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Eldred Attracts Heavyweight Supporters
dipfan writes: "Opening briefs have now been filed with the Supreme Court for the Eldred v Ashcroft copyright case, arguing that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is unconstitutional. The anti-extension case has attracted some big name supporters, including Intel, and Nobel prize winning economist Milton Freidman, who argue it is "highly unlikely that the economic benefits from copyright extension" outweigh the additional costs, and that copyright extension reduces consumer welfare. (Previous coverage of the case on /. here and here)"
"Congress shall have the power... To promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
So a limited time will now far exceed several generations. I can totaly see how this will benefit all the people of the good 'ol USA.
Economic recovery, here we come!
If this doesn't prevail before the Supremes, then all hope may be lost.
The copyright extension can't reasonably be argued to server any Constitutionally argued purpose. After all, to be extended, the works in question had to be produced.
Absent a time machine, how do you encourage the creation of something that's already been created?
The only thing you can do is negate the other side of the deal: transfer of your work into the public domain.
This is not even an issue of being for or against intellectual property. Congress used its Constitutinally provided powers to grant intellectual property to authors, but demanded consideration in return. That consideration was placement of works into the public domain after the author or subsequent copyright holder had been granted an adequate opportunity to exploit the work.
We have delivered on our end of the bargain. The copyright holders must deliver on theirs.
Also, the FSF filed a "friend of the court" brief, though if, like me, you are not a lawyer, you might rather just read the press release.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This sort of high-profile case is just crying out for a shown of public support. Do you think a couple of free software heavyweights could agree on a middle-of-the-road viewpoint on Copyright law (by which I mean somewhere other than abolish it) in a form that "open IP" supporters everywhere (or just in the US ;) ) could "sign" in an online show of support.
The recent /. article on Copyright would probably been a good place to look for ideas ;)
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Eben Moglen's brief for the FSF has a great quote:
``Actually, Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever.''
--Rep. Mary Bono
144 Cong. Rec. H9951 (daily ed. Oct. 7, 1998)
I have debated this hot topic on the Napster Forum at great length, with people ranging from typical ranters to a small record label owner.
The biggest issue I have is with the duration of copyright. Originally set to last 14 to 28 years from date of creation, it now stands as 95 years from the death of the copyright owner. The latest lengthening (the Sonny Bono Act) might have to do with strong lobbying from Disney, as Mickey Mouse would have lost its copyright in 2004. And to extend it again, 20 years at a time only takes a mere act of Congress.
On one hand, I'd like to see creators get just rewards for their work. But I disagree with a near-eternal guarantee, that might stifle creation in the future because current creative minds can rest on their laurels. In other words, they can stop working and continue to enjoy a revenue stream, while I need to keep working to get my next paycheck.
I am the evil aardvark!
Is it me but ever since mp3's it's like the entire world is an expert on copyright infringment. I remember teh days on slashdot when all teh articles were about supercooling my 300a. interesting paradigm shift.
I read the opening brief last night and I'm overwhelmed by the quality of the work. The plaintiffs have, over the course of the trial and appeals, clarified and distilled the essence of their case. Their arguments are very persuasive, and the writing is superb.
This is probably the most important copyright case of our generation. The government has characterized retroactive copyright extension as a "national tradition", and if this case fails, the result will be that Congress will be given the go-ahead to continue the "tradition", and the result will be perpetual copyright. The entire idea of a public domain of ideas will be destroyed.
Eldred is our last, best chance to prevent perpetual copyright. It's a tremendous effort, the best contemporary legal writing that I've EVER seen. I urge all Slashdot readers to read through the opening brief. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the issues behind copyright extension.
I think the core of Eldred's case should focus not on Mickey Mouse, because as Valenti said, who cares if Mikey isn't in the public domain for another 1000 years. The argument should focus on the 10,027 books published in 1930, of which only 174 are still in print. Who is being harmed by these works being put into public domain ? Certainly Disney isn't hurt, nor the owners of the copyrights, since they aren't making any money anyway. We the people, thats who, each year there are less and less readable copies of these books. If these books are not put in the public domain, we are in real danger of loosing them. Project Gutenberg certainly isn't going to spend thousands of dollars to find out who owns a copyright, just to be told, no. As Lessig pointed out, it also stifles creativity, because no derivitive works can be done. He also pointed out two instances where an author has written a piece based on an older work, spent real money to find the copyright holder and been told NO, not, I will licence it to you for X amount of money, but NO. If we allow these extensions to stand, we get Mickey Mouse, if we don't let it stand, we get to preserve a whole body work for all time and we get a whole new body of work, which will never happen otherwise. This lawsuit should really be called Humanity vs Disney.
