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as the term for copyright theft was coined a long time ago...
1930s Newspaper advertisement

Dewey defeats Truman!

Before getting all pissed off, Take a look at the bill. Among other things, it explictly makes allowances for educational and scientific purposes, as well as for news and sports. This isn't about "owning facts", it's about protecting the interests of those who take the time to compile a database and preventing others from obtaining that database and sellling it for themselves. You can sit at an NBA game and edit your web pages in real time, if you want. You can't slurp Yahoo's NBA page, reformat the text, and place it on your own page for profit. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

We should be moving toward more open sharing of information, not the opposite. All we'll end up with is a dearth of new knowledge. It will be like pouring hot salt water into the gears; eventually it will rust up and grind to a halt.

As usual, everyone should write to their congress critters and register their opinions.

If you are transmitting images the production of which violated someone else's human rights, is that acceptable?

Free communication includes the transmission of state secrets, disclosure of state security vulnerabilities etc.

Yes. If that state doesn't want me to know that the B1024 bomber can easily be disabled by shining a laser pointer at it, it's the state's problem to not let me know that. As I have taken no oath of secrecy, if I stumble on that fact, I am within my free speech rights to disclose it. (The state, oblivious to its own rules, of cource disagrees.)

Nevermind.

IANAL and I don't play one on tv either...

Aren't all *recorded* versions of music still under copyright? Also, did you know that the sheet music for a public domain song can still be copyrighted? That's right, publishers can churn out new "arrangements" ad infinitum.

AFAIK, what *is* public domain is sheet music published before 1923. So you have to go back to the original sources. I've had good luck looking at the Library of Congress's site, American Memory.

IMHO, most students would be unfamiliar with (and quickly bored by) classical music anyway. They would probably be more familiar with folk songs and Christmas carols like "Silent Night". Why not teach them what they like and are familiar with?

you find that the phrase "bear Arms" was never used except in referring to militia activities.

The context for the discussion was state rights versus federal power, and the creation of standing armies versus reliance on militias, so this is hardly surprising. Remeber that the Bill of Rights was an afterthought! However, it is clear that the framers had a armed citizenry (and not standing armies) in mind:

"..but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Hamilton, Federalist No. 29

"...the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation..." -- Madison, Federalist No. 46

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair." Hamilton, Federalist 28

The National Guard are militias.

As they are today, the National Guards are more military reserve units than real militias. (See Title 32 U.S.C.)

Yet why did they explain why it was important?

Explaining why something is important is done to give it extra weight. Doesn't your boss ever say things like, "Nomadic, getting this project done is necessary to keep FooBar as a customer, so I need this next week"?

they DIDN'T use that phrase with any other amendments.

Which would indicate that it was especially important. "Nomadic, do X. Nomadic, do Y. Nomadic, getting Z done is necessary to keep the company solvent, so do Z." Which do you do first?

Sorry this post is somewhat off-topic.

First, I'm part of the politically disenfranchised. I'm very politically aware, but like Diogenes, I scour the polls in vain, in a desperate search for an honest politician. If you're merely making parody for parody's sake, then please forgive the following rant. However, if you're merely a whining liberal who hates any notion of conservatives or any resemblance of limited government, then this rant is specifically for you.

Heaven forbid that I'm not for the distribution of wealth. How can you compare socialism with evolution, heliocentrism, or cosmology? Unchecked greed is not a failure of capitalism; it is the failure of the legal system. When Lenin seized control of a Russia in the midst of change that was a failure of the communist system. While I agree communism is flawed, all of humanity is flawed. I'm greedy, lustful, and full of hubris. I'm naturally lazy. So are you.

The truth is that most of the United States is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We like the warm fuzzy middle of modern bipolar politics. We are all hypocrites.

I appreciate honest liberals. I may disagree with them, but I appreciate any American's honest discourse. I appreciate the gridlock that juxtaposing dissent provides. The more we argue; the more we strengthen each other's arguments. Frankly, that's the real reason every politician makes a run to the center during election time. It's the one part of the system that works.

Perhaps an expert on copyright law could confirm things better, but I was under the impression that under the original system (at least in the USA), there actually was a copyright renewal system, by which authors were allowed to renew their copyright exactly once during the year that it would otherwise have run out. More specifically, the Copyright Basics text (that was digitised by PG some time ago states the following:

Works Originally Created and Published or Registered before January 1, 1978

Under the law in effect before 1978, copyright was secured either on the date a work was published with a copyright notice or on the date of registration if the work was registered in unpublished form. In either case, the copyright endured for a first term of 28 years from the date it was secured. During the last (28th) year of the first term, the copyright was eligible for renewal. The Copyright Act of 1976 extended the renewal term from 28 to 47 years for copyrights that were subsisting on January 1, 1978, or for pre-1978 copyrights restored under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), making these works eligible for a total term of protection of 75 years. [..]

