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Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

blog.wikimedia.org

61–70 of 203 posts

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

#61

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It's up to us, technologists, to create and disseminate tools to help out in the dismantlement of an absurd system that is obsolete in the digital age.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. Copyright is irreversibly wedged. The only workable course is to ignore it. As most people do, in practice, when they can get away with it. So the job for technologists is to make that easier.

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

#62
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's kind of the point of civil disobedience. You acknowledge that the penalty is worth standing up for your cause.

No, I'm building legal software, not practicing civil disobedience. What others do with it shouldn't affect my freedom or life negatively. But it will.

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

#63

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?

It is fairly self-evident that we can't get purely self-interested and sufficiently coordinated with anyone who could displace them from their positions (in the sense that they value keeping their own bribes over denying their opponents bribes) politicians to support any measure that would actually make them no longer receive bribes.

If one of the two assumptions above fails: assuming we can legally define what exactly constitutes a bribe (and I imagine this is not a solved problem), it probably would be possible to pass a law that says that if you can prove as a politican that you were offered or given a bribe (for a sum n), the bribe-offering party gets fined (say) 100n (aiming for their economic destruction), of which 5n is given to you (thus incentivising you to report bribes) and some token amount is given to everyone else serving in the same elected body as you (to incentivise everyone to vote for the law).

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

#64
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to make sure, do you always vote for parties that are opposed to long copyright terms? If you were eligible to vote and didn't do this, then you have yourself to blame. Politicians are ultimately accountable to their voters and whatever laws you don't like are probably in place because most people either do like them or don't bother to check what they're voting for.

In the US, the jurisdiction in the article, which party is that?

If you can't find one with a specific policy on that issue, then aren't there any parties aiming to reform the 2-party bias of the electoral system so that minority voices can be heard at all?

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

#65

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?

If we could reliably track politicians' money flows, their opinions, their comments and their actual actions in a system that's easily queriable, it might just be easy enough for the common people to be more aware of their rulers.

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

#66

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.

The clearest call for copyright civil disobedience:

http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/12/07/make-art-not-law-2/

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

#67
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to make sure, do you always vote for parties that are opposed to long copyright terms? If you were eligible to vote and didn't do this, then you have yourself to blame. Politicians are ultimately accountable to their voters and whatever laws you don't like are probably in place because most people either do like them or don't bother to check what they're voting for.

It's silly to claim you're not allowed to disagree with something unless you consider it the decisive factor when determining who to vote for.

Then, the only sensible conclusion would be that for s true democracy to exist we need to be able to vote for points-of-view rather than some persons.

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

#68
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.

I doubt neo-nazis care about the copyright of a book written by "a dirty Jew."

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

#69
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Educate politicians" Nonsense. Politicians already settled their mind a long time ago, it was when they were in college or before that, now its way too late. You don't believe me? Try to convince creationist politicians about evolution, and it doesn't matter how many proofs you show them, the complete fossil record, they are not going to get educated, you can prove them evolution is not against their beliefs but it…

The evidence behind evolution is orders of magnitude more convincing than anything anyone could ever come up with for copyright law. Clearly we need something other than evidence, because if science doesn't work on politics, technology doesn't stand a chance.

Well said. Democracy in America is battle of egos, not of ideas.

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

#70

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.

Sometimes a demonstrative, grotesque civil obedience is even better.
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