Copying music and movies on the Internet is legal in Portugal

The news broke out today, but I think this has wider impact and interest than just the Portuguese reader, so I decided to, shamelessly, simply translate the news article that can be found originally (in Portuguese) at Exame Informática.

Only the italics (well, and possible language and translation mistakes) are mine, the rest belongs to Exame Informática.

---

At the beginning of 2011, the Portuguese Association for Audiovisual Commerce of Cultural and Entertainment Works (ACAPOR) made titles in the Portuguese newspapers for having presented a complaint to the Portuguese Republic's Attorney General (PGR) of two thousand Portuguese Internet users that used P2P services to share allegedly ilegal copies of movies (by leaving boxes filled with paper prints of "proof", and they were accusing not persons but IPs).

After a little more than one year, the Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP), that has the objective of analyze complaints to PGR that are then forwarded to the Public Ministry, published a devastating dispatch to ACAPOR's pretensions.

Besides the several notes to the procedures followed by ACAPOR, DIAP delivers a dispatch that risks marking the history of the defense of author's rights in Portugal. Here's an excerpt that just arrived to our office: «More over, in the legal point of view, and even if we put in this kind of networks the question regarding the user being simultaneously in the digital environment as both an uploader and downloader of the files to share, we see the actions by the participants licit for private use - art. 75 nr. 2) and 81 b) from CDADC, - even if one can think that when the copy is done the user doesn't stop his participation in the sharing».

While considering that the Authors Rights and Related Rights Code (CDADC) doesn't make the use of file sharing networks (P2P) illegal, the dispatch from the Public Ministry recognizes the merit of ACAPOR's actions for alerting to the need of rethinking the judicial questions related to the defense of the authors' rights of movies, music and software in the digital age. But even in this point the DIAP investigators leave a message - and remind that the defense of the authors' rights must be applied having also into account «the right to education, culture, freedom of action in the cybernetic space, specially when just freedom is limited to the individual being in nothing related with commercial questions, with the profit of the mercantile activity».

In the same dispatch, the DIAP and Public Ministry responsible confess that it is impossible to investigate the distribution and download of illegal copies in the Internet using the IP address. According to the investigators, accusing someone using the IP address as a bases is «erroneous», since the titular of the IP address used in the Net access «isn't necessarily the user in that specific moment, isn't necessarily who shares the work, but the one who has the service in its name, independently of using it or just formally figuring as its holder».

The Public Ministry refers, based on the analysis that it made of the CDADC articles, that only in cases where the author (and we assume no one else, even if the CDADC refers also artists, and producers) expressively forbids it you can consider a crime the public sharing of a work.

The dispatch also implicitly criticizes the way ACAPOR has dealt with the process, highlighting that the association that represents video rental stores didn't present any document showing that the movie(s) author(s) did forbid the «public sharing».

---

The article goes on, but this is the important part. If you want to read more about this (also in Portuguese), see also the news at TeK.

Merankorii (my one-man-band) is going to be celebrating Culture Freedom Day in Lisbon, Portugal, next saturday (May 12) at Flausina.

The concert is free, and you should show up!

More info here.

Censorship and Privacy on the Web

"Censorship and Privacy on the Web" is the title to a presentation I made (in Portuguese) for "Crime in the XXI century" 2 days event, as ANSOL's Vice-President. Here's the presentation (yes, I'm trying Google Drive for the first time).

Source, images and resulting PDF can be used and re-used, here.

Happy Document Freedom Day!

Yup, it's today, happy Document Freedom Day! For those that don't know what's this all about, Document Freedom Day is a worldwide event to celebrate and promote Document Freedom and Open Standards. As I put it on the "Testimonials" page,

Open Standards and Document Freedom are not only essential, but its importance is more visible as time passes by. From official documents and government websites to cientific archives or medical records, citizens in the digital era deal - or try to - with digital documents every day. It is crucial not only to ensure that they can easily do so, without obstacles, but also to prevent us from a dark future, by providing the right means of archival of all that information.

