Copyright Defeats? 285
Uruk asks: "Over the last few years, we've seen what looks like the victory of copyright and business interest at the expense of the consumer. There's been The DMCA, the UCITA, all of the legal wranging over DeCSS, and so on. Copyright holders can even shut your website down without doing the research about whether or not it was appropriate. Johansen did seem to be acquited of some of what was brought against him as a result of the DeCSS situation, but that was in Norway. Does anyone know of any copyright or consumer victories on the net in the last few years? Something that limits the abilities of these laws, or otherwise acts in the copyright spirit of free use? My hat is off to GNU and EFF, even Project Gutenberg. What is the status of this ongoing battle? I'm looking for the sunny side to a situation that seems littered with defeat."
There is no hope. (Score:3, Funny)
Expect to pay licensing fees when you make a baby or catch a cold.
Dastar vs. FOX (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eldred.cc/eablog/000074.html [eldred.cc]
e;Re:Dastar vs. FOX (Score:2)
So a little off-topic now but, when will we be able to see more derivative works a la this winner. It will be quite awhile before the copyright expires on GIJoe... but thats when my derivative work will come out under a much more open licensing scheme... and i'll sell the media not the content for a nice sum since it's soooo well produced
Re:Dastar vs. FOX (Score:2)
Re:Dastar vs. FOX (Score:5, Informative)
---
In 1975, Doubleday renewed the copyright on the book as the " 'proprietor of copyright in a work made for hire.' " App. to Pet for Cert. 9a. Fox, however, did not renew the copyright on the Crusade television series, which expired in 1977, leaving the television series in the public domain.
---
Here's a prime example of how the Eldred Act would in fact get works into the public domain quicker. There's clear past precedent to show that companies won't hassle with renewal of works they don't find to be attractive any longer.
e;
Re:Dastar vs. FOX (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Dastar vs. FOX (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04801.html
Link to Dastar opinion (Score:5, Informative)
As for how the footage came into the public domain, they never renewed the copyright, and it expired in 1977.
No one has really explained in detail what the case was about. Fox hired Time to produce a TV series based on a book. It was originally broadcast in 1949 and the copyright expired in 1977. Fox never bothered to renew the copyright. Dastar purchased copies of the original, public domain series, edited the footage, and sold it under their own name.
Fox complained, of course. They used the theory that, by selling the tapes and not revealing the original source of the footage, they were "reverse passing off" the footage as their own, a violation of the unfair trade practices act.
The court did not want to use trademark law to interfere with copyright law, and found for Dastar.
Re:Dastar vs. FOX (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think Fox really cared about the video. They really wanted to set a precedent to strengthen the commerce clause with respect to copyright. The Supreme Court ruled that if congress wants to expand the rights of authors, it must do so explicitly. The court can't simply take a law under the commerce clause and interpret it to grant new rights to artists.
Dastar is not in the clear yet. The video was based on a book. Doubleday claims to hold the copyright on the book. That's up for debate. If the copyright was a work-for-hire, as the author's tax-claims would indicate, then the copyright may not have been properly renewed. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the district court to determine if the book really is under copyright, and if so, whether or not the video infringes the copyright.
Also of interest, the EFF (along with the ALA, ACM, CCIA, and eight other organizations) filed an Amici Curiae brief [eff.org] in this case. They argued that this case was an attack on the court's rulings in Feist and Railway Labor.
In Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., the court found that a "sweat of the brow" doctrine was not a sufficient basis for copyright protection. Rural Telephone Service claimed a copyright on their phone book. The court ruled that facts were not subject to copyright.
In Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n v. Gibbons, the court ruled that Congress cannot avoid the particular requirements of one enumerated power by relying on another power; Congress cannot avoid the uniformity requirement of the Bankruptcy Clause by relying on the generality of the Commerce Clause.
Copyright holders have countered the Feist ruling using laws for breach of contract, trespass to chattels, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act [1]. The EFF argues that the court's ruling in Railway Labor prevents congress from using the commerce clause to lock up public domain material. The Supreme Court did not specifically address the EFF's arguments, but if they had ruled in Fox's favor, as the lower courts did, this case would have been used as precedent to lock up public domain material based on the commerce clause.
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[1] The EFF illustrated their argument with four court cases:
In all four cases, publishers were able to demand and enforce rights which congress could not constitutionally grant.
A key argument against the DMCA [eff.org] is that the intellectual rights did not permit congress to pass it. In Dastar v. Fox, Fox was trying to establish a Supreme Court precedent of using the commerce clause to grant powers that the copyright clause forbids. It's good to see the Supreme Court didn't fall for it.