It goes on to say:

Public Law 102-307 [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d102:SN00756:|TOM:/bss/d102query.htm l|] enacted on June 26, 1992, amended the 1976 Copyright Act to provide for automatic renewal of the term of copyrights secured between January 1, 1964, and December 31, 1977. Although the renewal term is automatically provided, the Copyright Office does not issue a renewal certificate for these works unless a renewal application and fee are received and registered in the Copyright Office.

Without really knowing the details behind copyright, I don't see why the renewal was made automatic. You'd think that any entity with enough money to campaign for that type of change would be able to organise itself enough to simply renew its copyrights in the correct year, so it might be that there was some other reasoning besides big money interests... or perhaps the politicians simply thought it was silly that people had to actively renew or that it created too many administrational overheads for the copyright office.

At least from my perspective it doesn't seem to have added much value, though.

On a slightly related note, a Russian photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii pioneered this technique of obtaining color images using colored filters and monochromatic film in the early 1900's. He actually built his own camera with three vertically-oriented lenses, each with a red, green or blue filter. The camera took the three pictures at the same time, but some interesting distortions come through because of the slight differences in paralax.

This was mentioned here on /. some time ago, but if you haven't seen his photos, they are definitely worth checking out.

of some turn of the century russian color photos using the same or a similar technique. I like that people thought of doing stuff like this back then. It is amazing to see in color what things looked like back then. I think there are some from early in the 20th Century in New York online somewhere as well.

The Library of Congress has an interesting exhibit up devoted to an early 20th century Russian photographer who used this exact technique. The site includes a very detailed description of how this filter system works, along with dozens of color pictures from the photographer's travels. It's definately worth taking a look at, if not for the description, then for some very cool pictures.

Prokudin-Gorskii travelled Russia taking color photos about a hundred years ago, a time when there was no color films. He used to take 3 pictures, one after another, each one with a different filter. He then projected the three together to get a color picture. Similar to Spirit but in a very, very old fashion.

When you take a look at what this old-tech can really do, it's quite astounding.

The Library of Congress has an exhibition of pre-WWI (that's World War I) *color* photos of Russia shot using the exact same process. Since this was a while before any practical color photo printing processes the photographer built a "magic lantern" for "optical color projections."

Props to Bolo Boffin for the link.

I don't know the date of the first use, but Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii photographed parts of Russia for the Tsar in 1909.

He used a three photo technique where the scene was recorded three times on a glass plate (in a row, not overlaid) with different filters. If you look carefully at the river, there is color distortions from the small waves.

I don't know the date of the first use, but Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii photographed parts of Russia for the Tsar in 1909.

He used a three photo technique where the scene was recorded three times on a glass plate (in a row, not overlaid) with different filters. If you look carefully at the river, there is color distortions from the small waves.

It would be an interesting experiment if /. kept a forum tracking promises made and broken by our "representatives". They could be graded, not based on qualitative subjective issues, but on actual objectively quantitative performances on a variety of actions (or lack of), or contrary actions that could be mapped back to their promises. Examples would be actions such as pushing promised legislature and voting on the legislature of others who help achieve the goal of the politician's promises(I think most people would be shocked by the number of our "representatives" who don't actually even show up to vote on major issues).

Two things:

1) Most issue organizations already track representattives and how they vote on issues dear to that organization. For example, Gun Owners of America allows you to enter your zip code and see how your reps voted on 2nd amendment legislation throughout the session.

2) Why are you wanting Slashdot to do this FOR you? You can do it yourself, and easily. The Library of Congress' Thomas system lets you see every piece of legislation that's been introduced in the last 15 years or so. Who voted for what, who sponsored what bills, what bills died in committee, etc. If you care enough to bitch about your elected representatives not doing what you voted them into office to do, then DO SOMETHING about it--don't expect someone else to do it for you.

BTW, for those reminiscing about text-based gopher don't forget GopherVR that came out just as http/html hit. An interesting experiment in 3D virtualization of online resources I've yet to see it equalled for other protocols.

Other now-obscure technologies from the same era:

• ph
• fsp
• wais
• archie
• z39.50
• veronica
• prospero

"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;"

The article says that they want to impose stiffer sentences for people if the domain has false contact information and IS USED TO COMMIT A CRIME.

