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Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

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Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#111

Post by segfaultbuserr »

ineedasername wrote: post #91

Laws, and their official (albeit non-binding) interpretations should not be under copyright. This has struck me as an absurd assertion from the very beginning: We're supposed to live in a nation of laws: how could that ever be the case if the laws themselves are kept from the people?

Another related issue is the copyright of technical standards incorporated into law. A selection of technical standards, especially in the domain of civil engineering, the standards on fire, electrical safety, energy efficiency, and test design standards, are effectively laws. The implementation of standards is explicitly required by the laws and there's no alternative. Yet, these standards are often sold for-profit with copyright restriction.

The EFF has some coverage on the issue [0][1].

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/eff-court-dont-let-pri...

[1] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/publicresourceorg-prevail...

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#112

Post by Retric »

SeanLuke wrote: post #77
gdhbcc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that copyright is the only way to make money out of writing, which is simply untrue.

Okay. So using the J.K. Rowling example: provide a plausible way that she could make money off of her writing, and particularly her first risky book, in the absence of copyright.

Her first book was also written without her receiving any money to do so.

As to revenue Patrons, Trademark, etc also work. Shakespeare for example had zero copyright protection and still wrote quite a bit.

PS: If anything the massive sums she received from the HP series discouraged her to write more.

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#113

Post by markdown »

stx wrote: post #80
henryfjordan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP laws are anti-competitive and rent-seeking, that's exactly the point. I agree that the amount of time copyrights are good for is ridiculous, but I still think it's better than not having them. Imagine if J.K.Rowling wrote the first 3 Harry Potter books but didn't see a dime because the second they got popular everyone with a printing press started selling them royalty-free. Would she have finished the series? I go…

The first Harry Potter book was released in 1997 and the first movie was 2001. So to satisfy that the author be compensated would not require 70 years after her death. I think most of us agree that copyright has value but its become excessive.

IMO 30 years or the death of the author, whichever occurs sooner, is long enough for the author to benefit from their work.

There really isn't any difference in terms of incentive for the author between 30 years and the current life of the author + 70 years (or whatever the current term is).

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#115

Post by huffmsa »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #66
huffmsa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you follow the procedure outlined in article 5 to amend the Constitution.

That is much easier said than done. It’s 2020 and we still don’t have a gender equality amendment even though the majority of states want one. ...let alone amendments for healthcare as a right, abortion rights, and proportional representation.

It's supposed to be hard. That's the point. You have to get an absolutely overwhelming majority before you can change a the source code.

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#116

Post by airstrike »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #104
supernova87a wrote: post #47

Aside from the particulars of this case, I feel that the whole subject of copyright is generally anti-competitive and rent-seeking, as codified in the laws and time limits being inflated grossly to suit copyright holders in the current era. In my opinion, the argument that copyright extension incentivizes authors/creators doesn't hold much water. I generally observe that there are plenty of people willing to create a…

An author's children shouldn't get jack unless the author saved royalties for them.

> An author's children shouldn't get jack unless the author saved royalties for them.

This is such an obvious notion and it's not discussed nearly as often as it should.

It's not like my employer will be sending my last paycheck to my children 70 years after my death...

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#117

Post by SeanLuke »

Retric wrote: post #112
SeanLuke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So using the J.K. Rowling example: provide a plausible way that she could make money off of her writing, and particularly her first risky book, in the absence of copyright.

Her first book was also written without her receiving any money to do so. As to revenue Patrons, Trademark, etc also work. Shakespeare for example had zero copyright protection and still wrote quite a bit. PS: If anything the massive sums she received from the HP series discouraged her to write more.

> Her first book was also written without her receiving any money to do so.

But she owned the copyright to it, and could trade that copyright for a contract on the book. That is, she had a viable monetization mechanism if her work was good.

So once again: absent this, provide a plausible way Rowling could have made money on her first book.

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#118

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #105
SeanLuke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So using the J.K. Rowling example: provide a plausible way that she could make money off of her writing, and particularly her first risky book, in the absence of copyright.

Hosting workshops, personal appearances, giving lectures, being paid to write more material.

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#119

Post by bgorman »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #81
bgorman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual property is the probably the number one way the western world oppresses the poor.

Your own post is "intellectual property." Can you be a bit more specific?

Sure.

Most of the world does not live in western countries (As a simplification think Europe, Australia, US, Canada etc).

In general, most of the world's valuable intellectual property has originated from Western countries.

What intellectual property law does is provide a monopoly on selling/producing something to a company or individual. The thing that is interesting about intellectual property is that it is not tangible. If someone is assaulted, or their physical car is stolen- the damage is very real and tangible.

However with intellectual property we have a worldwide system where copying intellectual ideas is equated to the same thing as physically stealing.

For example, imagine I setup a factory that outputs clones of the "Land Rover Range Rover" in East Timor. I may be allowed to sell the vehicle domestically, but exports of the vehicle to "advanced economies" will undoubtably blocked due to IP infringement.

This is a highly questionable practice for a few reasons.

1. Worldwide consumers would benefit for lower prices on Range Rovers 2. The production of Range Rovers in my knock off factory does not prohibit Land Rover from producing their vehicles 3. The special interest groups who benefit from the Range Rover monopoly are much wealthier than the rest of the world, and the monopoly only serves to reinforce that.

Intellectual property is fundamentally a way for the wealthy (people who can afford lawyers) to prevent potential competitors from implementing ideas.

There is no monopoly on differentiating mathematical functions, or calculating the current in an electric circuit. Yet somehow there are laws prohibiting copying designs for integrated circuits. It is all nonsense and the only winners are IP holders and lawyers.

Re: Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

#120

Post by SeanLuke »

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #101
SeanLuke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So using the J.K. Rowling example: provide a plausible way that she could make money off of her writing, and particularly her first risky book, in the absence of copyright.

There are a number of cases where creators of popular works have been granted substantial sums to create subsequent works through crowdsourcing. Edit for examples. Cyan, creator of Myst and Riven, had two very successful Kickstarter to fund new works. First, they raised $1,321,306 to make Obduction, then $1,433,161 for Firmament. Elite: Dangerous raised £1,578,316 for a modern remake. Yes, it works for books, too: ht…

Cyan had already made Myst and Riven. This is close to the opposite of what I was asking for.

So once again: you seriously think that J.K. Rowling, a completely unknown author with a manuscript repeatedly rejected by publishing houses, is going to be able to raise sufficient funding on Kickstarter for her first work?

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