Winner (Score:4, Funny)
Copyrighted name though, can't talk about it.
The real trademark law (Score:2, Informative)
Copyrighted name though, can't talk about it.
I recognize an attempt at a joke, but...
Names cannot be copyrighted, but they can be trademarked. Use of a trademark to identify a company or a product is considered fair as long as the use cannot cause confusion between one company's products and another company's products.
Sunny Side! (Score:5, Funny)
Victory is ours! muhahahaha
Re:Sunny Side! (Score:5, Funny)
~not the MPAA
Re:Sunny Side! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been said that the best way to get an unjust law struck down is to enforce it rigorously. This proved *very* true during the Prohibition era. It's proving true now, as well. The fact that the country and media intrests are trying to absolutely enforce copyright edicts means that more people will see them as evil, unecessary, and ridiculous. More people will break the law willfully and let their conscience guide them instead, for good or ill.
Napster, Morpheus, Gnutella, Kazaa, WASTE, IRC, Usenet and other P2P trading media are the logical outgrowth of this effect. They are the modernday equivalent to the 1920's 'Speakeasy' club. Everyone knows someone else who uses them, but nobody does it themselves... at least when anyone in authority is around. The fact that they can't be stomped out no matter what pressure the media industries apply is the greatest victory opponents to unfair copyright statutes can have.
finding-the-silver-lining-in-numerous-black-clouds (Score:2, Troll)
Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:3, Insightful)
Legal plagiarism? (Score:5, Insightful)
So then, this opens the debate: Is public plagiarism of public domain works a bad thing? If it could lead to new copyrights on old work, then it is definetly a bad thing for the public good... but if no evidence survived to show that the public domain work exists now in the public domain, is it not better that at least someone preserved the work, even if just to own it for life+x years? After all, the ownership of a work in the public domain cannot be defended in court, which makes the copyright directly on the work nearly useless.
There will likely be some interesting cases that come forth from this ruling, and what happens afterward.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Legal plagiarism? (Score:5, Interesting)
If "Happy Birthday To You" were in the public domain, then restaurants could have their staff sing it to you on their birthday without paying for it. That doesn't mean they are necessarily claiming credit for it.
As for Shakespeare, I'd be foolish to claim his work as my own. But since it's in the public domain, I'm free to put together a cast and perform it for the public without paying any royalties to his estate.
If Mickey Mouse is ever PD, then I'll be able to make my own T-shirts and keychains without having to pay Disney any royalties. But nobody will believe me when I say I created Mickey Mouse - and even if I did, he would already be in the PD and someone else can do what they want with him, regardless of my claim.
Re:Legal plagiarism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Legal plagiarism? (Score:5, Interesting)
The courts held that if there had been nothing added to the work, Dastar might not be able to claim it as their work--but since they had added nontrivial original material they were free to call it their own.
Similar to if you wrote an adaptation of Hamlet to the modern day, or wrote your own ending for the Mystery of Edwin Drood--add your own original material and you're free to claim it as yours.
That said, academia DEFINITELY has stronger protections on crediting sources than the law requires. That makes sense both from a standpoint of due credit (often a noncommercial researcher views credit as their primary payment for a job well done) and from an academic standpoint (interested readers can then go read the original sources and learn more about the subject or evaluation your interpretations of those sources).
Sumner
Re:Legal plagiarism? (Score:2)
Also, writing papers for English is supposed to teach you how to actually write, not ho
Re:Legal plagiarism? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's an academic setting, where instructors have every right to enforce plagiarism rules.
But by today's copyright standards, every single play Shakespeare (or de Vere, or Bacon, or whoever) ever wrote would be an infringing work (playz?). He ripped off, sometimes verbatim, every single author he could get his hands on. And he did it brilliantly, producing some of the best literature in human history.
So, yes, the public domain is completely open to "piracy", and this is a Good Thing.
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:5, Interesting)
Fox made the choice of not renewing the copyrights on their material in the 1960s, so their material lapsed into the public domain.
When they became aware of the new release of their shows, (which were edited severly and removed all traces of being published by Fox in the first place) they chose to file a trademark infringement suit.
What the justices provided as feedback is that material that is covered under copyright can not be further covered under trademark. 'All Things Considered' last night did a piece on this, and noted that what the justices are saying is that once the copyright expires on Steam Boat Willy, aka Mickey Mouse, Disney can not prevent people from using his image and original footage via Trademark law.