ANSOL is going to spend the day doing cool things about the issue, but as always we wanted also to party to everyone interested, so we're organizing a nice dinner party, and you are of course invited! If you're not in Portugal that's no excuse: there are 48 events in 21 different countries: some parties, some educational, but all of them fun! If you think Open Standards are not that important, consider this: in 2004, during the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the rescue operators of different countries were unable to exchange information about the ongoing operations, because they all used different closed formats of documents. This massively slowed down and complicated the coordination of rescue actions. Lots of human lives were put into danger just because vendors did not care about use of open standards in their products. And this is just one example. So, what are you waiting for? Join us!

My top 10 of books read in 2011

Unlike with music, and unfortunately, my "books consumption" isn't that high in the last few years, and 2011 was terrible in that aspect: I only read 35 books in the whole year. So, instead of doing a "Top ten of 2011 books" like I did for music, I'm doing a "top 10 of books I've read in 2011".

Take notice that this list has no particular order.

Iain M. Banks is an awesome writer, even if I've (still?) never read anything from him apart from The Culture novel series. In 2011 I "ended" the series: I've read Look To Windward (2000), Matter (2008) and Surface Detail (2010), and all those three novels ended up on this top 10. Let me explain what's this "The Culture" series: "The Culture" is the name of a (fictional) technology-advanced alien civilization, but the books are more political or philosophical than what you would expect from "SciFi with aliens". That's right, my kind of SciFi. The Culture is an anarchic socialist utopian civilization, but, while "utopian" is on their description, the fact is that nothing is perfect and they're sometimes confronted with big dilemmas - and sometimes they make mistakes. On "Look To Windward", someone wants to get revenge from The Culture from a mistake they did 800 years before. One thing that quite teased my mind on this one was the whole concept of the Sublimed having created a Heaven. "Matter" is quite different from the rest of The Culture novels (and the first to need a glossary), because it "zooms out" for the reader, and describes other cultures and civilizations, how they get together and co-exist on the Universe. That would be mind-exercising enough for a good read, but the hints on the relations between groups with levels of power of different magnitudes also gives many food-for-thought. Finally "Surface Detail", which is probably one of the most interesting novels from the series, and that kind of picks up the theme hinted by the Sublimed Heaven from two books ago (well, and the virtual approaches from Matter), and takes it into a cross of ideas from virtual worlds and concepts of Heaven and Hell. I just hope he doesn't leave this theme as "written", and a thematic sequel appears. But, most importantly, I really hope Banks releases another Culture novel soon - I'm already anxious to have more.

Still on SciFi, but now entering the Cyberpunk field, Charles Stoss's "Rule 34", a sequel (you don't have to read the previous to understand this one) to "Halting State", actually creating an "Halting State Series". This is not only a good book, it is a book that made me create my first entry on 2014's wish list: "The Lambda Functionary", its sequel, is planned to be released by then. What is Rule 34 about? Well, it has porn (obvious by the title), it has spam and Nigerian scams, it has bugs, it has AIs, it has surveillance and everything a world with SOPA's and ACTA's will end up having - including all the aspects related with the fact that no law enforcement can shut the network down or control it. A must-read (the series, in fact) for those interested on where are we walking towards in this matters.

Talking about Cyberpunk, and obviously, I couldn't miss Neal Stephenson's REAMDE. If you know me, you know that, on my scale, Neal Stephenson is the best writer EVER. REAMDE is a very fine book - and probably the most easy-reading of them all - but it didn't stop from being a... kind of... disappoint me. No, wait, listen carefully: the book is great. Thing is, you expect always the unexpected from the best. Every Neal Stephenson's book was mind blowing to me - you read each of those books and they actually and visibly change you. With REAMDE that will happen to a lot of readers, but being an "sort of easy reading book", you'll have lots of action and cool turning-page stuff, but, specially if you've read the rest of Stephenson, there's not very much new stuff to make you think... it's probably not a book that changed me, like the others before it.

