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Mexico to Abolish the Public Domain?
Anonymous Mexican Coward writes "The mexican congress is considering a revision of the copyright law. Among other changes the law will extend the term of copyright from life-plus-70 to life-plus-100, and at the end of that term, the mexican government has the right to charge royalties for works in the "public domain."
Go Mexico!
Check it out"
....... next they will start taxing the air we breath.
Here's is mexico's number one automobile.
Wait I'm confused, isn't this a bad thing?
Why is this "Go Mexico"??
They're extending copyright and abolishing the copyright domain.
Let's fix that typo: BOO MEXICO!
http://www.virtualvillagesquare.com/ Online Communities: The Next Generation
Mexico may /not/ be the best place to go if you enjoy various liberties!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Its not like there were any groundbreaking inventions coming out of mexico... besides maybe the double-sided bong?
The mexican government has the right to charge royalties for the use of Spanish. Nations banking system saved!
capitalism is out of control!
Look what the dictorship of the bourgeoisie is doing to the world!
It's a sad state when governments and people forget why copyright was invented in the first place and the reason it was useful.
Damn! Does that mean I'll need to pay royalties to the Mexican government every time I sit on my porch wearing one of those stupid hats, drinking Tequila and strumming the ukulele?
What a shame.
You're doing it wrong.
The race for the bottom has now entered the final 100-yard sprint! Place your bets!
Wah!
Life plus 100?
Too short!
It has to be at least life plus 250. Or 300. Why give anyone a chance to compete? Life plus 500! Yeah, that's the ticket!
I can just see the authors flocking to Mexico now. Hey, I'm writing a poem, which I'm selling to a neighbor. Guess I can deduct that trip to Cancun!
Is suntan lotion deductible?
Here, as always, is a case of several powerful, influential multinational corporations taking control of art from the hands of the people, where it belongs.
It is sad that such forces can take hold so easily in a nation on the verge of modernization. =(
Sarcasm fans? In the house? Anywhere? Anywhere?
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
(BTW, the sig is a management concept, not what it sounds like :) )
The Dirty Work Group
So, where does the GPL fit into this? Is Mexico going to claim ownership of my work? Will they then try to sell rights to companies to package my code without distributing source?
I think you are trying to post for the previous topic: Ask Slashdot: What's Your Favorite Underappreciated Movie? Kinda sad when you don't even know which thread you are posting on....
While I was learning that this type of article is a writing technique known as "situational irony" I could've been coding.
Just out of curiosity, is Micro$oft required to release the source of MS-DOS 1.0 when/if the copyright expires, or does just the binary form become public domain? The source is copyright too, no?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
http://doa2.host.sk/
http://www.gnucleus.com/
http://www.overnet.com/
http://www.gnutellanews.com/
http://www.zeropaid.com/
http://www.peek-a-booty.org/pbhtml/index.php
http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Main/ WebHome
http://www.thehonestthief.com/
Imagine how efficient it would be if we all had to pay royalties every time we made a fire, or used a wheel. By the way, does anyone wonder what would happen if the government taxed the bible (which is in public domain)? I think it could get a lot of people angry.
cant wait till the RIAA starts making the argument "it is completely unacceptable that mexican authors have more protection than american authors".
They made the same argument about europe when they put in the latest copyright extention act.
The amendment has been strongly supported by authors and collecting societies but on the other hand; it has been rejected by the industry.
Really? Authors and their estate managers want longer copyright, but the industry doesn't. Isn't it usually the other way round in the USA? Does anyone who understands the issue in detail wish to comment on why?
What were the chances that this article wasn't a dupe? Give the the gambler a break!
Nailing my great-great-great-great grandkids for more tax is not acceptable just because they are not born yet.
Grrrrr.
_______________
Cheap Web Site Hosting
Seems to me there are a few things at play regarding this. It could be a test of public opinion, as another reader suggests. It's done, rather shamelessly, here in the US *all the time*. Other thing it could be as well, that since the US and Mexico are trying to be a bit closer together, who knows what deals are being made with them regarding copyright. Look what we're trying to do to ourselves. If certain parties who intend to serve self intrests are global, or at least multi-national, wouldn't they try to influence governments in each region they had a stake in?
So back to my question above, who set the precident first of life-term + some number of years for copyrighting works? Seems to me the US is to blame for this, even though it will really, really, really, hurt our youth and generations to come. It's poison in the resevoir. Beware Mexico.