Personally I suspect this is a major part of why Disney is fighting continuously to extend copyrights. They are seriously afraid that they will be hurt by people who are fans of the original material re-using it to their own ends. While there are more than a few people who will make derogetory pieces, there will also be more than a few who will use the material as inspiration for new material that will reflect well upon Disney in general.
I have a suspicion however that as long as the Disney company, and the Disney family exist, they will fight to get extensions on copyright.
The primary claim behind getting extensions to copyright is that if I write the Worlds Greatest Novel, get it published tomorrow, then get hit by a bus next Monday, my kids and family should be provided for.
Ok, I buy that, however I really think that once my kids reach the age of maturity, they should make their own way in life. As a result, I think that copyrights should have a lifetime of 30 years, or the lifetime of the author plus 18 years 9 months. (Which ever comes first.)
Then again, that's just me. You probably have your own thoughts on the matter.
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:3, Insightful)
They can't prevent people from airing Steamboat Willy, but they surely can prevent people from selling Mickey Mouse
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, I buy that, however I really think that once my kids reach the age of maturity, they should make their own way in life. As a result, I think that copyrights should have a lifetime of 30 years, or the lifetime of the author plus 18 years 9 months. (Which ever comes first.)
Actually, that's a terrible motive for copyright extensions.
Because it ALMOST NEVER HELPS PEOPLE.
The vast majority of copyrighted works have no economic value on day one. Of those that are left, only a minute fraction have economic value after a few years.
Your widows and orphans will be amazingly fortunate to ever be supported off of your work, because most authors are not successful authors. In fact, hardly any authors are successful. Being a successful author is about as typical as winning the lottery.
Besides which, aren't you basically saying 'fuck you' to equally unfortunate widows and orphans that have no involvement with authors at all?
If you want to support widows and orphans, some sort of life insurance and social welfare system is going to be a ZILLION times more effective.
So I suggest you find a better rationale. The one you've latched upon is almost never accomplished, is terribly unfair, and causes serious harm to the public for no real benefit.
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:3, Insightful)
By your
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know. That's what I was talking about. And I'm saying that it will NOT WORK. The authors' family will NOT be supported in 99.44% of cases. So your proposal is already an abject failure. There's a reason why the 'starving artist' stereotype exists, you know. Most artists are not Picasso. Most artists will never make money from their art in any decent quantity. People who want to make money should be investment bankers. It's possible to do it by being an author, but it's far less likely.
But as for inheritance from their father/mother whatever, that should be purely based on what they did, and the rights to the proceeds from whatever work a parent did to support a child in life are sacrosanct, at least in my opinion.
I agree. The existing estate should go to the family. I'm not seeking to overturn estate or intestacy law.
BUT that doesn't mean the copyright should go on and on for ages.
Far better would be a fixed term of years. For example, the copyright would last 20 years from when the author first created the work. Whether they die the next day, or live for a hundred more years.
There would NOT be any extension in order to benefit his survivors. That would be an attempt to get NEW income; not to merely split up the EXISTING money.
If I wrote the World's Greatest Novel and died, I would want my orphans and family to be filthy theiving rich because I worked for it, damnit.
Good for you. I couldn't give a rat's ass what you want. It absolutely doesn't concern me.
And in fact, it is almost irrelevant in terms of copyright policy. Authors are NOT important. It seems weird, but that's the truth.
Copyright is intended to benefit the public. There are two types of public benefit possible: 1) the benefit of having works created, be they original or derivative; 2) the benefit of being able to do anything with those works, e.g. use them, copy them, distribute them, base new works upon them, not pay anything, etc.
The ideal copyright law is the one that satisfies both of those types of goals the most overall. There is a baseline that you can measure things against, and that is the state of the world with no copyright law. There, the 1st goal is partially satisfied, and the 2d goal is totally satisfied.
An ideal law then would have to satisfy the 1st goal more. And if the 2d goal couldn't be satisfied 100%, the drop in its satisfaction would have to be exceeded by a corresponding gain in the 1st goal.
As for public harm -- that's what happens when goals are not optimally met. Because the public is less well off than they ought to be. It is at its worst when the copyright law causes society to drop below the baseline; i.e. if everyone would be better off just abandoning copyright law altogether.
That's the basic policy.
It's very capitalistic, really, if that's important to you. Because it sort of boils down to having an author propose to each person in the country that that person should not copy the author's book. The people will say, "Why? It's in my best interests to copy that book and not pay you, because it's cheap for me." And authors HAVE to respond by saying that to not copy the book is in the people's best interests, since otherwise there wouldn't be a book. But it HAS to be framed in terms of self-interest. And you have to convince people!
