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Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

blog.wikimedia.org

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Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#51

Post by scotty79 »

azernik wrote: post #47
scotty79 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians don't get educated. They get bought. Do you have as much money as copyright industry? No? Then, no, you can't have your sensible laws. You'll have theirs. The only action you can take is to ignore those unenforcible.

Or, they get threatened with loss of their seats. Which is accomplished by educating the population. It's a lot more gratifying to live in this conspiratorial world where a romanticized resistance against our corporate overlords is the only way, but it's not a useful mental model for actually succeeding at anything.

> Or, they get threatened with loss of their seats.

They get seats by spending money on campaigns. Public is easily manipulated by political marketing. The only thing that could put them out of there seats would be more money spent for a smear campaign against them.

> It's a lot more gratifying to live in this conspiratorial world where a romanticized resistance against our corporate overlords is the only way, but it's not a useful mental model for actually succeeding at anything.

As opposed to romanticized world where money (got from industry) put into political marketing has no effect on votes and you achieve political goals by educating voters (at no cost other than your sincere effort)?

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#52

Post by scotty79 »

Buttons840 wrote: post #44
scotty79 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians don't get educated. They get bought. Do you have as much money as copyright industry? No? Then, no, you can't have your sensible laws. You'll have theirs. The only action you can take is to ignore those unenforcible.

Seems like this is the real problem we should use technology to solve. How can we make it more expensive to buy politicians?

You could make politicians ban lobbying and private funding of political campaigns!

Oh, wait...

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#53

Post by deciplex »

tluyben2 wrote: post #34
deciplex wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that education, or the lack thereof, of politicians anywhere is the reason for absurd copyright law across the entire globe, you really aren't paying attention. There is no argument clever enough or convincing enough to overpower the flood of money and bullshit that keeps copyright law the way it is. You may as well argue against the law of gravity. The only solution is to deprive the bad actors of the f…

The average person cannot comprehend the effects of what they do unless it is directly fed back and even then. Thinking macro is hard for the smartest 0.01%: the average Pam and Jim will not understand what happens when the game plays out. Some politicians are above that, most are not. Sounds elitist and maybe it is however I am not saying I am better than that I am saying politicians should be. If they are not and t…

In fact, if piracy really had the deleterious effects on culture and artistic expression that copyright advocates always claim it does, I suspect you'd see much more of a social taboo against piracy than exists now. I'm not one to usually rush to the defense of people reasoning with "their gut" but, in this case, I think most people know that the copyright regime is bullshit, and they act accordingly, even if they haven't given it as much thought as the average HN reader.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#55

Post by lbarrett »

chris_wot wrote: post #39
Nutmog wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, her heirs are the ones milking the system. They own the copyright and could put it in the public domain if they wanted. They've formed a foundation who's job is to monetize her works.

I'm as appalled as the next man by this ridiculous copyright situation, but they could also be trying to ensure that nobody can modify the work in a way that would be disrespectful to the memory of Anne Frank. That's a real concern, given that there are a lot of Neo-Nazis in the world.

But satire is covered by fair use, right? So I think the neo-Nazis aren't hampered by the copyright.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#56

Post by oconnor663 »

Houshalter wrote: post #49

Please read this: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 And also look at the graphic on this page: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-mi... Copyright serves a legitimate purpose. I doubt there would be many big budget games or movies produced without some degree of protection. The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce creative works. But it also needs…

> I doubt there would be many big budget games or movies produced without some degree of protection.

I get where you're coming from, but I worry there's a ton of status quo bias in that doubt. Of all the bajillion ways to incentivize creativity, either with or without laws, how sure can we be that this is the best one?

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#57

Post by brooklyndude »

joesmo wrote: post #12
magicfractal wrote: post #6

That's barbaric. That's why civil disobedience is the only adequate answer to the current overreach of copyright in the united states. It's up to us, technologists, to create and disseminate tools to help out in the dismantlement of an absurd system that is obsolete in the digital age.

I agree. Civil disobedience is the only solution to such anti-intellectual crusades of greed. The only problem is that people that work on such tools will be persecuted (and prosecuted) even if those tools are completely legal (see the pirate bay, popcorn time, and anything related to bittorent). Still, better to risk trying than to bow down to greed.

Civil disobedience was a lot harder to do in 1776 then 2016. Marching in the street will probably have you bio-scanned, in a database, linked to your Metro Card.

So Plan B?

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#58

Post by kijin »

Houshalter wrote: post #49

Please read this: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 And also look at the graphic on this page: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-mi... Copyright serves a legitimate purpose. I doubt there would be many big budget games or movies produced without some degree of protection. The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce creative works. But it also needs…

It doesn't even have to be a strict cutoff. The first 10 years might be free and automatic, but the Copyright Office could charge exponentially increasing fees for renewals afterward.

For example, $1K for the next 10 years, then $10K, then $100K... This means that only works that remain truly profitable in the long term will stay copyrighted. If Disney wants to pay $10B to keep Mickey Mouse copyrighted, they are welcome to do so. The extension fees could be put to good use improving the nation's public schools and libraries.

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