Archived - Watkinson, David

1: DRM styles

I regularly use a variety of operating systems and devices and am constantly running into problems using purchased material easily on devices the way I want to. These forms of DRM don't necessarily need to be legislated against but should be discouraged. Other schemes of embedding non-personal information indirectly identifying the purchaser are preferable. This would discourage piracy but not disrupt the users of the material.

2: Circumvention

Circumvention should be legal as long as it is not used for copyright infringement. Creating backups is a necessary activity that should be legal.

It will be extremely difficult to accurately specify the anti-circumvention technology. Technology is always in a constant state of change which legislation can not keep up with. The focus should be on the copyright infringement rather than the anti-circumvention method.

3: Copyright terms

I have always found the term of life of the author + 50 years to be excessively long. In these modern times with increased longevity, there are often a large number of competing interests that could extend over 100 years after the work was created. We may not want to go against the Berne Convention but we certainly should not extend the terms.

4: Three strikes

The ability to access the internet is becoming a necessity. The changes from just 15 years ago when very few people had internet access to now shows that we can not predict the nature of what internet access means to people. A non-judicial process for cutting of internet access is not appropriate.

David Watkinson