The article does seem to hint that the gubermint is going after everyone, though, so I looked up the bill myself. It's true that they will only go after someone for this if a crime has been committed. The problem with it IMHO is that it's pretty broad...It goes after not only the owners of the domain but also "person[s] acting in concert with the violator". And it tacks on 7 years in prison who what one would otherwise get already. And from the text it looks like it's geared strictly towards copyright infringement, never mind ripping off credit card numbers or running a fake shop, or simulating the identity of a reputable company. Of course, coming from Rep. Berman, this is no surprise.

Here's the bill if anyone's interested

The link looks a little weird to me so if it is broken go to http://thomas.loc.gov and look up bill # "H. R. 3754".

You want safety more than you do privacy, but in reality you will have neither.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There are bills, S.1980 and H.R.2239, aimed at requiring this. If you're an American citizen, contacting your representatives about this could help a lot.

There are bills, S.1980 and H.R.2239, aimed at requiring this. If you're an American citizen, contacting your representatives about this could help a lot.

The Library of Congress has a guide right here!

Read the _____ bill. There seems to be a pretty high burden of proof, the republication must be "quantitatively substantial," and the information must be "time sensitive," having "temporal value."

SEC. 5. EXCLUSIONS.

(a) GOVERNMENT INFORMATION-

(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in paragraph (2), protection under this Act shall not extend to--

(A) a database generated, gathered, organized, or maintained by a Federal, State, or local governmental entity, or by an employee or agent of such an entity, acting within the scope of such employment or agency; or

(B) a database generated, gathered, or maintained by an entity pursuant to and to the extent required by a Federal statute or regulation requiring such a database.

(2) EXCEPTION- Nothing in this section shall preclude protection under this Act for a database gathered, organized, or maintained by an employee or agent of an entity described in paragraph (1) that is acting outside the scope of such employment or agency, or by a Federal, State, or local educational institution, or its employees or agents, in the course of engaging in education, research, or scholarship.

The law excludes government information. It's quite possible that the local laws could be overturned under this one.

Clicky!

The parameter after the : specifies the cfg file, go find passwd, kay :)?

1. Always start with Thomas. Being the Library of Congress and all, it makes sense for them to maintain an up-to-date collection of all the legislation floating around on the floor. They keep track of bills from introduction until they die, are vetoed, or become law.
2. Make sure you have the right Congress. Even though it seems most members of Congress have been where they are for longer than many of us have been alive, a new "Congress" is considred to be formed the swearing in of the winners of a recent election. Our current Congress was sworn in after the last election, January '03. Since we know what we're looking for happened in '01, we have to go back to the 107th Congress.
3. Know what you're looking for. It sounds simple, but it isn't always. For example, if you're looking for a piece of pork-barrel spending slipped into a bill to complain about, good luck; they tend not to call bills "Act to Buy Votes in my Home District and Keep My Sorry Ass on the Hill" (Bitter? Who, me?). Luckily for us, we know the "proper" name of the bill ("USA PATRIOT Act"). You can also search by things like bill number (they begin with "HR" if they start in the House of Representatives and "S" if they start in the Senate), its status (check out the long list of bills President Bush has vetoed!) as well as other factors. In this example, we see that the USA PATRIOT Act was known as "HR 3162" in the 107th Congress
4. Make sure you have the right version. For better*cough* or for worse, the USA PATRIOT Act is one of those bills nobody bothered to look at before voting on, but that's a rarity. It's pretty common for the House and the Senate to dicker back and forth over the text before sending it off to the White House. (I hear the White House can even occasionally send it back for yet more revision, but I'm beginning to think that's just a myth.) Once you're looking at one version of the bill you're looking for, you can click on "Bill Summary & Status Info" for a breakdown of what the different versions are, where we ultimately learn that HR 3162 was signed into law as "public law 107-56" (107th Congress, 56th public law) and can view the text of the final version there.

Unfortunately, the response you get here doesn't have a URL you can easily cut-and-paste for others to look at, so I had to go to The Other Source on federal law: the GPO. It's their primary job to take all these silly laws numbered solely by Congress and law number and organize them into something that's more easily searched (relatively speaking), breaking it down into titles, chapters, sections and so forth. The USA PATRIOT Act doesn't exist in US Code as one monolithic chunk of text but as a whole mess of edits, addendums and footnotes sprinkled liberally throughout the whole thing (which is why you often want to start with Thomas even if it's already become a law). However, since they had to deal with the beast of "public law 107-56" in its original form before digesting it, and since they're in charge of all government publishing to begin with (what's in a name?), they should have the text available in its original form. Sure enough, go to their website, click on "Public and Private Laws," select the 107th Congress, type in "public law 107-56," and you get to see it in ASCII or PDF format with a (relatively) friendly URL. Now if only they can be convinced to use normal double quotes

The side The Law is on.

