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Digital First Sale - TIME TO SPEAK OUT - SIGN (CLICK) THIS

If you read about the Redigi decision, you know that a court has ruled against COPY AND DELETE.  Yes, you can't buy an mp3, make a copy to sell (or give away under the same logic) and then delete your copy.  You CAN resell your whole hard drive with the mp3 on it, so there is still First Sale, according to the judge. 

If this makes you mad and you want to speak out, particularly since Congressional discussion on the NEXT GREAT COPYRIGHT ACT are starting to commence, then Sign the Petition saying we need DIGITAL FIRST SALE.  Also REMIX RIGHTS.

WHITE HOUSE PETITION:

http://tinyurl.com/recastcopyright

Pass this on - new copyright petition (short deadline to get 100K signatures)

From techdirt comments:

A HUGE thanks for pointing this out, Mike! If anyone needs a (public domain) letter about this to send to your friends, here you go:

Are you tired of having fan sites taken down by cease and desist letters? Are you sick of seeing wonderful fan creations censored by copyright claims? Are you tired of living in fear of a lawsuit because you like drawing pictures and writing stories about the characters you love?

Then now is the time to act! 

Yesterday a group of budding copyright scholars launched a Whitehouse petition to make fan creations 100% legal. President Obama has pledged to personally respond if the petition reaches 100,000 signatures within 30 days. There are that many fans in the Star Wars fandom alone! We can do it! :D

Sign the petition below, then share this e-mail with every fan you know. We can deluge this petition with signatures if we all pull together! 

http//tinyurl.com/recastcopyright


Even if you don't live in America, it's very important that you pass this e-mail on to all your friends in fandom. The United States copyright law has a huge effect on the rest of the world, and if we can change American laws, it'll be easy to change them elsewhere too. 

Want more details? Here's the long version:

The petition says that, "As responsible creators, we need to be able to freely remix existing music and other forms of creative expression to create new works without undue fear of prosecution. This upholds the original Constitutional purpose of copyright, which is to promote progress." 

Fanfics, fan art, fan games, fan handicrafts and all fan creations are "remixes" in the eyes of the law...but unfortunately, they're also illegal! O.o This means that the "owners" of our favorite characters can shut down fandom whenever they want to. They can take down our favorite sites with cease and desist letters, censor our Youtube videos with DMCA notices, and even sue us for everything we own. All just for sharing our love for our favorite characters and shows. :( 

If the goal of copyright is to promote the progress of art, then why is copyright being used to stifle fan art, fanfics, and fanvids? It seems that for every book and movie that copyright encourages, ten thousand fanfics and fanvids are blacklisted and deleted. This does not sound like the promotion of the arts. Actually, it sounds like the *suppression* of the arts. To encourage art, we must destroy it. To promote creativity, we must stop people from being creative. 

How did this twisted logic come about? Were the Founding Fathers really that batty?

Believe it or not, fanfiction was once legal under US law. The Founding Fathers saw nothing wrong with the idea of creating new work from familiar characters and settings. In fact, the Founders realized that great writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil and Dante all wrote new stories (fanfic!) about popular characters. Why would anyone want to forbid that?

Unfortunately, copyright law has been bloated and twisted by modern corporations until the entire rationale behind its existence has been lost. In fact, the way some people interpret the Constitution, you'd think copyright was intended, “To promote the Progress of...useful Arts by deleting and censoring hundreds of thousands of stories, art pieces, and videos.”

Fan artists are not second class artists. We are talented, original and creative. We deserve the same rights as other artists: we do not deserve to be censored; we do not deserved to be sued. Our art is real art!

Let's restore our old rights and put the copyright law back the way the Founders originally envisioned it! Sign the petition and then spread the word:

Post this e-mail on a fan forum, blog, etc
Create a piece of fan art, fanfic, etc. expressing your support for the petition and urging people to sign
Send this e-mail on to other fans
Post news of the petition on Facebook, tweet it on Twitter, share it everywhere you can
Notify the news blogs in your fandom about the petition

Go forth, bold champion! Fight on behalf of your fandom! There doesn't ever need to be another fan site shut down again!

tinyurl/recastcopyright

We made a tinyurl so it doesn't break at the line return.

tinyurl/recastcopyright

So sign it. They need an insane number of signatures - 100,000. But if we can get that, it will show that reasonable users are flexing their muscles.

More on the Recast Copyright petition that's going around:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Recast copyright law for the digital era. It's time to regain public respect with laws that make sense.

The public disregards copyright law because it is out of sync with the digital age. We want the right to resell digital content (ebooks, etc.) that we've paid for. We need transparency in the marketplace to understand what rights we have.

Additionally, as responsible creators we need to be able to freely remix existing music and other forms of creative expression to create new works without undue fear of prosecution. This upholds the original Constitutional purpose of copyright, which is to promote progress.

This will nurture the process of innovation and the sharing of our culture. The language of the existing copyright law must be changed to accommodate the way information is being created and consumed in our digital world.

Get your free White House account (easy to do, honest) and sign the petition here:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/recast-copyright-law-digital-era-its-time-regain-public-respect-laws-make-sense/WyLbr96K

Recast Copyright law - sign this today

Time to get the Obama administration to take action on a sane copyright. Sign this petition. Need 100K signatures in 30 days. http://wh.gov/e2M6

Today's the deadline to request to participate in Copyright Office Resale Royalty Public Roundtable in DC on April 23. http://www.copyright.gov/docs/resaleroyalty/roundtable-request/participate-request.html

Wretched court ruling that you can't sell used mp3 files the way you can sell you used cds, even if you delete your file. http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/04/copyright/selling-used-digital-files-a-setback-but-not-the-end-of-the-story/