--SuperBug
P.S. nuke the mudslums
Greetings, Microcomputer User
Hello, I am a Erstanwender Slashdot called website here of this. My English is not, thus well thus I writes on my native German. I am surprised, why there are so many strange people, which communicate here. In my country we call these people fat female donkeys, which do not have life. What do you call it in your country? I would like to really know such things. Also is it applicable that the public is completely homosexual Slashdot? I am not homosexual, but I would like to be. So I can all day long have hot sex with users MitLinux. Linux gives me wood, believes that I, which it does. Sometimes I may creep under the sheets and the masturbate male Penguin nude for the sight. How erotisch! I think that I go now. I am pleased to read your answers. Have one superday!
Mexicans:
Write your Deputies (by party, unfortunately) and your Senators (by state).
_______________
Cheap Web Site Hosting from $3 a month!
other NAFTA countries.
Canada is a NAFTA country.
Canadian copyright as of March 2003 lasts for life plus 50 years.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Next /. posting
Microsoft anounces office 2003 will not be copyrighted in the U.S. but is copyrighted in Mexico. When asked why this strange development a senior microsoft spokesmen says:
"Mexican law is a lot like it's labor, cheap to buy and it does what we tell it to do."
"Peace is a cry for those who can not defend themselfs" Unknown
Everyone knows its in mexico everyone knows all you have to do its grease the right palms and no one cares :-D
Just because some fool writes up an email saying that congress will vote on something does not mean that it is a reality.
If it were really official it would be posted on the senate's official webpage: http://www.senado.gob.mx
Or in congress' official webpage: http://www.diputados.gob.mx/
I guess this is typical slashdot bullshit where the editors don't even bother to check the facts.
I guess the criteria for posting a story is: Does it make a good flamebait? Does it bash M$?
The list goes on.
Alejandro Abreu -- Composer http://listen.to/Ollin
--
Power to the Peaceful
The way things are currently going in the US, the only difference I see in the future is that intellectual property will _never_ fall into the public domain (and hence not get the chance to be handed over to the government).
The U.S. announced the Walt Eisner Protection Act, extending copyright to life plus 100-years and allowing the government to charge royalties on public domain works. When asked about it, representatives said that it was to keep copyright laws in sync with Mexico. U.S. officials along with the RIAA are now waiting for another country to pass even more restrictive copyright laws for them to sync to.
-no broken link
"mitlinux" is actually supposed to translate to "with linux", original poster forgot the space. Closest I can figure out to erstanwender is it means "first time visitor".
/me goes and has a super day.
Altho that last one is not a word for word translation and more of an educated guess.
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
I am a writer so obviously I value copyright because without it my work would be worthless. But I also value the fact that I am able to draw on hundreds of years of cultural and literary tradition for my inspiration. This is why the public domain is so important. If I want to use the Cinderella myth I can (Disney doesn't own it yet!).
The Mexican proposal would be a disaster! Copyright was originally meant to be about 20 years. It was a state-granted monopoly to compensate the person who wrote/invented the material and to provide an incentive for future innovation.
Fair enough. But it needs to be balanced with the public interest in free and open access to cultural ideas. Do you really think that the makers of Clueless (okay, not a good movie but it's an example) should have to pay royalties to Jane Austen's estate? (It's a retelling of Emma).
This is why I object to the extensions of copyright made to appease companies like Disney. The inventor of Mickey Mouse died a long time ago and I think Disney has made enough money out of him already.
Extending copyright for the copyright owner is one thing (bad) but the government sticking its grubby paws into it is something else again (much worse). It's completely outrageous! If I write a book, how is it fair for the government (let alone the Mexican government since I'm Australian not Mexican) to claim the benefit? If anyone is going to benefit it should be me (I plan to live forever after all) or my estate. (Or preferably it should truly be in the public domain after a fair and reasonable length of time).
So far we've only discussed copyright so we're just talking about arts and literature and popular entertainment. Just wait until they start extending this to patents!
Has anybody checked to see if this is true, and not a hoax? It sounds a lot like the old modem tax urban legend.
Why should anyone be surprised by this news? Governments always get bigger and more intrusive until they are overthrown. It's the nature of the beast.
When have we seen governments decide, "Hey, we don't need [fill in some social program] anymore, the citizenry can take care of [fill in something people want] all by themselves without our help."?
The taste of power only leaves the unquenchable thirst for more. And government power is the ultimate power, for it is the only power which wields the legal right to use deadly force to acheive its goals.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I mean, can we trust the source of this notice?, my brother is a lawyer and always told me about stuff like this.
