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Hilary Rosen from RIAA will write Iraq's Copyrights?
sould writes "The Register is reporting that Hilary Rosen is to assist in writing Iraq's Intellectual Property laws. Can't have those Iraqi's pirating Eminem now can we?"
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Copyright law is entirely separate from property law, and as such "intellectual property" as a term is an attempt to sell the concept of copyright as a property right to lessen the outcry over the continuous attack on fair use and the public domain.
And no, I'm not trolling.
Please don't fall into the trap of believing that all Iraqis are necessarily tribal, tent-dwelling folk - Iraq has a sizeable, educated, (and often relatively westernised) middle class.
Remember, they had running water until the US and UK bombed them.
Mod early, mod often.
Here are some news stroies (Google is your friend):
* Palast, BBC journalist, says war is profit-maker for Bush allies
* Post-war carve-up to benefit CDMA standard, record industry
* Journalist says media is biased on war
I encourage you to check out Greg Palast's site. He is the BBC reporter that the original article mentions and the author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy". Interesting read.
They're writing a copyright law for a country that needs clean water and food? give us a break.
Besides, as somebody else mentioned here, Iraq already has copyright laws.
They are not cavemen you know.
...they just don't have copyright with a life + 75 year span. (They have life + 25 up to a maximum of 50 years) They also don't have 97.000.000.000$ fines for copyright violation.
<rant-mode>
One could reasonably argue that when it came to copyright, if nothing else, Iraq actually had more sane laws than both the US and the EU.
I'm, sure that will change real soon now though.
</rant-mode>
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Yeah, that's right: Iran's organising the shiites. I assume they're using messenger pidgeons since there's no telephone system, either land or mobile and the place is crawling with US troops.
Maybe we would like a country with less tolerance for terrorist organizations between Syria and Iran?
Probably best to stop prevoking them and making it easy for them to recruit supporters. While you're at it perhaps you'd like to ask Mr Bush why he blocked the investigations that would have prevented 9/11 (by accident, I admit. Bush was so worried about helping his business friends that he didn't consider that the FBI's warnings about a big immediate threat to the WTC might be more important).
Maybe we'd like to see a succesfull democracy between Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia?
If by "we" you mean the US government, then no that exactly what they don't want. What they want is a weak democracy that takes its orders from the likes of Hillary Rosen. When democracies don't make the right "free" choice then the current administration does what it did in Venezuela and gets its military attache to let the local rebels know that if the democractically elected (and popular) leader was to, say, drop down dead from having an extra hole in his head, that any new and non-elected government that lowered oil prices wouldn't have anything to worry about. He was only saved by a tip-off from his friends in OPEC.
You could also have a look at Pakistan for a model of the sort of "democracy" Bush supports: one man, one vote and the man is Gen Musharraf (holder of weapons of mass destruction, but these are nice weapons of mass destruction).
Isn't that what the Mid-East states fear the most?
Yes, but not in the way you mean. True democratic elections in almost all ME countries would lead to the current governments being toppled because of their pro-US policies.
Bush's idea of free elections is for people to decide which of his friends to vote for. The idea that an anti-US candidate will be allowed to run in Iraq is pure fantasy.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"