Authors fit into this ONLY tangentally. No one really cares about authors. I used to make my living as an artist, and I don't care about artists. As you noted, people are self-interested! So authors can go fly a kite as far as everyone is concerned. What's important is the OUTPUT of the authors. Authors' WORKS satisfy the 1st goal. And since those works are available, the 2d goal is at least partially satisfied, and after a time tha
Re:Sure. As of yesterday even. (Score:5, Informative)
Streamcast/Grokster (Score:5, Informative)
Victories? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Victories? (Score:2)
Good point. I have to put in a plug for my favorite site [opensecrets.org]. Whenever our wonderful elected government makes a decision, it's interesting to check out what sorts of bribes made it happen.
For example, check out [opensecrets.org] what the fat cats in corporate media gave to our beloved government servants in Washington. Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry would be so proud!
hah (Score:2, Insightful)
you got money?
no money?
whats with all this social debate?
facts people - the haves have
have to circumvent
either that or kowtow.
US v. Elcomsoft (Score:5, Informative)
I thought this was pretty big!!
Re:US v. Elcomsoft (Score:3, Informative)
UCITA mostly stalled or stopped (Score:5, Informative)
Re:UCITA mostly stalled or stopped (Score:3, Informative)
Just like my garden, though, constant vigilance is required, or before we know it, the yard is full of drug dealers. (Um, was that a mixed metaphor??)
Well, what's good for the goose... (Score:5, Insightful)
But that'd be fighting abuse with abuse, and I'd never recommend doing that.
Re:Well, what's good for the goose... (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that the MPAA can get away with jerking you around that way is that you can't afford to hire a stable of lawyers to stand up for your rights.
They can.
It's an amusing idea, but if you were to make a frivolous complaint, I'm sure that they'd sue you for damages. We all know how good they are at making up numbers.
When they frivolously damage YOU, of course, you could retain a lawfirm to recover damages. Unfortunately, your actual, recoverable, cash damages will probably be less than the first hour of consultation with the mouthpiece. You probably will prevail. Unfortunately, it will probably cost you tens of thousands to get there. At best, you'll get your legal costs and your $1.98 in damages. At worst, you'll wind up paying their legal fees, and defending a countersuit.
Strangely enough, the MPAA doesn't seem worried about any harm they might do to you.
Re:Well, what's good for the goose... (Score:2)
The reason that the MPAA can get away with jerking you around that way is that you can't afford to hire a stable of lawyers to stand up for your rights.
They can.
...
Hmmm. One of the basic components of the notion of freedom is that someone can't come and abuse you, and get away with it. The U.S. is supposed to be built to accomodate this -- i.e. to make sure everyone's rights are respected, up to the point that those rights w
Re:Well, what's good for the goose... (Score:2)
Re:Well, what's good for the goose... (Score:2)
They are talking about pre-emptively removing web-site hosting without considering the individual cases or going to court. The law they are using has to do with referencing the 'good-will' behavior of the reporting party.
Consumer Victories... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheap, high speed cable access. Almost everyone has an email address these days, even my mum has two.
Even taking into account the enormous amount of crap out there, viruses, script-kiddies, etc, there is still an enormous amount of fantastic and free (as in beer and speech) software for the taking, useful information, online dictionaries - you can find something for almost every subject.
The dot com bubble spoiled (or educated depending on your view) people to expect things for free, but the biggest consumer victory is the wealth of information and content available to all who seek it.
Those who are old enough, try and remember the time before you had regular internet access.
Yes, people may be clamping down on copyrights, yes there are idiotic patents out there, and Microsoft is currently pouring money into nanotechnology in an attempt to turn humanity into a "perfect" society.
On balance the "good internet" outweighs the bad (at least for now). Having that resource available beats the shit out of being able to download the latest Britney Spears mp3. (as in fact would repeatedly punching yourself in the nuts, but you get the idea)
Re:Consumer Victories... (Score:2)
Most people do not have Internet access!
The earths population is now over 6 billion and in order for "most" to qualify in your statement, more than 3 billion people need to have internet access and that is not the case.
What "cheap, high speed cable access" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I do agree with you about the "good internet", and Britney Spears.