Now I wish I hadn't snipped what Siva said about the Sonny Bono Act from the interview we did! Here it is:
JH: "In your book, you refer to the DMCA as an example of what you call a "thick" copyright law. Can you explain the difference between "thick" copyright law and a "thin" law?"
SV: "...One way to measure the thickness of a copyright law is to look at the duration of protection. If works enter the public domain before an author's life expectancy expires, then it's a thin and democratic system. If the duration of copyright protection is absurdly long and potentially indefinite, then it's way too thick.
"JH: And the DMCA does this?
"SV: Not exactly. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which added 20 years to almost all active copyrights, does this. The Copyright Act of 1976 did this as well, but it took people a while to complain about it. Before THE 1976 ACT, copyright terms were for a fixed amouNt of time: 28 years per term, renewable once. Since the 1976 act, the term has been life of the author plus 50 years, and now 70 years. The Supreme Court will hear a case in the fall about the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Act. And many of us on the public interest side of copyright debates are hoping that the justices revert to the first principles of American copyright: that copyright is meant to promote creativity and expression, not retard it. Copyright has become corrupted to such a degree that it's now an instrument of censorship, as Dmitri Sklyarov and Edward Felten can tell you."
-- haaz, who will think twice before snipped for brevity's sake.
-- haaz.
Eagle Forum/Phyllis Schlafly
Milton Friedman
Hal Roach Studios
Intel
Wendell Berry
Ursula K. Leguin
Barry Lopez
Peter Matthiessen
David Foster Wallace
National Writers Union
The United States Public Policy Committee for the Association of Computing Machinery
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
The Apache Software Foundation
The Domain Name Rights Coalition
The Center for The Public Domain
Public Knowledge, The Digital Future Coalition
The Public Domain Research Corporation
The Center for Book Culture
The Computer and Communications Industry Association
The Consumer Electronics Association
(The arguments against severability are that Congress wouldn't have passed just the future extension, all the lobbying was for the extension of existing works, and the Court shouldn't be in the business of rewriting flawed legislation.)
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
Why is anyone bothering to fight against the copyright extension, anyway? If you listen to the copyright holders, you'd know that everying under the sun is just going to be stolen by copyright thieves anyway. Of course then you also have to wonder why they're so worried about extending the term of copyright if they believe that it's impossible to publish anything without having it stolen. Something doesn't add up here...
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Sorry but it should be 15 year from the date of creation. no more no less,..
companies will piss their pants hearing that, but I highly doubt that microsoft or ANY company that made a program in 1992 is still selling it. versions made thereafter? yes... that exact one? no.. they milked all the cash out of it possible, quit being greedy bastard children and give it up.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
from what I understand, is derivitave works. The works of Motzart, Bethoven, and Shakespear, are all in the public domain. This means that all of their works are "fair game" when developing your own creative works.
If you like the base key changes in a work by Motzart, or Bethoven, you are welcome to use it. Unless someone since then has used that same combination of key changes, and their music is not in the public domain.
We have not seen quite the same situation in written works. Authors regularly steal story concepts from other books, file off the serial numbers, wrap them with new characters and locations, and publish it as a new story.
While I sympathize with musicians who cringe at the thought of finding some other musician taking their song and changing one or two words and re-publishing it. In writing, that would be plagerism.
On the other hand, if the creator of some work does not release the work to the public domain at some time, it will stifle creativity.
I think that Spider Robinson pointed out the problem best, though I do not remember the story or the book I found it in. When musicians can't publish the music they create, because it contains "substantialy similar" parts, we will see a greater loss to society than just about any loss due to war.
Then again, that's just my opinion. I can be wrong.
-Rusty
You never know...
There are several angles from which a decision can be approached:
/. reader will be quite familiar with Thomas Jefferson's thoughts, but Alexander Hamilton's opposing views will also weigh in, here.Then there is also the interesting comparison with patents. AFAIK, patent terms have been 17 years from day 1, and haven't been lengthened. In fact, recent reform put the additional cap of 21 years from date of file, to rein in people who stalled their patents in-office in order to extend protection.
First and foremost, there is the one-liner in the Constitution. That one line can be picked apart and the syntax and semantics debated.
