go civil society, go
Yes, the long slide of copyright and patent law towards the american standard seems to be slowing down with at least some MPs realizing that 1) their voters do not support it and 2) it is probably not such a great idea for the long-term production of new IP.
Scared Orlowskis, short on arguments are now flying into conspiracy territory with headlines like "who's done it ?" , "who is pulling the strings from the shadows ?" and so on. Good.
The answer is simple: civil society. Yes, such a thing exists. We, the people also have economic and societal interests that we would like to promote alongside the purely economic interests of corporations.
For example, we love arts: music, movies, paintings, live performances. We want more of them, we want new ones and yes, we can pay. But we know that only true artists can deliver new works of art. So the money needs to go to them, not some greedy middlemen. We also want to have useful access to these works of art, without unworkable DRM schemes and territorial restrictions. Thank you for mentioning Apple in your article. They are the ones who killed DRM on digital music making it actually useful.
An example from Japan: a Japanese law prohibits replays of Anime series on TV. This amounts to artificially dialing the economic value of an anime after its first airtime to zero. Pretty extreme isn't it ? Yet, the Japanese have found it a useful incentive for the creation of new works. Now compare this to the author's life +70 years copyright in the USA ? It's a different option and yet, you will have a hard time labeling the Japanese as evil communists or dumb freetards.
So yes, I welcome this fresh look at IP law. I think it was badly needed. The way Orlowski likes to describe it, "more IP versus less IP" is a reduction that does not do it justice. The real issues at stake have to do with the dynamism of the arts and entertainment scene and, for patent law, with the dynamism of our industry. Those are important topics, well worth having a fresh look at. Let us think them through and implement an IP system that works for society as a whole and not copy the US and the dead-end their neo-conservative policies have brought them to.