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Gates Elaborates on IP Communists
justin_w_hall writes "In part four of his interview with Gizmodo, big Bill Gates discusses his recent 'communist' labeling of supporters of free culture - and gets into detail about his rationale concerning Microsoft's position on DRM. Other parts of the interview: part 1, part 2, part 3."
"No, no, no. I didn't say those people were 'communists.' I did say that they're... The question is: what incentive systems should exist in the world?"
;)
Take, like, putting soundtracks onto movies using our movie editor thing. If you have unprotected music you can take slideshows, put music to it, encapsulate it in the file, mail it aroundit works perfectly.
Why he's a regular guy next door!
Is it just me or is there something a little fishy about this interview?
-ashot
Actually, there already *were* limits, very much like you mentioned, in place. Unfortunatly, Congress under pressure from big media companies, have continued to extend the expiration time of copyrights, so essentially there are no more copyright limitations. Add in to that, that corporations don't die and are treated like people, and you've got infinate copyrights, in direct opposition to the original intent of copyright law.
And then Disney came along. Walt died a long time ago, and as per the old laws, Mickey, Goofy and Minnie would have been in the public domain in 1986 (20 years after Walt died). But the Disney company has gotten the laws extended time and again, so that they are death + 70years now.
Right, see, usually the "I for one" comments aren't funny. But since Gates was talking about open source users (like me and, presumably, you, since you're on /.), it is funny because we are the "Communist Free Culture Overlords." Get it? Get it?
Another one bites the dust
"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."
- Marx
A lovely bit of reasoning which can be used to extend the period of centrally-controlled everything for as long as the revolutionaries see fit. In the Communist states to date, this seems to have been a period that lasted decades, and thus far has only ended because folks found out just how bad central planning could screw up a state's economy (except in Cuba, where apparently the central authority still believes all the bullshit).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Nope, it's the content author who gets to decide what you do with his work. That's the law, if you don't like it, tough shit."
Actually, that's not the law. The Fair Use doctrine (which is technically not a law, but a series of court precedents) allows for certain acceptable uses of copyrighted works. If I'm writing a review of a book, I can quote brief passages of that book. If I'm conducting a film class, I can use snippets of films to demonstrate my points. Derivitive works have certain rights... there's plenty more examples.
The original poster's point (as I understand it) was that in a DRM world, the content producer specifies something 'copies of this cannot be made. PERIOD.' This disregards the above mentioned situations with no regard to context (since computers cannot inherently understand context). While there are certainly more cases where it provents illegal use, it also prevents limited legal uses. It's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
There is no reason that democracy and capitalism go together.
It has been demonstrated, in many different countries, that Capitalism and Totalitarianism/Fascism/Monarchies can go hand in hand.
Why then, is communism limited to only totalitarian regimes?
If the majority in a democracy vote for a communst-style economic plan, why is this less feasible than creating laws to respect capitalistic rights?
To go further: The USSR was not a communistic economy, it was a centrally-planned economy, under a totalitarian government.
The US, during WW2, was a centrally planned economy, under a democratic government.
I see no coupling of economic and political systems.
... hi bingo
That was the intention behind the original copyright laws: death of copyright-holder + 20 years.
Try again. The original copyright terms in the United States were fourteen years, renewable once for an additional fourteen (but they had to be actively renewed).
They were not "death + x years".
See Creative Commons .
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.