Cable modem cost (Score:2)
Victories won't come in court. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think, however, that the widespread belief among many of the information freedom activists and supporters that the courts would work things out (in the Eldred case, the DeCSS case, the Napster case, etc) should be noted as very strong evidence to the fundamental honesty of their position. It is so clear and obvious to us that laws forbidding us from manipulating our own computers and lawsuits against networks for not controlling those that use them are an insanity and step all over our fundamental freedoms that the otherwise naive belief that the courts would side with us seemed not only logical but necessary.
So is not the case. The unconnected man, the information horder, and those who view computers with suspicion and fear simply do not see the same thing as we do when they look at these things. Fundamental shifts will occur when one group grows at the expense of the other, not sooner.
Re:Victories won't come in court. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can hardly agree more! The courts are rightfully reluctant to make law, and their undemocratic nature should make everybody very nervous should the Supreme Court decide it's in the lawmaking business. Instead, they are primarily interested in whether laws are contradictory, and in particular whether a specific law contradicts the Constitution. The Eldred case shows, on the positive side,
Starbucks (Score:2, Offtopic)
Also check out IPJustice.org (Score:5, Informative)
I like those principles, except (Score:5, Interesting)
Creators deserve to be compensated.
I just dug a very deep hole, and filled it in again, neatly. I worked very hard. I deserve to be compensated.
As an absolute principle, ``Creators deserve to be compensated.'' is flawed. The rule is ``Arbeit macht mudes'', not ``Abeit macht Geld''.
Re:I like those principles, except (Score:2, Informative)
I actually just posted the bullet-headlines of the principles. The full second principle (available here [ipjustice.org]) includes "We will compensate artists who entertain and enlighten us with their art..."
Hopefully that helps.
Re:I like those principles, except (Score:2)
I set my "pet monkey" loose on my computer last night and now the keyboard is all sticky.
-
Re:I like those principles, except (Score:2)
Re:I like those principles, except (Score:2)
Your assertions bring to mind a very old engineering principle (I forgot who came up with it, I dimly recall a sixteenth century Dutchman), that no work has been performed by a process if the starting point and ending point of all of the pieces involved is the same. Therefore, though you may have expended considerable effort with your hole digging and filling, you have unfortunately done no wor
Project Gutenberg (Score:3, Offtopic)
Slashdot humor is more often more similar to humor of days past: word play, teasing, rabid character assassinations. Many of these classics are authored with the intent of communicating new found theory and thought- things that we'd like to think are right up our way.
Beyond the intrinsic value of this sizable collection, reading texts that are in the public domain, thereby avoiding those that are not, is a most Excellent ***FINGER*** for the dip-shits who would deny us OUR rights to information that our ancestors would have rather have published for all.
Progress requires that we build on prior works. If reading old literature helps get the message across that we've enough with excessive copyright...
Dr. Bernstein's cryptography lawsuit vs US Gov. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eff.org/bernstein/ [eff.org]
http://cr.yp.to/export.html [cr.yp.to]
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-225508.html?legacy=c net [com.com]
In a 2-to-1 vote, a federal panel affirmed U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel's 1997 landmark ruling in Daniel Bernstein vs. the Justice Department. That decision states that software source code is a language, and therefore the export controls violate the University of Illinois math professor's First Amendment right.SARS patent (Score:4, Interesting)
Battles have been won (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember, with respect to any specific law, the bad guys only have to win once. Their resources are effectively unlimited and they can try again and again and again until an obscure amendment to a law nobody ever heard of or a "must pass" appropriations bill gets added and suddenly. . . it's a bad law.
The best EFF and the rest of the alphabet soup geektivist civil liberties groups can do is fight a holding action.
The reason is that by definition, a non-profit organization can't contribute a single dollar to a political campaign.
We can't beat the bad guys in the long run, without at minimum, having our own top-bracket lobbyists working congressionsal offices, matching them dollar for dollar, having full-time legislative analysts checking EVERY bill and relevant agency regulation for booby-traps, and full-time staff answering phones and opening mail (like the snailmail with our $5 and $20 and $100 contributions) and e-mail and running mailing lists to let us know when it's time to send a message through Congress via their fax gateway.
In other words, we need our own PAC with enough startup budget to set up the infrastructure and do the election commission filings (e.g. FEC) required to legally collect and spend money in DC and each of the 50 states.
This hasn't happened and won't happen. Nobody with the startup money will put it into any "geektivism" organization that isn't tax-deductible, it isn't enough to feel good, the people who can write $1M checks demand tax-writeoffs as well.