;)
If this is true then i guess there is no turning back, no one will protest about copyrights stuff when 90% of the population needs the most basic services like water and energy.
Anyway... Just think for a second... Doesnt that send this to all your fiends bullshit sounds a little too familiar?, for me it sounds like a viral email scam, why im not surprised its in Slashdot frontpage?
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
Every once in a while a troll needs a mod up for funny, and I think parent is one of them. Especially 'cause my Deutch isn't so good and I only get about half of it makes it even funnier!
Getting all of it, as long as one can extract any meaning at all of this gibberish, makes it a completely unfunny troll.
There's gotta be a "Self-respecting large Mexican is gonna kick your ass"-bait mod. Everyone makes fun of Mexicans until one of them shows you how they bust-a-cap south of the border. You never see other nationalities afraid to make fun of us, do you? Quiet, large foreign people are spooky for good reasons...
... should be safe as long as anyone is contributing to that project (+ remaining life of that someone + 100 years).
If an open source project has not have contributions for 100+ years, then i don't really care if the Government of Mexico can charge royalties on it.
------------------
On a side note, i suspect that the works of Aristotelis, Plato and Omero will become more expensive to buy in Mexico. Same thing for traditional Mexican music.
This will never become law. The prior "administration", whose party (the PRI) ruled the country for 80+ years is simply doing what they do best - make empty populist gestures and try to push crap through congress to see what happens.
And the current administration is unabashedly pro-business (and unfortunately pro-church as well) and since the system is similar to the US, I doubt the prez will sign it. He'll just veto it because along with his party (the PAN) he's in bed with everyone from EMI to Coca-Cola.
And the company doing this? I know them - my brother used to work here. They're used by the various families who own newspapers in Mexico to hassle each other with stupid copyright claims all the time. Of course "OLIVARES & CIA." obliges gleefully since they take a cut. Ambulance chasers of the 21st century.
Dia diabh, sin mo cead am dul go slashdot. Nil mo bearle an mhaith agus mar sin taim ag caint as gaeilge. Ceapaim go mhaith laoibh pog an bod agus nach bhfuil aon beatha agat. As gaeilge fearstraide sin an ainm ata agat, cad e as bearla? Nach bhfuil aon Gaeilge agat, taim cinnte nach bhfuil aon rud a fhail as babelfish na aon ait eile leis an riomhaire. Taim ag dul go dti mo leaba, oiche mhaith agat.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
If I read this right the law will be changed to allow someone to collect money from industry to pay to artists in respect of private copying. This would explain why manufacturers and vendors of equipment and media for reproducing copyrightable subject matter are so down on the idea. They would have to pay it.
Yep they sure will claim ownership of your work ... 100 years after you and everyone else whose code you collaborated with to create the said work is dead. You can't complain about that! You raise an interesting question, how long after a piece of GPL software is released would we be happy to see MS/SCO being able to pick up the code and not release the source to a product using it? 20 Years (the oft talked about figure) seems ok to me, but how low would we go? 10 years? 5 years?
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
BumbleBee Man!
On the other hand, if there is a very rigid patent system, ideas never get into the public domain and every new product has a defacto tax built into it. The inflationary pressure would be incredible. Copyrights behave a little bit differently than patents in this scenario. An extensive protection period for copyrights provides an incentive for "monopolistic stagnation"1. Similarly, copyrights can be used as a form of censorship or to limit access by competitors. The effect can be rather chilling--no Project Gutenberg, information controlled by one source for extended periods of time, etc.
In the case of Mexico, or any country that follows a similar path, I think the business climate would eventually detoriate. There would be a high price of entry for new businesses and established businesses would feel less pressure to compete. Even foreign companies would have difficulty in entering.
An interesting read on copyrights can be found in the article by Lydia Pallas Loren. Maybe my argument is full of holes.
-------------
1COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, INC. v. ALTAI, INC., 982 F.2d 693 (HTML)
Enjoy!
"Public domain? We don't need no steenking public domain."
-B
This policy would of course destroy anything like Project Gutenberg if such a project existed in Mexico. Kind of like killing the original open source, no?
Forgive us we live in California. We haven't quite figured out what this irony thing is even though it's everywhere you look in this state.
To my eye, the linked article reads like a well-crafted troll, akin to the "undetectable virus" warnings. Note the lack of specific references. Something's slightly out of gear here.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Someone from Mexico trying to start something in Spanish, that's even more pathetic than someone from Canada talking out their ass in French.
Just one year before DMCA was approved, Mexican congress approved a law, that is, paragraph by paragraph, DMCA.