And, to end up SciFi and Cyberpunk, but on quite a different form, "Piracy Is Liberation - Deicide". There are only three series of comics, and "Piracy Is Liberation" is one of them. Piracy Is Liberation is a dystopia, sometime in the future, where people live in "the city" and capitalism is the mandatory religion. Instead of explaining it to you, I'll point you to the torrent for the first book (Deicide is number 9) - uploaded and spreaded by the author himself.

OK, so what's next? Non-fiction. I'll start with an author very well known by it's fiction: Agatha Christie, and her best work in my opinion, which is non-fiction and it is delicious: Come, Tell Me How You Live. The title is the question that this book answers: Agatha Christie not only wrote quite some novels in archaeological settings, but she was also married to Max Mallowan (a prominent archeologist) and worked with him. So, when she got back into England, people used to ask her about her life there, and instead of just telling and retelling, she ended up writing this novel about her stories in Syria - and this is an autobiographical and very very very funny book.

Talking about Syria nowadays I can only think about the most recent events there, and from that thought the mind travels to Egypt. And it is about Egypt's recent events that the next book I have on this list talks about: Alexandra Lucas Coelho's "Tahrir - Os Dias Da Revolução. Here's the short review I wrote soon after I ended reading it: "An emotive short report of what the Tahrir revolution was all about. A book everyone should read - really. I won't be surprised to see this translated into English in the near future - and I really hope so too, because no one should be kept from reading it."

The last two books from this top 10 are... books about books. Living with thousands books (wife's a collector) and being a collector myself (but of music), this two books were really exciting, and Paula heard me saying more than once, while I was reading each of them, "too bad there aren't books like this about music". "Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World" tells the (real) story of a couple that started to find interest in books, and how they suddenly found themselves in the amazing world of book collectors - ending up with more than one or two rare books in their own collection. Phantoms on the Bookshelves was written by a collector - a big collector, that is (with more than 40.000 books) - and it is more introspective, a book where Bonnet reflects on what it is to be a book collector, how to be a book collector, what are the perils of being a book collector, and... well, a book that every collector (of books or something else) will probably empathise with ;-)

There, here it is my top 10 of books I've read in 2011. Let's hope I'll find the time to read more in 2012...

É Um Jogo? (Carta ao Adolfo Luxúria Canibal, sobre #PL118 )

[ACTUALIZADO:] Escrevi esta carta para enviar ao Adolfo Luxúria Canibal. Infelizmente o endereço de e-mail público que ele tem não está em funcionamento, e não encontro outra forma se conseguir contactar com ele. Assim sendo, agradeço aos leitores que, se souberem como, façam chegar este meu pequeno texto ao Adolfo. Obrigado. Felizmente a Internet é minha amiga, e disseram-me como conseguir entrar em contacto. A resposta encontra-se republicada nos comentários deste artigo.

---

Subject: É Um Jogo?

Caro Adolfo,

O Adolfo não me conhece apesar de já nos termos cruzado, mas eu sinto conhecê-lo mais ou menos. Afinal, eu era ainda uma criança quando o primeiro LP de Mão Morta rodou pelo gira-discos lá de casa, e continuo a contar com o "Há Já Muito Tempo Que Nesta Latrina O Ar Se Tornou Irrespirável" como um dos grandes discos que tenho na minha colecção. É, aliás, da minha experiência pessoal com esse album que lhe venho aqui falar.

