It's a great step and an excellent example for the rest of the world, but for us, Brazilians, it will make little to no difference.

Absurds taxes and the cost of a proper lawyer make the legal way so expensive nobody follows it. You heard a nice song and want to use it on your TV commercial? Go ahead, nobody's looking.

It's not that we go out killing and stealing, we are just more "community driven." Lawsuits and other legal actions are so rare that they look an exclusivity between big businesses themselves, but unethical moves are frowned upon by everybody, which makes for a parallel law-enforcement.

And this law-enforcement is definitely not concerned about copyrights.

This sounds like a very healthy legal environment for innovation! Combine this with a good educational system (in at least one region or city) and a favorable tax structure, and Brazil will have the makings of an economic revolution.

The problem is the tax structure. The amount of taxes you have to pay to just start your business or, god forbid, hire someone, is just stupid.

And the fact that electronics arrive here with two, three times the actual price, doesn't help either.

One man who has fought long and well for this is the former Brazil Minister of Culture and Polar Prize winner Gilberto Gil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilberto_Gil). I think all western governments would benefit from having a guy like him. I also recommend anyone who is interested to listen to his music, there are some gems in his portfolio!

Minister Rastaman.

About time somebody recognized that all of us are "rights holders."

The problem is precisely that in most places, we are not all rights holders in respect of other people's work, even having paid for it. Contrary to the title of this discussion, there is no such thing in US law as "fair use rights", for example: fair use is an "affirmative defence", which legally speaking is not at all the same thing. And, for all the problems with its copyright law, the US approach to defining fair use is one of the more sensible and balanced ones in the western world, with many countries not nearly so open about what is allowed (hence increasing calls to change the law to be more realistic in the UK, for example).

So perhaps it would be clearer to say: it's about time someone made us all rights holders when we've paid good money for access to certain content.

The great thing is, Brasil does not exactly have a government that will cave to US or content company interests on this.

Wish our legislators would look at this as a good example to follow when revisiting our copyright laws, but not likely, buy them a $500 dinner and get a draconian bill passed, what a great investment.

In this specific regard, the future looks bright. If the current party's candidate wins, we can expect the same US-defying (not always rational) stand. If the leading opposition candidate wins, he was the health minister who went against Big Pharma's patents.

Serra's (the opposing candidate) stand on free software bothers me a bit, but we hope he can be properly educated.

I think that this a big step in the right direction. While I don't agree that DRM should exist in most cases, making sure that consumers who bypass DRM for legitimate reasons goes against the general way of thinking that the consumer is a thief (in a good way).

Plus, if there is a clear punishment for preventing consumers from using works under the fair use acts, there might be a good reason for companies to think twice about making their files ultra-super-mega-DRM'd.

Sounds like an excellent idea. In the UK the open rights group should be pushing for this sort of legislation, to replace the Digital Economy Act.

I wonder if someday the US will decide to be a leader in human rights and citizen's rights again?

There do seem to be more of those, but deserving posts usually have these reversed in a little while. At least, that is my experience. YMMV.

Yeah, they are. They way that happens shows that the core of this community is head and shoulders above the rest of the internet in maturity. I should stop complaining, I'm probably just not in a good mood.