[x-pubpol] Colombia: Constitutional Court Strikes Down Draconian Copyright Expansion Bill

[Joly MacFie]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/victory-colombian-internet-users-constitutional-court

By Maira sutton

Good news hails from Colombia today, where the Constitutional Court has struck
down a sweeping copyright enforcement law
<http://karisma.org.co/?p=1975> because
Congress had fast tracked the bill and overstepped various legislative
procedures<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/colombia-fast-track-sweeping-new-copyright-reform-bill>.
The Court also ruled on the constitutionality of the law itself, over
provisions on the retransmission of TV content and signals over the
Internet as well as its language on technological protection measures
(TPMs, also known as DRM). <https://www.eff.org/issues/drm> The law,
nicknamed Ley Lleras 2, was passed to implement copyright enforcement
obligations from the Colombia-US free trade agreement. Colombians and civil
society groups, however, have been arguing that this law violates the right
of education and culture because it would dramatically restrict access to
knowledge online.

The law would have set forth copyright regulations that went even beyond
the requirements of their trade agreement with the
US<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/09/copyright-latin-america-new-enforcement-measures-pose-major-threats-internet-users>
and
had many negative consequences for Internet users' rights to free
expression and privacy. Ley Lleras 2 would have banned the circumvention of
digital handcuffs that restrict copying and other uses of works, and also
prohibit the creation and distribution of tools to circumvent TPMs, even if
the end use is legal. While the Colombia-US FTA only requires punishment
for "willful" criminal infringers, the new Colombian Copyright law is
defined in a way that could even put someone in jail for a minimum of 4
years for burning a CD of music for their friend. In addition, it would
have expanded copyright protection terms from 50 years to 70 years after
first publication, and added further restrictions on broadcast content and
its signals, even if the content itself was not subject to copyright
protection.

It is very welcome news that Ley Lleras 2 has been repealed. It was a law
that was poorly crafted, based upon a trade agreement with defective
policies, and enacted by throwing democratic rulemaking processes out the
window. Unfortunately, we expect another flawed copyright law to come down
based upon Colombia’s trade obligations with the US. We stand with Fundación
Karisma <http://karisma.org.co/>, RedPaTodos <http://redpatodos.co/blog/>,
American University’s Info Justice <http://infojustice.org/archives/9344>, ONG
Derechos Digitales <http://www.derechosdigitales.org/>, and other digital
rights organizations around the world to ensure another malformed copyright
policies does not become law and threaten Colombians’ digital rights again.

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Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
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