Doctorow On Copyright Reform & Culture 243
super-papa sends us to Locus Magazine for an article by Cory Doctorow discussing the conflicts between copyright law and modern culture, and arguing against the perception that copying media is still unusual. Quoting:
"Copyright law valorizes copying as a rare and noteworthy event. On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant. Clip a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you're not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you've violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarified activity, it assesses penalties that run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each act of infringement. There's a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture."
Re:Tell us something we don't know (Score:5, Funny)
Post the story here [change.gov]
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Richard Stallman announces he would prefer that firms release all their code under the GPL or one of its variants.
Best. Analogy. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
To pretend that you do not copy is to adopt the twisted hypocrisy of the Victorians who swore that they never, ever masturbated.
He's earned that cape.
Re:Oh? Could I post this then? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:BRAVO! (Score:4, Funny)
Bacteria in the body produce a minute amount of alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract. [maui.net]. The closest thing to downloading a torrent would be the filling in my tooth demodulating a local AM radio station. Win-win.
Re:Copyrights are immoral (Score:2, Funny)
"Copyright exists to promote sharing, not creation."
copyright exists to prop up an unsustainable way of living, that is far from ideal. In a sustainable system, the tree of knowledge grows and teaches you simply by settling in for a nap underneath the tree. the tree of immortality, now that is a different question. immortality leads to a race of extremely bored and listless beings who even have given up on reproducing.
while knowledge is meant to be shared, immortality is an atrocious bug.
original sin was when knowledge was tapped to find how to greatly slow aging, to such a point that effectively some sentient beings could become completely bored with life and be willing to die every day, in every way. and there are abusers of the system, and then there are those who would like to never see any creature die, vs those who believe it is up to some branch of society to say 'this person will die'. the advantage of having a functional death process is that we wouldn't all need vastly limitless data storage, and processing power to make all the sock puppets dancing to the tune of 'the price is right'
i am ahead of my time when it comes to knowledge, i need no barriers to my vision, although i do need barriers in my mind. if your bible says something different, maybe you picked a different story, after all the freedom of choice is all about understanding that knowledge is the great arc of a rainbow across the sky.
anyways, peace and love, what the future needs isn't war, not even by proxy, nor does it need science, science is what the great thinking machines in the sky store a record of. those machines protect life and promote it, and focus on making worlds healthy. not on drop shipping in 40,000 gas guzzling cars. unless the system really needs them.
this song sums it up best. http://www.lyrics007.com/Counting%20Crows%20Lyrics/They%20Paved%20Paradise%20Lyrics.html [lyrics007.com]
anyways. i guess my whole point was I HATE SAURKRAUT