So yeah, wait a while and see your own modification to DMCA.
Sometimes, this is advantageous because you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you don't break any really important laws. But on the other hand, don't expect to get all kinds of services from the government here because you won't get jack. I knew people who moved here some years ago because they thought their money would go a lot farther here than in America, but they ended up moving back after two years because they hated it here.
I guess I could say that I understand where they're coming from, but on the other hand, there is so much corruption in the government that I doubt much if any of this money would go into making our cities better. Currently, most populated parts are real eyesores. One sees white sandy beaches with 5 star hotels on our coasts, but go one mile into town and one sees streets filled with trash, despite the signs warning against littering. It's such a shame because we're a hard working people and we could be better than America, but we let our problems get the best of us. Oh well... In the overall scheme of things, copyright isn't as important as one might think. (Who's to stop you from downloading it from China?)
Every time I hear mexico and something about technology all I can think of is:
t ml
http://www.theonion.com/onion3112/mexicancopy.h
If you're reading this, now is the time to revolt. You've reached the "no-man's land" of your government forcing you to pay it in order to think. That you have no money is a sign that your government wishes you to be intellectually bankrupt as well. Ignorant citizens are the easiest to oppress.
Let me try this another way:
Your government gone bad.
Burn it.
Make good one.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
The scary thing I'm not sure which is worse.
No shit. They have oil, they're right here rather than halfway around the world, and Vincente Fox was opposing us at the UN.
Mexico had better watch its fucking back.
... the difference between public domain and government domain.
I as a Mexican and freddom advocate would be very upset about something like this and would certainly do whatever I could to oppose this. BUT: All I've seen so far is an e-mail from some alleged company composed by "almost 10 IP specialists" (Almost? 9 1/2 maybe?).
I've searched the recent logs of Mexican Congress' sessions and found not a single reference to the Copyright Law. Didn't find anything on Mexican news sites, either.
I personally think this may as well be a hoax.
(Indian as in Feathers, not Dots)
I think the correct terminology is: "woo-woo" Indians, not "goodness gracious me" Indians.
I think you should check first the source of this information. There's not a single reference about this issue in the Mexican Congress site nor in the Mexican news sites I checked.
Besides, maybe there is a misunderstanding here. The Federal Copyright law states that the Government may collect the patrimonial benefits *if and only if* the copyright holder dies and there is no one who can legally inherit the copyright.
Anyway, any email from a alleged company formed by "almost 10 IP experts" (Almost? 9 1/2 maybe?) and with a final sentence asking you to "Share this important notice" sounds to me like yet another e-mail hoax.
The electronics industry is by far, bigger than the "intellectual property" industry. With living standards and salaries going down the sewer, this is the last thing that the electronics industry wants, since the bill also includes a heavy tax on any recordable media and, IIRC, recording device, to "offset the losses from piracy".
The pollitical class here is so incompetent that Dubya in his worst times is far smarter than any of them.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
I hope that their is some killer App or something like the cure to Aids that can be copyrighted (Not patented, I know drugs can't be copyrighted), something really, really important something that will change the whole human race. Then I hope some A$$hole holds the copyright ( Like me :) ) and hold it for ransome just because they can due to the copyright laws.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Patriot missle won't fit :(
...are brilliant people from Mexico, both brimming with groundbreaking ideas!
Way cool shit from Mexico, well Cheech anyway!
The Disney Corporation[DIS] has moved its official corporate headquarters along with the contents of the infamous Disney Vault to Mexico City, Mexico. In a press release the company stated that in addition to retaining existing intellectual property under Mexican law, Disney would be introducing a brand new character, "El Ratón Mickey." The new character's copyright is not expected to expire until 2525. The copyright's official and legal creator, Servando Marques, is a Mexican citizen and cartoonist, bioimagineered for unnaturally long life.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
See here.
Ticks mexico on list of possible places to live
hmm so that leaves another 50 other countrys...
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Then the US gets to "harmonize" again.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The hits disappear as soon as one adds amendment, proposed, proposal to the search terms.
Those should have turned up hits even in Spanish, I think. While my Spanish sucks rocks, that's one of the languages for which machine translation sort of works.
As far as I'm concerned, given that someone else checked Mexican government sites and didn't find it, the burden of proof that this isn't a troll is on the original author.
It would be a suicidally stupid thing for a national government to do. Imagine a 6 year old having to do an intellectual property search on the Net every time she was assigned to write a story for school and then try to find the intellectual property owners... if they can be found after 100 years.