Second, one can look for 'obvious' flaws in the existing (extended) law, and see if they (again 'obviously') flout the Constitution.
Essentially, is the focus from the bottom-up or from current-law down. I hear a lot about 'strict constructionism' on the Court, and that would seem to me to favor the first, bottom-up approach.
Beyond that, one can begin reading the thoughts of the framers of the Constitution. Any
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I read about 60% of the opening brief and I find it VERY convincing when it argues that retroactive extensions of copyright are unconstitutional.
Does anyone know whether the various acts extending copyright have severability clauses in them? If not, does that mean that the extensions might be struck down entirely? That could be a bombshell.
I would like to read some arguments submitted by Ashcroft/US on this matter, however.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
Proposal (by me):
You no longer need to send a copy of works to the Library of Congress in order to receive copyright, but it still needs to be done if you plan on publishing a large quantity, especially if you hope to legally protect the work. This is done, so that once it goes out of copyright, a copy will exist at the LOB so that it can be copied when it reaches public domain, and won't get lost.
I propose that any software in which you expect legal protection of your copywrite, needs to not only be submitted to the LOB, but must include the source code. This source will be sealed away, from public view untill the copyright ends of course. But will be also accessable by a court order (not contestable by the copyright owner), to government agencies wishing to examine the security of any systems that are vital to government interest. These security reports then (excluding any source code, and given reasonable time for the copyright owners to fix the security hole) will be available to the public. The source code will also be accessable by a court order during any court cases involving the copyright holder in which it is deemed nesseary.
I think a very important question to ask here is, "Does anyone care?" I mean, seriously, ask Joe Schmoe on the street if this matters to them and chances are they will say no.
To the STRONG majority of the world's population, Disney and Mickey Mouse go hand in hand. They wouldn't want to see the creators of South Park begin marketing Mickey Mouse cartoons. People draw an association between a work (be it a song, movie, etc.) and the creator of that work. That connection is important on a cultural level, even if people don't realize it. I'm sure if you asked people on the street, a majority of them would say that yes, a company/individual who creates something should retain ownership of it. It's human nature. If I build a deck on my house, I wouldn't want my neighbors thinking they could hold parties on it. It's MY deck. I created it, therefore I should retain ownership of it. Human nature tends to this belief.
Would Disney (and other companies as well) have had much of its early material if it werent for the Brothers Grimm and other public-domain stories? No. But, that's not to say that 100 years from now the Earth will be devoid of any culture unless Disney releases Steamboat Willie into the public domain.
Being NAL as I am, I would like to see some discussion of how limited term copyright is expected to work in a future where copyright is enforced by perpetual technological means.
As more information is published on digital media, DRM is becoming a means of enforcing the copyright on the information. However, I know of no DRM systems which provide for expriation of protection. So, while the legal protection may go away after the granted term, the data is still protected technologically. I wonder, what are the legal implications of this?
Copyright was granted on the grounds that after the granted term, the information was to enter the public domain. If the information is designed by the distributors to never enter the public domain, does it still deserve copyright protection? It seems like this is analogous to patents vs. trade secrets where trade secrets have no legal protection because there is no obligation to disclose the way they work. You have to trade one for the other.
Yes, that's the established practice. The individual holding the office of Attorney General is representative of the state's laws - and it's the law that's being challenged - so it's the AG's name that appears on the docket.
Theoretically, they get paid depending on their contracts, without which they shouldn't have transferred copyright. Of course, if there's a conspiracy among the labels to present only highly unfavorable contracts, then there's a bit of a problem.
The labels, of course, have a huge problem -- the public's tastes can be quite fickle, and advertising a new potential talent is likely quite expensive. Those costs have to be borne by somebody even if the music doesn't sell -- either because it's drek, or because the public simply didn't latch onto it in sufficient quantities to justify costs. I don't know what fraction of artists actually do well enough to justify marketing costs, but if it's low, ugh.
That means that, realistically, either the labels have to be extremely good at picking (or deliberately building bands -- for instance, composing new boy bands aimed specifically at female pre-teens and early teens, by choosing what they hope are photogenic young males of specific ages, et al, or choosing female artists according to jiggle factor and mid-riff exposure) bands, or artists should be willing to share the costs, because otherwise the marketing machines collapse.