If somebody was willing to do the right thing today, it is probably (perhaps the problem can be fixed by throwing a shitload of money at it) too late for a NRA/AARP style PAC to go into business in time to intervene in the 2003-2004 election cycle.
The other option: our high-tech vendors stop doing the "deer in the headlights" thing, stop being hypnotized with the promise of endless profits out of the catalogues of the major content owner members of *AA (MPAA/RIAA) organizations if they only make unbeatable DRM. The promise is bullshit anyway, it depends on fiber bandwidths to every home anyway.
By the time 10Mbps to every US home happens, the vendors will have had to move their R&D and production operations to free countries anyway.
The war is for all practical purposes over in the USA.
The place to make a stand? Probably the EU.
Most countries have publically funded election campaigns, meaning Hollywood can't legally buy politicians and anti-American sentiment is growing. So if you're in the EU and you aren't part of a high-tech political activist group, join one. If you can't find one in your nation, start one. Find people who already know the political game and learn how to play to win.
If the EU doesn't get it, the center of technology development not only moves out of the USA, but out of the Western world to places Hollywood can't buy off. India and China, for instance.
The Chinese are already planning for a future in which the rest of the world buys its tech from them. They are already working on plans for a permanent manned moon base. They are already designing and fabricating their own CPUs.
Re:Battles have been won (Score:2)
You don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
Politicians generally vote in accordance to what the public supports.
THE VOTES ARE COUNTED IN DOLLARS.
From Open Secrets [opensecrets.org]
2 TV/Movies/Music $330,317
That gives Hollings 330,317 reasons to introduce and work for any bills the record / movie industries want.
Here are the number of reasons the EFF, VTW, CDT, Public Knowledg
Re:Battles have been won (Score:2)
Yes, a period of nastiness is probably inevitable; some would argue we're already in it. But that's not a call to fold up and declare permanent, everlasting defeat, forever and ever amen, but to keep fighting until we roll back the bad stuff.
In fact personally I think that while "we" are right, it will not penetrate into the general public's awareness until they start to experience it first hand. Fact is, the ave
it's about political money. . . (Score:2)
Sure people are going to be pissed off and eventually, they might even get around to writing their Congresscritters about it. By the time this can be translated into any kind of action, what do you think is going to be left of high-tech in the USA?
High-tech vendors? They'll simply move whatever R&D that's left in the USA to I
Winds of change (Score:5, Insightful)
The victories are everywhere, but no matter how good it gets most folks seem to be focused on what they want. Well, if you know how to get everything you want, right now in real life then do clue us in so we can get on with the rest of it. In the meantime we've got to look at what we got and where we got it.
Example: my father is in his 80's; my 20+ aunts and uncles are nearly all dead. And all through those Nixon years and the Carter years and even the Reagan years I remember many an afternoon having to listen to them sit around and bitch about corrupt politicians and (get ready) an out of control press that had way too much freedom and power. Two decades later and this nation of sheeple elects a candidate who told us during his campaign he thought "maybe we have too much freedom."
This is the generation that forged the corporate nonsense we are living with now; this is the generation that put most of these corrupt fuckers in office, that passed most of these corrupt laws. And yet, in spite of their best efforts we now have a nearly unlimited, worldwide press, the ability to exchange copyrighted media and culture in the blink of an eye, and (believe it or not) more voice than ever - but we need to learn to use it on real shit instead of squandering it on essentially meaningless yellow press nonsense like "who gave the president a blowjob." Trent Lott was a good example of a move in the right direction - and I don't know how many of you noticed, but even CBS (er, viacom) and ABC (I mean Disney) were, in the end, forced to give some face time to chairman Mike's idiocy.
Most of these laws you all wring your hands over have become essentially meaningless for private individuals (and especially for indivduals who have an iota of technical knowledge). The victories are all around us, every day.
And speaking of which: I gotta run now; Dog Eat Dog is on...
That reminds me of a saying... (Score:3, Funny)
"The children of today are lazy, without respect and lacking god."
Sounds pretty common right? This was a rough translation of a tablet from Mesopotamia dated to around 2200 BC. Over 4000 years and ain't a damn thing changed.
Re:That reminds me of a saying... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Winds of change (Score:3, Funny)
Ha! Technical advances, my foot -- where's your TiVo, man?
(or other equivalent PVR) :)
You are not alone - mirrored attempts from Asia (Score:2, Informative)
The sunny side (Score:2)
The goods news is that most people do not agree with copywrong and the nonsensical notion of``intellectual property''.