While it's hard to quantify or model the economic loss due to the inability to use public domain work as a basis for further creativity, if I wrote fiction for a living, I'd be packing if this passed where I lived. Or if I were a parent.
However, we have no credible evidence of such. What we have is a blog posting that doesn't cite a verifiable URL from a government source. This is a credibility killer given that the subject is a proposed act of public law.
The article shouldn't have been accepted without one from either the author of the original article or the poster.
Tech Public Policy stuff
NO! he is an idiot who typed his text in english (& for the second or third time). the german text is a bad web translation. no native speaker would suck so badly in grammar... and I do not think it is funny... rockclimber
Yeh, just like the CPU in my computer, silicone naturally acts like a transister. Were just using the natural process more efficiently, how did anyone ever get a patent or copyright on that.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
When is everyone going to figure out that owning ideas is impossible and contrary to the way people operate?
See http://www.olivares.com.mx/. A whois on their domain also looks as it should (with creation and modification dates both other than entirely recent).
We don't need no steenkin' public domain. --Treasure of the Sierra Madre
IIRC, the Lieutenant Governor with jurisdiction over Rock Ridge found this practice in his legal dictionary under "land, see snatching".
This is the real problem that I have with neoliberal capitalism. It isn't liberal, it isn't capitalism, and if I read history correctly, it isn't neo.
It's part of the privatize/nationalize cycle that wealthy and powerful people use to steal from not-so-wealthy and not-so-powerful people.
There is NO WAY that this form of dominance benefits those around the world. It's called stealing, and it's as old as the hills.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
If bush see this, he will follow the same idea, but change it so that the public domain money is sent to texas or florida.
I'm not geting any of this through any other source yet. Nothing. nothing in the business rags, nothing in the copyright activist wings, i haven't seen this ANYWHERE. I haven't seen it in the proposed legislation papers and frankly, if somebody's got a bead on this, bring it up and let's get a look, because this sounds crazy to me. Are they looking for someone to retain them to protect their feared-for copyrights? Is this an ad? Do these people exist? what happened to the fraction of a guy (almost ten)- is he the guy who submitted the story? (Oh, aquel hombre es Carlito, y el no possesse ... fill in the blank with the parts that Carlito is missing...)
*sigh* oke, slashdotters. what have we got on this that's real??? Is this even a real address?
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
>Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Reading Slashdot is to the mind what masturbation is in terms of exercise
Wow. Now every Taco Bell has to pay royalties for every taco sold. Not to mention the chihuahua.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Actually I was reading about this the other day. The first Bible translation to be copyrighted was either the American Standard Version (ASV) or the Revised Standard Version (RSV) around the turn of the 19th-20th century. The reason given was so that someone couldn't come along afterwards, change some verses they didn't agree with, and republish the work in the public domain with the same title, appearing to be just another copy of the origional work.
Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth!
First off, Mexico has not signed this into law yet, but since everyone is concerned wther the US would follow suit let me point out something.
This proposed law grants the government the ability to charge for public domain works. This would not be in the best interest of the **AA which routinely uses PD works as they like.
The government would also have an interest in letting copyrighted works expire into the public domain so they could make their money, hence no more copyright extensions. The **AA certainly wouldn't like that.
I clicked on the link and was presented with an e-mail message which states at the bottom "Please circulate this important notice." I usually delete chain letters and yell at the people who send them to me. Why does this one get posted to /. with no confirmation?
La cucaracha, la cucaracha.... da da da da da da da.
La cucaracha, la cucaracha.... da da da da da da da.
Bill me, Vicente Fox?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Has anyone here ever even been to Mexico??? I think the Mexican gov't has more important things to do than enforce copyright laws. I was in Mexico and saw a club using the playboy symbol (no copyright), a school decorated with Winnie the Pooh characters ( no copyright) to name just a few. This will never be enforced.
... since we on the interenet _are_ the public domain. As long as there is an internet, there will always be a global and effective way to circumvent the more draconian information legislations. Some will abuse it but most, I think, will use it as a source of empowerment; a way to effect change or rail against the powers that need changing.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Mexico has a congress?
A country that keeps 90% of there population in poverty while exporting 16.6% of the US oil (second only to Saudi Arabia) and NAFTA...
and have not caught up to european living standards at least....
should really cut down on the Siestas, get there your butts up politically, and change the rules. If there standard of living goes up, we will lose LESS work to them.
It is that simple, and the bandits at Pemex (mexican oil company) are simply raping the country, with the thumbs up from the governement... cause every body gets a kickback.