Quando o "Latrina" (como eu o costumo chamar) saiu, era eu um estudante do ensino secundário, mas não foi com o CD que comprei que eu vivi o album. Como qualquer jovem da altura, a minha vida naquela altura não era "na sala de casa", onde estava a aparelhagem com leitor de CDs: era na rua ou no quarto. Não foi por isso que o album deixou de me acompanhar: munido com uma moeda de 100 escudos, da qual tive direito a troco, comprei uma cassette audio virgem e gravei o album para a Cassette. Findo o ritual, a referida cassette passeou comigo, do quarto para o walkman e do walkman para o quarto, enquanto eu decorava e cantava, cada frase do album, cada som, cada ritmo. Um ano mais tarde mudei de cidade e fui para a faculdade: a cassette comigo, o CD ficou na prateleira. Afinal as primeiras palavras do album são "Music Is Free", e - desenquadrando essas três palavras do seu contexto - eu era livre com a música que ali tinha, livre de poder andar pelas ruas enquanto a ouvia, livre do "sector dos lazeres" e do "mercado do entretenimento", e "infiltrava-me noutros sectores da nossa democracia" com auriculares nos ouvidos. Não me vou alongar muito mais, mas posso-lhe dizer com toda a verdade que o CD continua na minha terra natal, mas a cassette, essa, já "gasta" de tanto ouvida, tem o nome das músicas "em branco", onde antes se via tinta azul de uma caneta BIC, e é a cassette que ainda rola, por vezes, na minha actual casa, mais de uma década depois.

Hoje dizem-me que, ao ter assim apreciado a vossa arte, vos causei um prejuízo. Dizem-me também que da próxima vez que comprar um computador, e outra vez quando comprar um disco rígido, e outra vez quando comprar um telemóvel, e outra vez quando comprar um cartão de memória para a minha máquina fotográfica, terei de lhe pagar uma taxa, um valor que tenho de pagar caso contrário o Adolfo sofrerá "graves prejuízos", e que tenho de pagar essa taxa porque há a possibilidade de, eventualmente, um dia quando estiver a visitar a casa onde cresci me lembre de pegar no CD e fazer uma cópia dele para o computador, para o telemóvel, para o disco externo ou - imagine-se! - para o cartão da minha máquina fotográfica. Pode acontecer que eu eventualmente queira fazer uma ou mais do que uma dessas coisas, e aproveitar isso para voltar a ouvir com regularidade esse disco, e eventualmente voltar a interessar-me pela sua arte ao ponto de conprar outro disco de Mão Morta. Dizem que é um risco, e que "pelo sim pelo não" tenho de pagar. Quem me diz isto? Quem é que diz que o Adolfo vai sofrer "graves prejuízos" se eu não tiver de pagar mais (nalguns casos muito mais) pela tecnologia que compro? É o próprio Adolfo, segundo diz o sítio web da Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores.

Hoje em dia eu também sou autor - e músico. Talvez o Adolfo tenha sido um pouco uma influência para que isso tenha acontecido. Mas eu - autor, músico - não me sinto prejudicado cada vez que alguém compra um telemóvel e não me dá dinheiro por isso. Não entendo porque é que terei de gastar mais dinheiro com tecnologia - incluindo a que uso para fazer música - em vez de poder usar esse dinheiro para, por exemplo, sustentar o meu "vício" de coleccionador de música. Mas o Adolfo deixa bem claro com a sua assinatura: o Adolfo sofre "graves prejuízos". Eu até penso ter entendido bem algumas coisas que o Adolfo diz, por exemplo quando fala n'"As Tetas Da Alienação". Mas não consigo entender como é que o Adolfo será "gravemente prejudicado" com a não aprovação de um Projecto de Lei que eu sinto ser injusto. Tão injusto que, pela primeira vez, me dirijo a si, para lhe fazer uma pergunta:

Pode, por favor, explicar-me de que forma é que o Adolfo é "gravemente prejudicado" por eu não pagar uma taxa extra cada vez que compro tecnologia? Pode, por favor, explicar-me de que forma é que o prejudiquei quando usufrui o seu album "Latrina", gravando-o para cassette para o ouvir e ouvir e ouvir, e espalhei aos quatro ventos "vocês têm de comprar este album!"?