And without marketing, many obscure artists won't have much of a chance. It may have worked for Wilco, but what happens when there are no major labels and everybody is in the same boat? Then there's no prevailing culture to be "counter-cultural" against; opposing the labels isn't anything special, because there aren't any. That means that bands trying Wilco's approach would no longer be entitled to free publicity because they're trying something different. End result: Probably many bands with smaller audiences and smaller releases driven by word of mouth.
Keep in mind that nobody's entitled to an income on only their own terms, no matter how much they think they deserve it. If an artist's work is niche, lousy, or underexposed -- then it doesn't matter how much he loves the music. Love != quality or appeal. I'm reminded of the Elaine character on "Seinfeld" -- she loved to dance, but only masochists would have paid to watch her at the Bolshoi. If an artist seems promising enough to get a favorable contract, however, more power to 'im.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I hope that the same people who mocked the doctrine of "original intent", particularly with regards to the Second Amendment, aren't the ones promoting the Supreme Court's striking down copyright extension, an interpretation that relies precisely on the philosophy of ascertaining the intent of the framemakers of the Constitution. The "facts on the ground" are that the elected representatives of the people of the United States, both Congress and the President, have repeatedly within the past few decades agreed to extend copyright without any manifestation of widespread public protest. The opponents of copyright extension need to come up with something a little more substantial than an opinion that copyright extension damages the "public good".
I suspect that of the groups and people submitting amicus briefs about the only ones with "clean hands" are Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum and Milton Friedman. Love them or hate them, people such as Phyllis Schlafly and Milton Friedman at least have consistency in their viewpoints, a true worldview and not opinions that bend with each passing intellectual fad.
Phyllis Schlafly and Milton Friedman can argue with clear conscience that they have always been in the fight to limit the role of the federal government over the lives of the people, regardless of the issues. In contrast all of the NIMBY environmentalists and gun control advocates are merely carpetbaggers, passengers of convenience who the moment the issue is gone will revert to readvocating increased expansion of governmental authority and regulation. In essence the left-wing supporters of the movement to strike down the opinion of the elected representatives of the people are merely seeking to steal property for their own purposes, because they have no intellectual foundation for their critique of the current system.
If the Constitution is merely a piece of paper to be reinterpreted as each generation sees fit, why shouldn't eternal copyright extension be a legitimate interpretation of this generation? If it is just as legitimate to question the applicability of the Second Amendment to today's society, why isn't it legitimate to question whether an 18th century understanding of copyright is not applicable to today's reality of mass media corporations continuously producing new works in new formats that the people have no problem paying for without visible public protest? See what happens once you decide to jettison the entire opinion of the past for the sake of expediency, it might just come back to bite you.
From the list of signatories to the brief :
George A. Akerlof
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 2001
Kenneth J. Arrow
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1972
James M. Buchanan
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1986
Ronald H. Coase
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1991
Milton Friedman
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1976
Impressing!!!
I can add some quantification by running the numbers. A publisher is investing when they buy a copyright, and expects a return on their investment, usually expressed as a percentage per annum to compare with other investments like bonds or stocks.
Consider a publisher who wants a 10% return rate, and is willing to pay 100 for a 20 year copyright on a given work. Then 25yrs is only 106, 40yrs 115, 100yrs and forever 117. But tastes change, and work may become irrelevant by events, so sales 20 years hence are very uncertain. The usual way of coping with the risk is to increase the rate of return. So try 30%, with 100 still for 20 years then even 100 years is only worth 100.5!
Note that these analyses assume flat sales through the period, like for established continual sellers. For heavily front-loaded sales like most modern works, the premia fall by a large factor (5-10 times). And more for risky (high rates of return required) authors.
___
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
One of the conditions for sum to be finite is for the sequence to converge to zero. But the sequence is not. Its not even constant, by all means it seems that its divergent and this means the resulting sum will be inifinite.
This hints on intention, past record and dangerous trend in the congress that extrapolates into an infinite copyright if it won't be checked at some point.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I hope that the same people who mocked the doctrine of "original intent", particularly with regards to the Second Amendment, aren't the ones promoting the Supreme Court's striking down copyright extension, an interpretation that relies precisely on the philosophy of ascertaining the intent of the framemakers of the Constitution.
Simply because an original intent arguement is the one Lessig is using in this case, hardly makes it the only one. Since the current Supreme Court is dominated by strict constructionalists, it's just the best argument to use on that group of people.
The opponents of copyright extension need to come up with something a little more substantial than an opinion that copyright extension damages the "public good".