Relax and watch the blinkenlights. *g*
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a, a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at.
Olivares Copyright and Technology group is comprised of
almost 10 IP specialists, many of whom have technical
degrees. The group handles complex litigation, brand
protection and anti-piracy, licensing, copyright, and patent
and trademark prosecution.
For further information, contact:
Luis C. Schmidt
52 55 53 22 3000
lsr@olivares.com.mx
Sincerely,
OLIVARES & CIA.
PS: Please circulate this important notice.
-1 Troll
In particular, might there be a requirement that the US and Canada follow suit?
That would be interesting - it would give RIAA, software makers and the like a very convenient, relatively inexpensive (I suspect paying off Mexican legislators is less expensive than paying off US legislators) way to impose their notions of Goodness and Niceness on the rest of North America without actually having to bring up the subject in the US or Canada.
There's a group of ex-scientologists who still consider the stuff Hubbard taught to be true, but improperly administered by the church. They practice civil disobedience in distributing their "scriptures," which are under copyright by the Church of Scientology. I believe they are called "freezoners."
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
couldn't possibly have been ... must have just been
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
If they can't keep their own people from running out of the country, how it is they plan to keep these laws enforced? Does it matter? they will just come here to have their babies, and make public domain copies. Probably back-bill to the US taxpayer.
It just does get better than this!
Ej dirtst stulbeni, Bablefish latviesu valodu neem.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
This is the most lenient copyright on the whole market, more specific and probably more broad than any other.
Do you think you'd get away with quoting 500 sentences (I know, sentence != verse, but its close) out of the latest Grisham novel?
And its not like they're gouging you for a copy of the NRSV, you can pick one up for a few bucks.
And heck, even the site you linked to as "proof" of their policies has a free, online copy of the thing, although I prefer the following link, its a bit better organized:
http://www.devotions.net/bible/00bible.htm
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Actually, the real changes in the law involves charging the electronics industry a "compensatory" fee due to ilegal copies of copyrighted material.e fault.htm
You can take a a look at the website of the best newspaper in Mexico: http://www.elnorte.com/negocios/articulo/293070/d
Anyway, a bad thing if you live in Mexico and want to buy electronic stuff.
Copyright law is meaningless in a nation of illiterates.
The bill is here.. And the reforms where aproved on 05/12/02. It does not say anything about the government getting rights on public domain stuff though. (Unless I misread some of the legalesse stuff)
And the road goes ever on....
.... to the term "Gulf of Mexico".
Whoa whoa whoa. There's a new mexico?
You have got to be kidding me, I cant believe someone made this PR crap a real posting on Slashdot.
For starters Mexican Law is all "show" and no enforcement almost a JOKE!, while this may also apply to other countries, it's not like the U.S and Europe were laws are enforced to some degree , and in some cases even to the extreme, like DMCA."Debates in congress have intensified" mmmhhh..YEAH RIGHT!, these guys only intensify when the funding of the coming election is coming up!, they are politicians, and mexican politicans at that!.
Here my friends it's the law of the "Bandido" especially with the intagible (Intellectual Property) , whilst there are some organizations created by the government for Intelectual Property (IMPI http://www.impi.gob.mx), these are probably an initiative by U.S companies!, in a country were 80% live of the "tangible" resources (oil, land, and the likes), even the laws the protect the people in these areas are tangled, now imagine getting into the realm on Intelectual Property.
I for one form part of the 20% that live of what I know, do I see someone in the future lining up at the bank and paying me royalties for something that's under my name....YEAH RIGHT!!, probably after some lawyers (like the ones who made the post) take me to the cleaners!.
This is really some poor stunt to get a gringo audience to this guy's firm, did you see the previous post : Olivares & Cia is a firm that.blalblablabla.
I guess lawyers are lawyers in every country! DISGUSTING!!
Israel will begin collecting royalties on any publication of the Book of Genesis. This new plan is also retroactive to any copies you may have purchased in the past. I'll post the Pay Pal address later, so you can all pay up.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Thank you, thank you soooo much! I still can't stop laughing!
If you care to check...
a s/ gp58_a3segundo.html
this is the Agenda of the Mexican Congress.
http://gaceta.diputados.gob.mx/Gaceta/Iniciativ
or just search on the main page:
http://www.camaradediputados.gob.mx/
So far the Mexican Law is mostly based on the soviet law, which tries to put works in the public domain as soon as posible.
And anything that could be of use for good of the people can be declared on the public domain.