Sentindo verdadeiramente que isto "É Um Jogo", mas ainda assim na esperança de receber uma resposta a este meu e-mail,
Com os mais respeitosos cumprimentos,
--
Marcos Marado

Private Copying Levies on MP3 Players (2010)

Data taken from "de Thuiskopie" 2010 report[1]:

This list focuses only on the MP3 player levies (I intend to use this data to show how AGECOP is trying to convince people of things that are *not* true, using the same source as them):

Austria - 2,25 (<512MB) - 9,00 (30GB)
Belgium - 1,00 (<2GB) - 3,00 (>16GB)                              
Bulgaria - 2% of manufacturing or import price
Canada - nothing
Croatia - 1.93 per unit                      
Cyprus - no private copy
Czech Republic (OSA) - 1,5% of import or sale price                                    
Czech Republic (Intergram) - 3% of sale price            
Denmark - nothing
Estonia - nothing    
Finland - 4.00 (<512MB) - 21.00 (> 250GB)    
France - 1.00 (<128MB) - 20.00 (40GB)
Germany - nothing taxed (negotiations going on)    
Greece - 6% of the value
Hungary - 0.36 (<32 MB) - 32.95 (> 80GB)                  
Iceland - 4% of the import price  
Italy - 0.64 (<= 128MB) - 9,66 (> 15GB)                              
Ireland - no private copy
Japan - nothing
Latvia - 1.42 per unit
Lithuania - nothing
Luxemburg - no private copying levy
Malta - no private copying levy
Netherlands - nothing
Norway - no levies
Poland - 3% of the sale price      
Portugal - nothing (so far)
Romania - 0.5% (per unit)
Slovakia - 3% of total income of sale              
Slovenia - 4.17 (< 2 GB) - 8,35 (> 2GB)
Spain - 3.15 (per unit)
Sweden - 0.34/GB (<= 49GB) - 29.40 (> 250GB)
Switzerland - 0.53/GB
Turkey - levy set by government (always <3% of import/manufacturer price)                                                                
United Kingdom - no private copy

If from this countries we isolate those who have a tax per Gb on mp3 players:
Austria - 2,25 (<512MB) - 9,00 (30GB)
Belgium - 1,00 (<2GB) - 3,00 (>16GB)                              
Finland - 4.00 (<512MB) - 21.00 (> 250GB)    
France - 1.00 (<128MB) - 20.00 (40GB)
Hungary - 0.36 (<32 MB) - 32.95 (> 80GB)                  
Italy - 0.64 (<= 128MB) - 9,66 (> 15GB)                              
Slovenia - 4.17 (< 2 GB) - 8,35 (> 2GB)
Sweden - 0.34/GB (<= 49GB) - 29.40 (> 250GB)
Switzerland - 0.53/GB

So, there are only 8 countries that tax mp3 per GB, 7 of them European Union countries, all of those with a maximum price per unit.

[1] http://www.thuiskopie.nl/assets/cms/File/Digital_Survey%202010_Web%20version.pdf

private copying levies on memory cards (2010)

Data taken from "de Thuiskopie" 2010 report[1]:

This list focuses only on the memory card levies (I intend to use this data to show how AGECOP is trying to convince people of things that are *not* true, using the same source as them):

Austria - memory cards not taxed, only in combination with mp3
Belgium - 0.15 (< 2Gb) - 1.35 (>16 GB) (note: this is not *per Gb)
Bulgaria - 2%
Canada - nothing
Croatia - 0.55 (< 16GB) - 1.10 (>16 GB)
Cyprus - no private copy
Czech Republic (OSA) - 0.058 (per GB) [max. 3.46 per device]
Czech Republic (Intergram) - 0.057 (per GB) [max. 3.4 per device]
Denmark - 0.65 (per unit)
Estonia - nothing
Finland - nothing
France - 0.072 (<512MB) - 0.944 (16GB)
Germany - 0.10 (per piece)
Greece - 6% of the value
Hungary - 0.14 (<64 MB) - 12.45 (>32GB)
Iceland - nothing
Italy - 0.05/GB (>32MB) - 3.03/GB (>= 5GB) [max. 3.00 per unit]
Ireland - no private copy
Japan - nothing
Latvia - nothing
Lithuania - nothing
Luxemburg - no private copying levy
Malta - no private copying levy
Netherlands - nothing
Norway - no levies
Poland - 0.47% of sale price
Portugal - nothing (so far)
Romania - 3% (per unit)
Slovakia - 3% of total income of the sale
Slovenia - 0.03 (per GB / max € 16,69)
Spain - 0.30 (per unit)
Sweden - 0.34GB (<= 49 GB) - 29,40 (>250GB)
Switzerland - nothing
Turkey - value decided by Government, always less than 3% of import/manufacturers price
United Kingdom - no private copy