You just can't enforce a law that honest people reject (not without a oppresive regime), and indeed it's very dangerous for governments to even try, because if you have to break the law to do what you think is right, then the Law as a whole is debased.
Re:The sunny side (Score:2)
The good news is that most people think that Slashdot user "gacp" has no idea what he's talking about.
See how easy it is to make unfounded, sweeping generalizations without bothering to provide any support for your claims? I would be surprised if most people had more than the slightest clue what copyright law means, let alone knew enough about it to form any kind of opinion about it.
Imagine a wor
You probably know about the Google censorship (Score:5, Informative)
creative commons (Score:5, Informative)
Also check out Lawrence Lessig's weblog [stanford.edu] for up-to-the-minute happenings in the good fight. (and for the extremely lazy, here's his RDF feed [stanford.edu].
And ( if that weren't links enough) you should go and sign the petition to Reclaim the Public Domain [eldred.cc].
yrs trly, linky karma whore
Modchipping legal Down Under (Score:5, Informative)
Some quick googling turned up this link [xenoclast.org] which pretty much explains the situation.
The DMCA can't touch us if we all live Down Under.
For a little while. Until we join the Coalition of the Willing-To-Suppress-Basic-Freedoms.
technology and human nature (Score:5, Interesting)
And so forth, to where we are now
Putting restrictions on the sharing of ideas slows down human progress. It is an artificiality that was introduced in the feudal period of human development and society, it was designed to seperate the "classes" to restrict knowledge and enjoyment and ideas in general from "the royals" and "the commoners". Among all things, the "royals" were known for greed and exploitation. That "owning" the ideas let them enjoy that power, to maintain it, but it stagnated our humaness, and created more problems than it solved. It was...wrong. it was an extension of gluttony and greed. It was abnormal before that time. It's a relatively short time period in our human history that "owning" an idea has been considered normal. We have a term for that part of our history, it was the "dark ages", aptly named.
That concept and society, that aspect of feudalism, was and is a flawed civilization. We can recognize that that fork of humaness had serious flaws by merely looking at the historical record. We should strive to get beyond that, we should go back to our roots as humans who cooperated, voluntarily, for everyones mutual benefit, by sharing ideas, and not by force, but just because it's right, and it works better, the idea of sharing ideas IS the better idea, because it has empirical proof that it worked when we did it.. who really wants a return to feudalism? then why should we strive to one of the more heinous aspects of the feudal gestalt? It is illogical.
Our technology is such now, in extremely recent times, that copies of ideas are practically free,effortless, and the sharing far and wide just as easy. It is THE closest thing to a "replicator" we have. This is an amazing time. Would anyone really complain about a material object replicator? I doubt it, if everyone got to use one. It would be so fantastic the inventor would be feted across the planet. So, this complaining by the royal feudal idea owners about our only true replicator is a demand to stay stuck in that sort of archaic feudalism, the dark ages, the age of incredible greed, and incredible want.. That's all it is once you strip away the rhetoric.
Yes, it will cause some adjustment in our world, so have all other advances with technology. This time you would think we might be smart enough to not look this incredible gift horse in the mouth, to take this "idea replicator" and run with it, see where this renaissance of sharing of ideas can take us. Hopefully we can, if we are as smart and as advanced and as civilised as we insist we are.
Re:technology and human nature (Score:3, Interesting)
Right. So what's wrong with capitalism? The only problem with the capitalism we have across most of the world now i
Re:technology and human nature (Score:2, Insightful)
*Forcing* an idea to be a widget is the feudal model, it is neither capitalistic nor socialistic, except by the *forcing* of it, as it is not a natural widget in nature.
Once you go down the path of make believe that an idea is a tangible, as you can see right this second, then the complexities and exceptions and the entire artificality o
Please also consider signing... (Score:2)
Sign the petition now! (Score:2, Funny)
Mildly OT - the Public Domain is Languishing (Score:5, Informative)
And, to beat the reply posts:
Re:Mildly OT - the Public Domain is Languishing (Score:2, Informative)
Speaking of copyright defeats... (Score:3, Funny)
"For all the people impacted by San Quentin your spirit will forever be a part of Metalllica.
-James, Lars, Kirk and Robert"
I wonder if any of the San Quentin inmates are in there for pirating Metallica off Napster?
Copyright violators are, after all, "Dangerous Criminals".
EU Software patents (slightly OT) (Score:3, Informative)
You still have time to write your MEP!
More information [ffii.org]
You guys still have a chance (Score:2)
This limits the interest your politicians can have in what the Hollywood lobbyists have to say to them.
