31–40 of 109 posts
By 2019 it'll have been 49 years without a single work entering the public domain. And somehow I doubt that we'll even get there, the goalposts will likely get moved again before 2019. And people wonder why there's such widespread disrespect for copyright.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And trite sayings don't mean they are correct, either. The social contract in the constitution was to grant people with limited exclusivity for works they created. Patents have roughly stayed within that parameter (with exception to patent abuses on design and software). For copyright, it was originally 17 years, extendable another 17 years. Works released in 1981 (my date of birth) will expire in 120 years. I will b…
There's been plenty of input from the people. The people vote every 2 years for representatives and every 6 years for senators. By and large, the people's input has been to keep the congresspeople who voted for these extensions. The reality is that most of "the people" just don't care about this issue. But they've had their input.
Would you honestly say that you would vote for a representative who agreed with you on copyright agenda but disagreed on all other aspects (or at the very least, most of the categories that are directly important to you)? That's the choice we're asked to make. Should I re-elect Senator Y if he is copyright lobbyist's bitch? He does however take strong stances on the issues A, B and C which I do like though.
It's only tangentially related, but I had to make a comment: http://www.economist.com/comment/1835110#comment-1835110 I happily pay for my subscription to The Economist and enjoy reading it on my iPad. But they don't even allow you to select a single word in an article, which would make it possible to look things up in a dictionary. This kind of limitation to attempt enforcement of copyright is part of the whole prob…
To me the whole copyright extension issue is a good argument for justification of piracy. If the copyright industry side can just replace the social agreement (protection of works in exchange for them going public after a reasonable amount of time) with one they like more, why would it be immoral for the content consumers to to the same? I'm talking about the ethical side, not legalities. The fact that said consumers…
It would be in the publishers interest to obtain a few scary convictions for the chilling effect. I could see how auditing software would become useful: software that would tell you what content to take off your iPod when travelling to a certain country. Such software would need an accurate database of copyright status for each content in each country. I predict an open source source database of this type will be created in the future.
Can someone make the argument about why should Disney be forced to give up copyright to Mickey Mouse? Or The Beatles to the music they created?
To me the whole copyright extension issue is a good argument for justification of piracy. If the copyright industry side can just replace the social agreement (protection of works in exchange for them going public after a reasonable amount of time) with one they like more, why would it be immoral for the content consumers to to the same? I'm talking about the ethical side, not legalities. The fact that said consumers…
As for the justification of piracy, I suppose it is some form of protest? Instead of paying for copyrighted materials, just pirate them in protest of unfair and Unconstitutional copyright laws? Wouldn't it just be better to do a boycott of organizations that lobbied government to pass such laws and only buy from organizations that oppose those laws? Not only that but there is enough free and open source software, media, and ebooks and materials that ones doesn't need to buy the commercial copyrighted stuff anymore and still not pay much.
Stuff older than 20 years still gets pirated, old DOS apps, old 8 bit computer ROMs and Disk files for emulators, old movies and TV shows. Most of the older stuff lacks DRM malware and runs really fast as compared to the modern stuff that is bloated with rootkits and phone-home activation code checkers.
Can someone make the argument about why should Disney be forced to give up copyright to Mickey Mouse? Or The Beatles to the music they created?
That's not the right question to ask anyway. Copyright only exists insomuch as government grants it - thus they can take it away if they please, or after an arbitrary duration. You should really ask how long is reasonable for a creator's work to be protected, and just how many generations of his descendants should inherit that right.
Can someone make the argument about why should Disney be forced to give up copyright to Mickey Mouse? Or The Beatles to the music they created?
But with the current system, copyrights never expire, and copyright holders don't innovate like they used to do. As a result our economy has gotten worse, and unemployment keeps going up, and the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is denied.
The US Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 has been violated by these modern copyright laws.
And I quote:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
To me the whole copyright extension issue is a good argument for justification of piracy. If the copyright industry side can just replace the social agreement (protection of works in exchange for them going public after a reasonable amount of time) with one they like more, why would it be immoral for the content consumers to to the same? I'm talking about the ethical side, not legalities. The fact that said consumers…
I can see how you can land in trouble as a pirate when you travel to a country with longer copyright. For Canadians, Hemingway for example is already public domain. Would a Canadian travelling with a Kindle full of Project Guttenberg downloads of Hemingway land in trouble with the US, EU or other customs ? It would be in the publishers interest to obtain a few scary convictions for the chilling effect. I could see ho…