If from this countries we isolate those who have a tax per Gb on memory cards:

Croatia - 0.55 (< 16GB) - 1.10 (>16 GB)
Czech Republic (OSA) - 0.058 (per GB) [max. 3.46 per device]
Czech Republic (Intergram) - 0.057 (per GB) [max. 3.4 per device]
France - 0.072 (<512MB) - 0.944 (16GB)
Hungary - 0.14 (<64 MB) - 12.45 (>32GB)
Italy - 0.05/GB (>32MB) - 3.03/GB (>= 5GB) [max. 3.00 per unit]
Slovenia - 0.03 (per GB / max € 16,69)
Sweden - 0.34GB (<= 49 GB) - 29,40 (>250GB)

So, there are only 7 countries that tax memory cards per GB, 6 of them European Union countries, all of them with a maximum price per unit.

[1] http://www.thuiskopie.nl/assets/cms/File/Digital_Survey%202010_Web%20version.pdf

100.000 tracks played on Last.fm

Remember 2008, when I did a blog post called "50.000 tracks played on Last.fm"? That's right, the counter just doubled, and I now have 100.000 tracks scrobbled there (the image on your side is a screenshot, click to enlarge).

Besides the screenshot, and taking into account what I've written about in the "50.000 tracks" post, I decided to turn this event into another blog post with a little analysis of the data on it. This isn't really a blog post about "music I like" or "what you should listen to", but I also recently wrote a blog post about my "top 10 albums of 2011" on Noori Records' website, so you might what to also read that one.

First of all, the disclaimer I wrote in 2008: "Last.fm doesn't really represent what I listen: lot of the time when I'm at work I listen to what Last.fm plays to me (which limits the choice), and when I'm at home, I'm usually listening to things that will not end scrobbled: CDs, Vinyls or Cassettes. Still, this is probably the biggest (public) data available of what kind of music I dig, and it's pretty cool that I've reached 50K: now you can give some credit to what those numbers show."

A couple of updates to that text, tho:

• I had "ins" and "outs" in scrobbling this last few years. After Last.fm stopped being free, I only scrobbled what I've listened on my own laptop's music player, at first. That of course excluded the tons of other music streaming sources I've found, including online services, mainly archive.org. There were some periods in those scrobbles that were different: at some point I was a daily user of T61 (until they threw away their great service to replace with the good-looking yet uninteresting one they have now), and they had once a way to synchronize T61 with Last.fm, so I "went back scrobbling" at that time. Other periods like that happened, and lately I've been using Google Music as my "cloud music player", both at work and on my smartphone, and I've been scrobbling again since then, using a nice Firefox extension to scrobble Google Music plays to Last.fm. Oh, speaking of smartphone, since I changed from a Blackberry to an Android phone, I've also been scrobbling whatever I listen on my smartphone. Which isn't much, really, I stopped being a "portable music" kind of guy for years now...
• This is not, probably, the "biggest (public) data available of what kind of music I dig", I started working on having my personal collection of music public on Discogs, and while the collection isn't all there (yet?), I bet that's a better source of information about what music I have and how I rate the release...

Well, apart from that... What do the numbers and statistics actually say?