That si why in Mexico you cant patent a medicine (altough Mexico acept the patents registered outside...)
Javier Delgado
Is your sig a quote from the Jawa(sp?)'s response to Uncle Owen when question about the R2's bad motivator in the original Star Wars? If so, nice.
End of Line.
Literature, soap operas, Music (Spanish speaking market of course), TV programs, books.
And don't forget all what Miguel de Icaza, of GNOME fame, has produced as well.
Mexico may not be the biggest producer of copyrightable stuff, but it certainly has an important place amongst Spanish speaking countries, of which the US is one of them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Taking the Disney desion a bit far. The primary reason for disney was to keep disneyland running (going to mgm theater park and seeing goofy sort of thing).
It's your goverment and it's authority to govern that is wearing away. TV-media represent 0.05% of the population and an enormous amount of money. Concidering what some people are willing to do for 50 an alternative to popularized media is necessary (ie. union newspaper with public subscription, church, etc.). With technology a professional grade material can be mass produced at little cost.
(Maybe something to concider).
No references, no details, no names, no dates, no credibility. This is a troll.... no I mean THAT is troll... no,no,no! I mean the original thing was a troll!!!
I copied this sig without clicking on the ad links - I'm a criminal!
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
The level of education in Mexico is around 7 school years, way above the time you learn to read, although certainly very low.
Mexican read avidily comics, sports newspapers, and tabloid newspapers, not because they are illiterate, but because these publications are very cheap. Serious literature is too expensive for the average Mexican. People is so avid to have access to serious literature that for example filled Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes to attend a poetry recital of Jaime Sabines. Yes, that is poetry, not Rolling Stones or Britney Spears.
Of course even you realize that even illiterate people can enjoy other art forms that may be affected by legislation like this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most of your posts (and bad jokes) about Mexico are besides the point.
Mexico can pass all the copyright laws they want to but it isn't going to affect the average José. Reason being, Mexico has one of the highest piracy rates in the world. Geez, there are illegal software markets, like open air markets only for wares, apps, and games. And the police don't do anything about this. I've seen police at these illegal markets, not arresting, but shopping there. This isn't going to stop anytime soon, as it is an embedded part of the culture (open air markets that sell pretty much anything).
How do I know this? I've lived here for the past 7 years. I know about this. There is no problem with this new proposed bill. Unlike the US, copyright laws aren't really enforced. The cops are underpaid, there aren't enough cops to counter the software pirates, etc. You might as well stop extrapolating what goes on in the States to what goes on in Mexico.
If anything, copyright would be a problem if you had money. If you own a disco or a bar, then maybe you'd have some explaining to do. Since there isn't a big middle class like in the states, this law won't affect anyone but the big guy. We are all the little guys here.
This has more meat than what the paltry email in Mr Lessig's blog implies.
First of all, this is not a hoax.
You can find the text of the proposed ammendment here (paragraph regarding "derecho de autor").
I will not invoke the Fish, you can do that yourselves if you are so inclined, there are several interesting points:
Article 29: Yeah, 100 years. I will begin to pester the right people, not that they will care (or maybe they do, this may pass under their noses and then the leaders of the parties tell them how to vote).
Then later on, the most interesting bits, in synthesis:
Article 40. Copyright holders have the right to be compensated for any copies that are made without their permission for private use and with no intention of profiting from them.
I. Compensation will be paid by manufacturers or importers of any machines that can store, compress, duplicate or reproduce (as in play I guess) the copyrighted works. Same thing for blank media manufacturers and importers.
The big surprise here is that this seems to legitimize your MP3 collection on stacks or burned CDs as long as you made it from sutff you legitimely own. I believe this may be a first worldwide.
Nowhere says how the compensation will be calculated.
II. Any sellers (retailers, wholesale buyers, etc) have to make sure that compensation was paid, otherwise they are obliged to pay the compensation in solidarity with people in point I (second translation: we can't police all of them, so we force retailers to police manufacturers and importers. Maquiavelian).
IV. Money goes to, surprise, the associations representing the copyright holders. 20% should be used for a nebulous item called "cultural activities"...
V. Stuff with copy protection mechanisms does not pay this tax (i.e. DVDs ant their ilk).
To check the public domain situation you have to go to the ammendment to article 152, first of all anybody can use public domain as long as there is no intention to profit from the work, otherwise who is intending to profit form a public domain work should pay a tax that will be divided 50% for the respective association of copyright holders (writers, composers, etc.) and should be devoted to social spending (whatever that is) and to promote the reperotire of their association members (uhm). The other 50% goes to, yes, you guessed it, the goverment.
