sich gegen eine immer weitergehende Verschärfung der IP Rechte ausspricht (siehe etwa die Adelphi Charter oder das Manifest der British Library.) Der neueste ist der sog. Gowers Report (146 Seiten pdf), der im Auftrag des Finanzministeriums erstellt wurde. Er empfiehlt unter anderem folgendes, was sich doch wesentlich mit den Forderungen der Kunstfreiheit deckt.

Balanced and flexible rights should enable consumers to use material in ways that do not damage the interests of rights holders and will help ensure that citizens have trust in the system. They will enable cultural institutions to preserve our heritage, and help research institutes to further knowledge by using ideas protected by others.
The Review recommends:
• proposing an ‘orphan works’ provision to the European Commission. This will make it easier for creative artists to re-use ‘orphan’ copyright protected material (for which no author can be found), thus unlocking previously unusable material;
• introducing a limited private copying exception, which will allow consumers to format shift legitimately purchased content, for example music from a CD to an MP3 player. This will allow consumers to use copyright protected material in a manner which does not damage the interests of rights holders;
• clarifying the research exception. This will create greater scope for research on protected material by universities and business and expand the stock of knowledge; and
• enabling libraries to copy and format shift master copies of archival works. This will prevent valuable cultural artefacts from deteriorating because they exist only on outdated formats.