• Unsurprisingly, Merankorii is still my mostly played band. But there's no surprise there, is it? I mean, as I said in 2008: "What can I say? I am a fan of my own work, or else I wouldn't bother doing it...". It won't come as a surprise, then, that Kokori is at 4th (another band I created in the meantime), +ko+ko+ is in the 5th position (a musical project with two full-length albums released... on my label, and the last one mastered by me), Ambiansu is at 8th (this was a side-project of mine, that released one album and one other track for a compilation), and will even probably justify why RedSK is on the 12th: my label released a split CD between Merankorii and RedSK... and I spent a good number of months listening to RedSK while building Merankorii's side, and spinning the CD after it was finished.
• Tenhi and Empyrium swapped with DVAR and Marilyn Manson which is surely no surprise for me. While I still love both Tenhi and Empyrium, I managed to get my hands on much of DVAR's discography, and, well... DVAR are GODS. Of course, their short tracks providing 20 or 30 tracks on a small album helps, but that's honestly not the reason: I have "DVAR urges" regularly, and each time I have one of those I spend three or four days in a row listen to little more than DVAR... As for Marilyn Manson, it is not that I really started to feel the need to listen more of it, but when I started using Google Music I uploaded a small part of my extensive Marilyn Manson collection to Google Music, and now I have 746 different Marilyn Manson tracks on Google Music (from 4208 tracks there), and since many times when I'm listening to Google Music at work is a simple random "shuffle", it keeps playing Marilyn Manson tracks...
• The only other new entry on the top artists list is Caprice. I referred them in 2008, but at that time I only had two of their albums and I had just knew them. Now I have a lot more CDs from them, and the "Kiwitt! Kiwitt!" (their best, IMHO) had quite a few spins on my computer. I haven't listened much of them lately, tho, but they're working on a new album nowadays, so - who knows? - maybe you'll still see them on my "200.000 tracks" post in eight years ;-)

If you're curious and want to check out one of this bands or my Last.fm profile, here's the link.

#PL118 - Resposta ao artigo de opinião de Catarina Martins

For my English readers: sorry, this is one of those rare occasions where I am posting in Portuguese. Don't be afraid - it's all for a good cause.

---

Este artigo é um comentário ao artigo publicado pela Catarina Martins, intitulado Cópia Privada, e aconselho a sua leitura antes de ler a minha resposta. Isto foi escrito originalmente para colocar como comentário no referido artigo. Infelizmente o sistema de comentários naquele site não permite comentários com mais de 1000 caracteres, e eu alonguei-me um bocadinho mais...

---

Catarina:

Prometi-lhe uma resposta e aqui a tem. Infelizmente o tempo não me permite a esta altura dar-lhe uma tão detalhada como queria, mas, para já, esta bastará.

Comentando desde o princípio, parece-me que está a misturar "Lei da Cópia Privada" com "Código dos Direitos de Autor e Direitos Conexos". O CDADC existe, sim, e prevê já - desde 1998 - uma compensação aos autores pela cópia privada. De 1991, altura em que a cópia privada passou a ser uma utilização legal da obra, até 1998, altura em que se introduziu a referida compensação, havia o direito à cópia privada, mas não existia qualquer tipo de remuneração ao autor por causa da referida cópia. E que diz o CDADC sobre essa remuneração?

"Com vista a beneficiar os autores, os artistas intérpretes ou executantes, os editores e os produtores fonográficos e videográficos, uma quantia é incluída no preço de venda ao público".

Isto é diferente de dizer que "considera-se esta uma forma de devolver aos autores uma parte da riqueza que criam e que nunca lhes é paga" - a taxa da cópia privada não é devolver nada aos autores, é algo que se lhes dá para os benificiar. Concordamos que esta não é, contudo, a melhor forma de os beneficiar, e que uma melhor forma de o fazer seria, por exemplo com "um investimento público forte na cultura e na ciência". Mas mais do que não ser a melhor forma, esta é uma forma injusta e datada. Injusta, porque ao contrário dos impostos que podem (ou poderiam) financiar o investimento público referido anteriormente, a taxa à cópia privada não distribui equitativamente (ao contrário do que se supõe com os impostos) a contribuição que cada um deve dar para munir o Estado das condições necessárias para exercer os seus propósitos (incluindo investir na Cultura). Ao invés, tenta aplicar um princípio de utilizador-pagador, tal como este é aplicado, por exemplo, em auto-estradas (e do qual o Bloco de Esquerda se tem manifestado, acertadamente na minha opinião, contra). Datada, porque se já seria difícil aplicar adequadamente tal taxa na altura em que ela foi introduzida no CDADC, actualmente é, simplesmente, impensável. Não é possível hoje em dia distinguir o telemóvel que vai ser usado para fazer cópia privada daquele que não vai ser. Não é possível distinguir o cartão de memória que vai ser usado para fazer cópias privadas daquele que não vai ser. E por aí em diante.