Any EU country that refuses to accept the EU Copyright Directive and related regulation / legislation has an automatic competitive advantage in the area of technology over one whose laws are paid for by movie/music indus
Thge very next /. story... (Score:2, Informative)
Bridgeman vs. Corel - a major victory (Score:5, Interesting)
The court held that photographing a 2D public domain image does not create a new copyright. It lacks sufficient originality. This follows the well-known Feist vs. Rural Telephone [cornell.edu], which established that mere lists, like phone directories, are not original works. (As the Supreme Court wrote, "The threshold for originality in copyright law is low, but it exists.")
As a result, you can now put clip art of out-of-copyright material on your web site.
Corbis is trying to get around this. They add watermarking data to an image and then copyright the watermarking data. They then claim that the DMCA prohibits the removal of the watermarking data, even though the underlying image is not copyrighted. This needs to be litigated.
About the DeCSS case (Score:3, Informative)
Just so that is clear, the DeCSS case is not over, the next round of trial starts in December last I read, and I'd be surprised if it doesn't get appealed to the Supreme court (unless you know, both sides may appeal in Norway).
Personally, I think it's pathetic, both the duration of the investigation as well as the ridiculous statements made by the prosecution. Judging from the first court ruling, I'd call it being shot down in flames and die. Then again, never underestimate a Phoenix, so time will tell...
Kjella
SCO SCO SCO (Score:2)
Slightly OT, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
My ''Embed'' program is still up (Score:3, Informative)
Almost a year ago lawyers from Agfa Monotype threatened me with the DMCA about a program I wrote that changes the embedding permissions on fonts. (slashdot article [slashdot.org]) I presented my defense [cmu.edu] via e-mail, they got a lot of bad press, and eventually they gave up (?). The program is still up today [cmu.edu]. Hopefully other developers who receive cease-and-desist letters will recognize that it is not always costly to fight them...
Re:Another news: US 'abused rights post-9/11' (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Another news: US 'abused rights post-9/11' (Score:2)
It was covered on NPR [npr.org] yesterday and was front page news on most newspapers (Time [time.com], NY Times [nytimes.com]) today. How you missed it, I don't know. I will agree that CNN is pathetic though...
Re:Another news: US 'abused rights post-9/11' (Score:2)
Re:Another news: US 'abused rights post-9/11' (Score:2)
The one thing that I think is being missed here is that these people were held without charges and until the FBI was satisfied that they were inocent, rather than being presumed inoc
Re:Here's your answer ... (Score:2, Insightful)
This may be a legal situation where an imbalance of reportage is regrettably built in.
If a copyright owner takes action and sees it through, there is an actual legal result that can easily get reported. But if a consumer resists an unjustified threat then the case may be dropped before anything appreciable has happened in legal terms and the position can easily go without report.
Maybe if there is some way to collect an informal archive
ChillingEffects.org (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe if there is some way to collect an informal archive about unjustified attempts to claim enforcement of copyrights
Would that be the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse [chillingeffects.org]?
Re:Corporate influence (Score:3, Funny)
You're being unamerican. The FCC says that media consolidation is a Good Thing. Among other things, it'll guarantee that when the millions of tons of WMD are found in Iraq, there won't be any stray reporters looking behind the curtain. That would be dangerous for them; WMD can be dangerous to the untrained.
Re:land of the free... (Score:2, Funny)
#include
struct IntellectualMaterial
{
bool canBeCopied;
double copyrightRunOut;
};
class DecentDemocracy
{
virtual void SensibleCopyRight(IntellectualMaterial IP)= 0;
};
class USDemocracy : public DecentDemocracy
{
void DMCA(IntellectualMaterial IP)
{
IP.canBeCopied =false;
}
void UnendingCopyRight(IntellectualMaterial IP)
{
IP.copyrightRunOut = atof("+INF");
}
};
USDemocracy USD;
Re:land of the free... (Score:3, Funny)
# g++ a.cc
a.cc:9: warning: all member functions in class `DecentDemocracy' are private
a.cc:25: cannot declare variable `USD' to be of type `USDemocracy'
a.cc:25: because the following virtual functions are abstract:
a.cc:10: virtual void DecentDemocracy::SensibleCopyRight(IntellectualMa
you have nothing to say worth reusing (Score:2)
So what's your interest in copyright protection?
Perpetual monopolies (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you agreeing with perpetual copyrights and patents? What if, every time you drove or rode the bus to work, you had to pay royalties to the descendants of the caveman who invented the wheel?