So you place your utmost, unwavering faith in The Law?

The Law gets it wrong sometimes, as evidenced by both vehement opposition to legislation like the DMCA and PATRIOT Act here on slashdot as well as the concept of judicial review.

I hate fax spam as much as anyone, but there are two sides to every issue, even those involving The Law. I too think fax.com is wrong on this issue, but i recognize their right to disagree with me/you/lawyers/the government.

What they're doing is equally as legal as selling heroin

except that nobody will put you in jail for sending junk faxes. and, in moral terms, if those mean anything anymore, heroin is a lot worse than sending faxes.

stating that junk fax == selling heroin gets an insightful mod?

The side The Law is on.

So you place your utmost, unwavering faith in The Law?

The Law gets it wrong sometimes, as evidenced by both vehement opposition to legislation like the DMCA and PATRIOT Act here on slashdot as well as the concept of judicial review.

I hate fax spam as much as anyone, but there are two sides to every issue, even those involving The Law. I too think fax.com is wrong on this issue, but i recognize their right to disagree with me/you/lawyers/the government.

What they're doing is equally as legal as selling heroin

except that nobody will put you in jail for sending junk faxes. and, in moral terms, if those mean anything anymore, heroin is a lot worse than sending faxes.

stating that junk fax == selling heroin gets an insightful mod?

For an interesting view on how colors shift when you use filters, see this item on the Color Rendering Process, "Digichromatography"

There's still quite a few who haven't come back yet...

• Amtrak Helps DEA Hunt Drug Couriers, Albuquerque Journal, April 11, 2001. (Ed.: link broken)
• Amtrak shares passenger info with DEA for drug prosecutions, Declan
  McCullagh's politechbot.com, April 11, 2001.
• Your Rights Online: Keeping DEA In The Loop About Amtrak Travelers, Slashdot, April 15, 2001.
• Amtrak 'Sharing' Information With D.E.A., New York Times, April 15, 2001 (registration required).

Wow, secret searches by the feds

The searches still require warrants (despite phony ACLU claims).


Wrong. There are lots of searches that do not require warrents, and the recent legislation put into law by Mr. Bush -- the Intelligence Authroization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 does two things. First, it redefines financial institution to include just about everything. Second, it grants FBI power to obtain records (and forbid the requestee from reporting the request to the target) from a financial institution without requiring permission from a judge. No court order is needed to access records held by financial institutions, nor does the FBI need to prove just cause. It is a blank check. More detailed info is in a Wired article

The fact that Patriot II would have allowed the executive branch to remove someones citizenhip based on a whim

No, it would not. The person being removed would only be removed if they became a terrorist for an enemy foreign interest. Not a "whim".


Ok smart ass. Define Terrorist so that it isn't just up to the "whim" of the government. Lately what passes for "terrorist activity" is quite laughable. Law inforcement has classified minor drug offenders, as they coudl be rasing money for terrorist activities. Untill 'terrorist' is defined, it is a 'whim'.

A corporation is not a person, and has no inherent rights as such. Thus, a corporation may be restricted in its speech, up to and including forcing it to allow speech it does not support.

Technically, under the 14th amendment, a corporation is considered to be an artificial "person", but not a citizen, and is given the rights as such.

You are right that speech may be restricted, although the first amendment is always up for debate, in regards to both natural and artificial persons, and in this particular case, the amendment has been upheld in more recent legislations in the interest of the listener, regardless if the speaker is an artificial person.

--theKiyote

The empire that was Russia

Yes, it's off topic but this is important.

The U.S. Library of Congress website (Thomas) houses all incoming, processed, and finalized bills that pass through Congress. Recently a friend sent me information about the Universal National Service Act of 2003 and its disturbing contents. (Anyone may view the fine print of this bill by clicking on the above link and entering in the bill's name, listed above in bold.) Proposed in January of 2003, this bill serves:

To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the Unites States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

I see they also reduced the requirements for reporting to Congress. See Section 361.

Apparently, section 374 of The bill is the relevant section.

They accomplish this treachery by patching bits and pieces of the "Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978" without making any explicit references whatsoever to what the patching will do. It doesn't halp that some bills have sections that patch a patch for a patch, so that it's nearly impossible to figure out what the final result will actually say, much less what it means.

Forget line item veto, what we really need is an all or nothing law, so that a bill may repeal or replace in full an existing law but may never simply modify. Any replacement may NOT include any other text by reference, only by explicit copy.

That might actually fix some small part of the non-sense.