Para lhe dar um exemplo: os meus pais, que duvido que durante toda a sua vida tenham usufruído do direito à cópia privada, têm, entre os dois, dois telemóveis (actualmente, eles são trocados por outros com alguma regularidade), um computador (com disco rígido) e um cartão de memória. Os telemóveis usam-nos para fazer e receber chamadas, o cartão de memória está numa moldura digital para poderem ver as fotografias de familiares, e o computador é para escreverem textos, e nem ligação à internet tem. Porque é que eles terão de pagar uma taxa à cópia privada, se não fazem a referida cópia? Temos também exemplos opostos: li recentemente um artigo de opinião num blog, em relação a esta Proposta de Lei, de alguém que diz que entre fotografias e vídeos dos miúdos, gera em média 5Gb de informação. E repare-se que isso não equivale a 5Gb que serão taxados: todo o conteúdo dele é gravado em backup num sistema NAS e com vários discos externos fora de casa, para garantir que não perde informação (sim, nós informáticos temos tendência para ser paranóicos ;-)). Significa isto que ele ocupa, no mínimo, mais 20Gb de espaço de armazenamento - que com esta proposta de Lei passa a ser taxado - a cada mês que passa. É justo que ele tenha que pagar uma taxa à cópia privada por ser um pai tão babado? E se o propósito é ainda o original - seja ele o incentivo à cultura ou devolver aos autores uma parte da riqueza que criam - que sentido faz que o Rui Carmo pague muito mais por isso do que os meus pais?

Mas mais do que simplesmente injusta e datada, a taxa agora proposta é também ignorante (juro que tentei encontrar melhor adjectivo, mas este é o que assume o "menos-mal"...). Ignorante, porque ignora aquilo que qualquer pessoa da tecnologia poderia ter dito se lhe fosse pedido para analizar a proposta: há que entrar em consideração com a Lei de Kryder. Esta Lei (não no sentido legal), que transpõe a Lei de Moore para o storage, diz que a cada dois anos a mesma gama de produtos de armazenamento de dados tem o dobro do espaço de armazenamento e um preço ligeiramente inferior. Não estando quantificada a diminuição de preço, podemos assumir que ela não existe, e mesmo assim chegamos à conclusão que, por exemplo, um disco rígido que, nos dias de hoje, custa 88.62 Euro sem IVA, passa a custar 108.62 (uma taxa à cópia privada de 23%), mas daqui a dois anos um disco do mesmo preço base levará uma taxa de 51%, e daqui a quatro anos essa taxa será de 107% - pagando o utilizador final mais de taxa do que pelo próprio dispositivo. E por falar em IVA - aplicar uma taxa antes do IVA não é ilegal, como se viu com o Imposto Automóvel?

Bem, este comentário já vai longo e não tenho tempo - por agora - para mais. E ainda só lhe comentei o primeiro parágrafo! :-) Ainda assim, espero que este meu contributo inicial possa servir para lhe mostrar um pouco da minha opinião em relação a esta Proposta de Lei, e espero que cumpra também o meu objectivo com ela de a fazer repensar e reflectir mais sobre o que aqui se propõe. Lerei de todo agrado uma resposta a este comentário, se optar por fazê-lo.

Com os mais respeitosos cumprimentos,
Marcos Marado
Autor e Cidadão Português