Portugal’s Socialist Party have vowed to table a new copyright law that is apparently designed to make Creative Commons licenses illegal. It’s being lobbied for by the Portuguese Society of Artists, who are said to support authors’ rights unless they choose to exercise those rights by using CC licenses. It’s not clear whether the bill inadvertently or deliberately sabotages CC licenses, but as drafted, it’s certainly bad news for any creator in Portugal who wants to allow her works to be shared.
Article 3, point 1 – The authors have the right to the perception of a compensation equitable for the reproduction of written works, in paper or similar support, for instance microfilm, photocopy, digitalization or other processes of similar nature.
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Article 5 (Inalienability and non-renunciability) – The equitable compensation of authors, artists, interpreters or executives is inalienable and non-renunciable, being null any other contractual clause in contrary.
Here: in sum, every author (except software authors, so thankfully free software isn’t affected) has the right of getting money out of private copy, and they can’t renounce it, so every Creative Commons license, where saying “You are free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work” (or actually, in legalese, “licensor hereby grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to reproduce the Work”) is illegal.
open…: Portugal to Make CC Licences Illegal?