Nowhere I found that public domain is abolished, it is being restricted if you want to profit from it.
Finally this is going to the Culture comission in the Congress. It may die there, get uglier or get better.
Finally, even if you are not Mexican you can put pressure: just imagine my poor congress critters receiving loads of emails from North Rio Bravo (Grande) and beyond threateaning to boycott any Mexican copyrightable material if the terms that are clearly abusive (like the 100 year term) are not repelled.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As I posted elsewhere the public domain is curtailed only if you want to profit from it.
You want to profit from public domain? OK, then pay back to society.
You don't want to profit? Then do whatever you want with the work.
I think the logic behind this is not completely flawed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What if a project is considered so polished that does not require any maintenance?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If it's a fake then it really doesn't matter what it says.
We should make sure the Vogons know that, so they'll at least have to leave Mexico when they come to clear us out.
then some kind former M$ employee would surely post it to a public ftp server or gnutella.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
This is the list of Congress people that will discuss this before voting in the Congress.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's a great quote! Is it yours?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!
Nu nafig tu taa! Cilveeks izteica savas domas a tu uzreiz virsuu brauc!:)
If it's a fake why comment on what it says.
Article 122Lifetime of protection granted to artists shall be 50 years counted since:
:) one of the article grants the individual the right to copy an artwork for personal use and no profit. So we still laugh at DMCA after all.
I.- First fixation of play or performance on a phonogram.
II.- First play or performance of artwork not recorded on phonograms, or
III.- First broadcast through radio, television or any medium.
Pardon the bad English, but try and translate from Spanish Legalese to English. Browse through the real and vigentMexican Federal Copyright Law and you'll find no bill or amendment such as this article suggests. In addition you could get some gratifying surprises
I see 57005 people
...to stay a third world country?
fucking spics anyway, what do they know about shit??
Stick to your fucking beans, booze and pot..
how else are the geeks supposed to know?
The ones that are taxed are manufacurers and importers of hardware and blank media. Failing that any companies selling to the public that fail to check that the former payed the tax.
Regarding public domain, again who is affected is who is trying to profit from it, this means in general companies.
In Mexico the goverment can't force regular Jose or Maria to pay taxes (many people work on underground econonomy and don't pay taxes at all, but they can have by the proverbial hairy short ones the companies which can't make business unless they follow the rules. Of course all these additional costs will be passed to the consumer that will foot the bill.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
GO AWAY!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
As far as I know, it is, but the quote presents itself so easily that anybody could have come up with it. Quotation marks and references for this one, therefore, are optional. I do not feel that this is original enough to require it.
On the other hand, if you want to use the phrase "user-friendly", better put a TM-Microsoft by it, just to be safe.
The US Government may make the argument after they finish making copyright perpetual. They can claim the royalties will fund the "protection" of currently published works and public archives, aka libraries.
It won't take that much change of public opinion for that to fly. It's obvious that copyright no longer serves to encourage publishing, the expansion of the public domain, or reward artists. People who put up with fewer than 2% of published works being available destpite nearly costless electronic duplication might deserve such govenment. We are closer to it than you think.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Reply: Why does copyright law apply at all? It's not as if MS ever published the source for any of its DOS versions.
Voice of Reason: Copyright law applies because it's what keeps me from publishing unauthorized coppies of DOS and other M$ junk. It's what puts you in jail. In a hundred years or so, DOS will pass into the public domain and you will be able to make coppies of that binary nightmare.
The situation highlights the absurdity of copyright law as it exists. First, the time period of copyright is long enough to make it perpetual. A 100 year copyright insures that most publications will perish before they enter the public domain. Second, the application of copyright laws to non human readable work is absurd. 100 years ago, player piano rolls enjoyed no such protection. Something very odd happened to project such "protection" onto machine instructions. As machine instructions are essentially collections of numerical algorithms and business methods understood only by machines, it's hard to consider them a proper subject of copyright. Licensing is about as far as the power of software companies should go. It should not be criminal to copy software, because it's essentially a breach of a private contract. If coppies of DOS exist 100 years from now, they will be more usless than any obsolete technical publication ever dreamed of being. The whole basis of copyright law is to encourage the arts and extend the public domain. As M$'s current position depends on unauthorized copy, we can see that the public's right to share information is being violated to no useful purpose.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities.
Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to
park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also
dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big
difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to
do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want.
I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup
truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie"
on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the
accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular,
whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall
parking lots.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
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