For this court, probably. But I can certainly make a logically coherent argument the copyright extension does damage the public good, and protecting that is important. Even miniarchists agree with this to a point, whether they realize it or not, they just think that as little government as possible *does* maximize the public good.
Love them or hate them, people such as Phyllis Schlafly and Milton Friedman at least have consistency in their viewpoints, a true worldview and not opinions that bend with each passing intellectual fad.
Yes, they have. And so have people like Eben Moglin and Jessica Litman.
Phyllis Schlafly and Milton Friedman can argue with clear conscience that they have always been in the fight to limit the role of the federal government over the lives of the people, regardless of the issues.
They sure have. But this is where you really go off the deep end of libertarianism/objectivism blindness. Here's a tip, not everyone bases their political philosophy on that government regulation is either all good or all bad.
You criticize the left saying that they are inconsistent for supporting government regulation in one place, but not others. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the left doesn't view government regulation as inherently good or bad, but capable of being used for both? I concider myself liberal, and my take on government regulation is that it is a necessary evil. Does that confuse your oversimplified political spectrum?
In contrast all of the NIMBY environmentalists and gun control advocates are merely carpetbaggers, passengers of convenience who the moment the issue is gone will revert to readvocating increased expansion of governmental authority and regulation.
This is so flawed I don't know where to start. I can easily formulate a logically consistent position containing any combination of pro/anti environmental regulations, gun control and copyright extenstions. The world isn't so black and white, and people can hold many different views on important issues. To say that one can't be an environmentalist and against copyright extentions at the same time shows that your understanding of any political philosophy other than your own is virtually nonexistant.
In essence the left-wing supporters of the movement to strike down the opinion of the elected representatives of the people are merely seeking to steal property for their own purposes, because they have no intellectual foundation for their critique of the current system.
At this point, you've gone full-bore off the deep end, and continued to show you've never read a freaking thing about modern liberalism. If you had, you'd understand that free speech is very important to the left, and its primary argument against strong copyright laws lies in a pro-free speech basis. Try learning something about why people think a certain way before tarring them unfairly. I've read quite a bit about libertarianism, so I know not to strawman it like this.
See what happens once you decide to jettison the entire opinion of the past for the sake of expediency, it might just come back to bite you.
Sometimes the opinion of the past is good (short copyright terms), sometimes it's bad (slavery). Once again you show a blindness to the fact that life can't be so easily catagorized.
To close, I disagree passionatly with the right-libertarian style philosophies on many issues, (The US health care system being one) but I'm happy to have them as allies on issues we can both agree on (free speech, copyright limits). Instead of criticizing a group of people who *agree* with your position, but just have have a different basis for the reasons why, why not accept them as allies. Just because you agree with an evil statist liberal like me on copyright, doesn't mean you have to be swung to my belief on socializing health care. :-)
Yes, this is good reading about this very issue. Go read it right now.
...I do not know the figure for the maximum possible number of melodies-- too many variables-- but I am sure it is quite high. I am certain that it is not infinity..... Do you know what it is like to be a composer these days, Senator?' "
" '[Endless copyright would be the] worst psychic trauma the race has yet suffered.... There are eighty-eight notes.
A while back, there was an excellent article on Lord Macaulay's speech to the British Parliament. Macaulay lays out both a solid case for copyright and against unreasonable extensions to copyrights.
The speech was made over 160 years ago.
I have no trouble with the estate of an author holding the copyright for a limited period after the death of the author. (Especially when they build on the original work.) I have a problem with copyrights lasting for the life of a corporation. Does anyone else see the irony if "forever" copyright existed previously, Disney would never have been able to make Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc...
P.S. I have a recording of Thomas Edison from 1918. I wonder how EMI would feel if I made a record from that :-)
Go for it! The first motion picture, Fred Ott's Sneeze ought to be public domain too!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"Melancholy Elephants." Available online at baen here.
IANAL, but...
You can't sue the United States Federal Government directly (unless it gives you permission to do so). But you can sue officials of said government. In this case, the suit is agaist the John Ashcroft the Attourny General, not John Ashcroft the private citizen. The legal documents usually clarify this with something along the lines of "in the capacity of attourney general" when naming Ashcroft.
Normally, I'm against economic supports and for sending manual labor overseas, but farming is essential to national defense. Of course, small-time farming isn't... I'm just saying I understand a reasonable amount of leeway.
-l
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I can't really think of too many of Disney's kid films that wouldn't have violated a forever copyright.
