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A lecturer at Polytechnic University of Valencia UPV in Spain has lost his job and been asked to remove all record of his employment at the university for giving a lecture on the legal uses of P2P networks.
Jorge Cortell has been lecturing on intellectual property at the university for five years. Earlier this month Jorge was asked to give a lecture on P2P as a part of Free Culture week. But Jorge made the mistake of telling Spains copyright cartel SGAE, the National Police, and the Attorney General in advance.
During that conference I was to analyze the legal use and benefits of the P2P networks, even when dealing with copyrighted works (according to the Spanish Intellectual Property Law, Private Copy provision, and many research papers, books and court rulings). I was even going to use the network to "prove" that it was legal, since members of the Collecting Society "SGAE" had appeared on TV and newspapers saying that "P2P networks are ilegal" (sic) just like that, and to that extent I even contacted SGAE, National Police, and the Attorney General in advance to inform them about it.
The aforementioned agencies informed their cohorts in the industry cartels and shortly Promusicae the Spanish equivalent of the RIAA and our very own MPAA were pouncing on the Dean, the University, and everyone they could find with threats, warnings, lies, and abuse to stop the lecture.
The day before the conference, the Dean (pressured by the Spanish Recording Industry Association "Promusicae" as I found out later, and he recognized himself in a quote to the national newspaper El Pais, and even the Motion Picture Association of America, as another newspaper quotes) tried to stop it by denying permission to use the scheduled venue. So I scheduled a second one, and that was denied again. And a third time. Finally I gave the conference on the university cafeteria, for 5 hours, in front of 150 people.
Later on that day (May 4th, I will never forget), I received a call from the Director of the Masters Degree Program where I was teaching telling me that the Dean had called and had asked him to "make sure I did not teach there again", and on a second call saying "it's your choice, but also your responsibility".
The Director called me and first asked me to remove any link to the university from my website, and also to "hide" the fact that I was teaching there. Then he told me about the pressures and threats he and the Program received (to be subjected to software licenses inspection, copyright violations inspections, or anything that may damage them). Obviously I had to resign to save his job (and everybody else's at the Masters Program). So I did.
Once again we have morally reprehensible actions being used to stifle the spread of legal technologies, and justified on the claims of stopping piracy. Mr. Cortell was not engaged in piracy, nor was he promoting it. He was demonstrating the effective use of technology for legally sharing both copyrighted and non-copyrighted works. And once more we have examples that nothing the Copyright Cartel tells us can be trusted not their numbers, not their judgement of technology, not their interpretation of whats legal. Lawrence Lessig reports today on how Bilboard magazine legal affairs editor Susan Butler has written a piece grossly misrepresenting Copyright, Creative Commons, and an authors right to choose:
As Creative Commons chairman and Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig travels the world encouraging international adoption of Creative Commons, the movement has begun to arouse concern in the music business. Some industry leaders say that the group's approach -- applauded by many -- is in effect a Trojan horse that could erode copyright protection or harm unwitting artists.
"My concern is that many who support Creative Commons also support a point of view that would take away people's choices about what to do with their own property," says David Israelite, president/CEO of the National Music Publishers' Assn. and former chairman of the Department of Justice's Intellectual Property Task Force.
The Cartel has shown a complete lack of integrity, ethics, and honesty in their actions on Copyright, and they will continue to act this way as long as it works. We need to make sure our legislators know were watching, and we will no longer tolerate the making of bad legislation and support of corrupt business practices as a quid pro quo for nice contributions and rubbing elbows with stars. EFF has an action alert on the Broadcast Flag. Thats a good place to start.
The lawyers and lobbyists are moving fast, but you can move faster. Tell your representative you don't want Hollywood to hobble your digital media devices, and knock out the Broadcast Flag for good.
Make your voice heard with the EFF Action Center:
http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=129
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