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Million-Dollar Donation To Fight Abusive Copyrights
WeekendKruzr writes: "There is a story on C|Net detailing how Duke University's law school received an anonymous gift of $1 million for the express purpose of funding '...advocacy and research aimed at curtailing the recent expansion of copyright law.' It's good to know that we have some well-funded idealists on our side, even if they are 'Anonymous Cowards.' ;^) This, combined with the recent rash of even large corporations running afoul of intellectual property law, could precipitate some tangible results in the next couple of years."
Do people not understand that the law is there to protect them ?
I am an information consumer. Please explain how the DMCA protects me.
Anyone know how the anonymous transfer of a million dollars happens?
Especially these days, when big secretive money moves are watched more carefully.
A bunch of 50s in some briefcases?
Some kind of anonymous bank check?
Or does the University probably know, but part of the deal is that they don't tell anyone?
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
The latest buzz seems to be that the Telcoms and tech manufacturers are getting peeved with the MPAA and RIAA push to legislate thier industry (Hollings Bill, DMCA liability). The 20 billion dollar entertainment industry is trying to push around a 600 billion dollar tech industry.
Simply put: Piracy is the killer app for Telcoms and consumer electronics industries, unless it's in the Telcoms and consumer electronics.
My theory: I think the Telcoms and friends want to devalue the entertainment industry. They want the same exclusive content that AOL/Time Warner enjoys, but rather aquiring the content via an expensive merger, our friends would much rather buy all that content at commidity prices, or sign exclusive deals to act as the conduit to deliver music and entertainment at competitive prices.
If you really want to figure out who's conspiring what. (1) You have to be realistic (2) You have to determine how it pays off
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I disagree, a million dollars is a good amount for some research.
It isn't enough to fight anyone, but it is a good amount to pay a small staff to research the actual cost and benefits of copyrights.
We really don't have clear data on how much work is impeded by copyright patent length, and how much worse it would be if it was lengthened.
Nor do we know what effect shorter periods would have.
So little is really known that we can't intelligently argue all that fairly about the cost and benefit to society.
Basically, you have a donor who "anonymously" threw $1 million at Duke to fund "advocacy and research" of battling copyright law expansion. Why this is good is hopefully apparent. It's basic economics of the new millenium.
Basically, corporations believe that public knowledge of technology and processes is bad, because it's hard to make money off of something everyone can reproduce. This country is founded on democracy (good) but also has strong roots in free-market capitalism (mostly good). Making money is why we as a country are so well off, and people seek to maximize their money making. Public domain knowledge of technology and processes reduces the chance to make money because people will pay you more for something that only *you* can make, hence putting a premium on innovative AND proprietary information.
Lawmakers in a capitalist society are easily swayed by the corporations with their lobbying and donations, making it possible to influence law in their favor. In this case, copyright law, when expanded, better protects the information of corporations, making it harder for technology and processes to come into the public domain. In a society where money is so valued, any chance to make money by the corporations is often countered by ways to save money by the consumers.
We as consumers would love to see copyright law weakened rather than expanded because it increases the potential to save money. Also, there is a certain ideology in promoting the free sharing of thought, ideas, and technology for the betterment of society. So when someone donates money to the cause of actively opposing copyright law expansion, it serves to benefit us (the consumers).
But the real question is this: Why would someone do this? Certainly someone with a cool million lying around did something to make that money. What is to be gained by an individual donating that much money to a cause that has its roots in opposing the big corporation and "the man"? Likely, it isn't because it was just philosophically the "right thing to do".
-AAAWalrus
Hmm, a well known law school gets a large anonymous donation to fight our awful IP laws so shortly after eBay gets into trouble with a very vague and questionable patent.
What strange timing. I wonder if one of those fresh out of school lawyers will be taking up eBay's case at a significant discount. I wonder how much cheaper one of these lawyers is than a more expens... I mean experienced lawyer.
~Ben
For anyone who's interested, the law school's website has a press release with a little bit more information than was mentioned in the C|Net article. It is great to see that some people (esp. the lawyers!) can see the harm that is being done by our outdated system of intellectual property laws.
Even at the undergrad level, it seems that Duke has taken an interest in the subject. This year, for the first time ever, the CS department is offering a course that I'm currently enrolled in whose primary focus is intellectual property issues. It's panning out to be a pretty cool course, and is actually the only CS course I've taken thus far that doesn't involve any coding.
I think more CS departments should offer curriculum like this, since we (the techies) have a unique perspective on the issues, because we are the ones opening the public's eyes to the fact that our system of intellectual property law needs to be completely revamped.
If anyone out there has an interest in the topic, I'd highly reccommend reading John Barlow's The Economy of Ideas as a starting point.
-Matt
Duke '05
Now with some big money in play, maybe the anti-copyright forces have a chance after all. I just love American government -- of the people, by the people, for the people.
In addition to entertainment, 'font software', source code, educational textbooks, design concepts, and 'architectual work' are copyrighted. An indefinite extension to copyright of such items will harm education efforts, the ability of musicians, artists, designers, and architects to create 'derivative' works, or incorporate design elements of varied themes, and the ability of archivists and librarians to capture such work in a meaningful way that lets us preserve history and culture.
In my opinion, a lot of the failures of the world wide web to capture all information (especially educational or 'high quality' content) in a searchable manner are related to our attitudes towards copyright and IP.
While abuse of copyright and dwindling fair use law is bad, fundamentally those things which are copyrighted are created by the authors, and they should have the ability to control them
They should have the right to their material creations, since they own that piece of property. The specific design or pattern that they discover, however, should be only protected for a limited time.
If a scientist discovers a hidden truth of the Universe, he doesn't get to control how others use that knowledge, once disclose. If an inventor discovers a useful device that can be built, he only retains a monopoly on that device for 17 years, until after his patent runs out.
If a musican, writer, or sculpture happen upon a pleasing combination of notes, words, or artwork, he can restrict others from creating works with that pattern of words, notes, or artwork for his entire lifetime, plus at least 50 years (for Berne Convention countries, 70 years in the US).
If you wish to argue that creators should have universal rights over thier creations, then recall that under most countries laws, a creator only has the right to create things from components which he or she owns. For example, if someone chooses to paint Mona Lisa on the side of my car, with my paints, I own the resulting creation, not them.
Now, recall that the words, phrases, and culture that authors and artists use belong to the public domain -- and hence, all derivative works of the public domain should return there.
--
AC
The US Constitution gives Congress the power to grant creators exclusive rights for "a limited time." Since when did life plus 75 years become "a limited time"?
If someone is sent to prison for life, is that "a limited time"? If you purchase a product which is advertised with a warranty that lasts ten years longer than you shall live, would you think the warranty is limited in time?
If I am awarded something or restricted from something for the rest of my life no matter how long I shall live, that is an unlimited time as far as I am concerned. If my ISP offered me $5/month Internet access for the rest of my life regardless of how long I live, I would consider that to be cheap internet service for an unlimited time. If my driver's license was suspended for life, that would be a complete revocation, not a suspension for a limited time. So I wonder what in the world the lawmakers were smoking when they thought that "a limited time" for anything granted to a person could be defined as a time period that is guaranteed to extend beyond their lifetime. Apparently "a limited time" to them is anything less than infinity.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Too many people donate money because they want to be seen as charitable, they are essentially doing it for selfish reasons. When I donate money I don't want my name on a plaque, in fact I don't want any recognition - I donate because I believe in something not for recognition of my charity.
In fact the current campaign contribution (i.e. bribery) system could be improved by requiring all contributions to be completely anonymous.