If you're going to think about that, keep in mind that Wired got its facts wrong. According to the bill summary, the 264-163 vote (roll call 649) which was presented as having taken place in June actually took place on 20 Nov, and was to agree to the conference report. Likewise, the Senate voice vote in November was to agree to the conference report. The actual vote on the bill as sent to the Senate, on 27 Jun, was 410-9 (roll call 333). Contrary to thier claims of opposing the legislation, both Rep. Betty McCollum and Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter voted for the bill in June, where section 334 of the bill is essentially identical to section 374 of the conference report. The Senate passed its version of the bill by unanimous consent on 31 Jul, also containing an essentially identical section 354. This was not a provision "slipped into the Intelligence Act at the 11th hour". Rather, it's a provision that politicians are now experiencing "buyer's remorse" over.

People who do not know their rights, do not really have them.

From Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright page 24

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the following are not infringement of copyrights:
(i) performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, ...

Nonetheless we live in a society of copyright extremists. Plese mention the Eldred Act in your political contributions to make copyrights lapse after 50 years unless re-registered with a $1 fee per year. You know, write it on the memo section of your $20 check. Also joining the EFF helps. Thanks.

although outright pornography isn't found in libraries

While I agree with you in general, you are mistaken on that point. Libraries are free carry whatever they want, it's just that most have limited money available and choose to spend it elsewhere. Many libraries do in fact choose to carry Playboy and more. Not only does the US Library of Congress carry Playboy, they even have it in braille!

This law is supposedly based on "community standards". Well if a local community runs a library and they decide they want to carry Playboy and they decide they want to provide less internet filtering or even no internet filtering, then that is the community standard.

This law is purely to enforce censorship on those communities and libraries that choose to use less fitering or no filtering.

-

It's not hard to imagine that the header files for POSIX 1 and POSIX 2 interfaces could be what they are talking about, and to the lay mind it would look bad. However to us we would see it as more akin to trying to copyright a database's data. ... Sucks, don't it?

Both Perl and PHP already have Z39.50 support to connect to full-text search engines.

Iran actually had a democratic government, it was overturned and replaced with a tyrany, because it wasn't friendly to foreign oil companies.

The administration of President Harry S Truman initially had been sympathetic to Iran's nationalist aspirations. Under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, the United States came to accept the view of the British government that no reasonable compromise with Mossadeq was possible and that, by working with the Tudeh, Mossadeq was making probable a communist-inspired takeover. Mossadeq's intransigence and inclination to accept Tudeh support, the Cold War atmosphere, and the fear of Soviet influence in Iran also shaped United States thinking. from our (the US) Library of Congress website.

There was a lot more to it than just that, historical trends can rarely be summed up into a sentance or two.

Bing, Bing, Bing, opps, your half right. I was going to say more than 150 years (California), but I thought of the Spanish American War) as a gotcha. One of the conquests of that war, the Phillipies could arguably be called a colony. But if you consider colonization to include "importing" population with an eye on keeping the place then Guam or Puerto Rico.

Ok, I was a little knee-jerk in my last post, and really did take this post out of context (really badly). That said, Democracy in America did not begin with the revolutionary war. All of the states had legislators who were elected by a segment of the population (usually landed men). Many of these legislators were the Founding Fathers. They weren't the typical "armed rebels", but thoughtful, intellegent people who debated the future of this (the US) country.

You want to really change the digital landscape? Go after the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

It's unlikely you'll get the law overturned without the work of your local Congresspeople, so go to them. If anything, politicians are easier to move by means of protest and petition than big business. The RIAA will always make the connection of lower sales with piracy, not protest, and as long as they also work hand-in-hand with the media machine, the tide will take forever to turn.

Politicians though are terribly practical - they have to renew their existence constantly so they live on the balance of popular issues. Right now, without proper organization, your identity is being defined by the RIAA 500lb gorilla. We're a speck by comparison. We need to jump, en masse, onto these scales to at least show some popular volume, to garner attention. Grass-roots activism is always where the greatest power lies. You have to be active and pressure your local and state representatives to change the law. Make it uncomfortable in their home-states and they won't take you for granted.

But I believe that we have to do it in a way they can grasp - protesting at rallies, marches, actual mail. As much as I like email, I get results more often with a physical letter - if one morning your rep received 500 or 1000 letters about the law, they would take notice. If the next day they find a few hundred people protesting at their re-election rally, and at every rally, then the pressure mounts. Think Flash mobs, but with a political point.

I really don't think we'll ever displace the gorilla sitting on our asses and jotting off emails or crashing servers. We need to get in their faces and make them know we're real and we're really pissed off.