I'm not sure if Jungle Book was out of copyright by the late-ish '60's or not. Hunchback of Notre Dame, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Peter Pan, The Littlest Mermaid, too many others to remember. Sure, they're done in-house stories, but Disney has made Big Money strip-mining the free commonwealth of shared culture, something they couldn't have done if it was all locked down in perpetual copyrights.
They're hypocrites, and I bet they'd have the gaul to sue anyone else who dared make another Cinderella movie, in spite of various version of the tale going back hundreds of years. (Too bad they left out the red-hot iron shoes for the step-mother and step-sisters.)
This isn't so much the Sonny Bono law, as it is the Mickey Mouse copyright law.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I believe that the case law establishing that corporations are "persons" goes back to the 1860s when certain railroads were allowed to receive land grants which Congress had promised to "persons" satisfying certain requirements about using the property.
I do agree with your general sentiment that it is easy for these very rich, very long-lived "persons" to abuse laws intended for mere humans.
We're talking about Sony, Phillips, Toshiba, GE, and so forth here.
So sony with one N is against sonny with two N's? I was almost certain that Sony Music (an RIAA label) would support perpetual copyright.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Of course, if there's a conspiracy among the labels to present only highly unfavorable contracts, then there's a bit of a problem.
In fact, there is such a conspiracy. Courtney Love wrote an article for Salon about it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I know of no DRM systems which provide for expriation of protection.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides no protection against circumvention for works that have fallen into the public domain. From 17 USC 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" (emphasis by yerricde). Works "protected under this title" include works under a subsisting copyright.
This means it's lawful to sell DeCSS programs designed to decrypt the pre-1923 content on Charlie Chaplin DVDs. And without copyright term extensions, it would also be lawful to sell DeCSS programs designed to decrypt "Mickey's Early Years" and other pre-1946 content. (Actually, Mickey Mouse cartoons have fallen into the public domain due to a copyright notice flub-up.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
The United Kingdom held out in two World Wars with an inability to supply food from its own farms. "National defence" is a conveninet and nonsensical excuse - much like painting pictures of bankrupt family farmers, when 80% of the US farm subsidy goes to the largest landowners. Try not to buy the hype.
Of course, it may be that every man, woman, and child in the United States thinks they owe farmers $700 each; I certainly wish I could convince the government to shovel money at me based on being a landowner. You may not care the damage it does US relations with allied states. But you ought to.
I didn't buy any hype. I came up with that justification on my own since I don't buy the poor small-time farmer argument. The US probably pays farmers to kill more corn than necessary to feed the entire population... but I don't have numbers to back up that assertion. :-) My point is that while many fundamental industries (textiles, manufacturing, etc.) can and will move largely overseas where manual labor is cheaper, some of those industries are requisite for any serious long-term defense plan.
No, they don't need handholding. Frankly, many of these farmers are terrible businessmen, sold on the old rustic ideal of the independent farmer. There needs to be a lot more consolidation across the industry. Farming collectives are nice, but they don't quite get there in terms of ROI. Farming must ultimately succumb to market forces, just like anything else. However, that doesn't change the fact that we need to keep enough farming local... and today, I don't know how much that is.
Lastly, too much consolidation is a poor defense plan too. If all our food is grown in just Iowa or something, a few nukes could take out the entire supply. There just need to be some checks and balances.
-l
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Interesting but confusing system, must make it fun to index these cases. In England/Wales they have the Queen vs. whoever for any case launched for or against the state.
That's an understatement. In fact, several of his arguments are, frankly, absurd:
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
"all tools that enable circumvention of use restrictions are banned, not merely those use restrictions that prohibit infringement"
1. This has not made its way to the Supreme Court, so it doesn't apply in my district, and 2. the ruling contradicts a statute. If a tool is incapable of decrypting "a work protected under this title" (say it checks each disc against a whitelist of public domain discs), then 17 USC 1201 has no effect.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It can be rough going, but I highly recommend reading Lord Macaulay's speech, because in a hundred an sixty years, the issues have practically not changed at all, and he demolished the case for extreme copyright extension so effectively that it didn't rear its ugly head for generations after.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Great post!
The Supreme Court is now part of the corruption of the U.S. government. See Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz and The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President by Vincent Bugliosi, Molly Ivins (Foreword), Gerry Spence
I wrote a (free) book that collects links from the world's most respected news sources to show corruption of the U.S. government by the secret agencies of the U.S. government: What should be the response to violence?