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Egypt to Copyright Pyramids and Sphynx
empaler writes "We all know the usual pro-copyright arguments. Most of them hinge on the fact that the individual or company that has a copyright needs an incentive to make something that is copyrightable, and therefore ensure a revenue stream in a period after the copyright has been granted. In a never-surpassed move, Egypt is working on legislation to extend copyright well above 3000 years — they are going to start claiming royalties for using likenesses of the Sphynx and the Pyramids. It is still unclear whether the original intent of the Pyramids included 'making sure them bastards pay for a plastic copy in 3000 years' alongside 'securing a pathway to the heavens for the God King.' Speaking as a Greenlandic national, I want dibs on ice cubes." It sounds straight out of The Onion, but instead you can read another story on the BBC.
This is how people start thinking when their old business model starts falling into pieces. Fewer and fewer people go to Egypt to see the pyramids, it is really not a surprise. Why not go to see the artificial islands in the United Arab Emirates instead? After all it should be safer and these 'wonders' are newer. It really is a more tourist friendly attraction for those going to the Middle East anyway.
But this will not work, sure Egypt can come up with whatever ideas they want but who is going to care?
You can't handle the truth.
...that they will ry and sue the Incas?
If taxation is legalized theft, then Capitalism is a prolonged rape followed by a slow death.
In fact, there is evidence they had nothing to do with them. This comes from the fact that there is evidence that Egyptian labor was used to build them, and it wasn't slave labor, but a decent job during the "off season".
At first blush, this seems absurd, but once you think about it, it really isn't very different from what copyright (and IP in general) has become in recent decades. Disney, for example, is voting themselves eternal copyrights over their stuff, much of which is derivative. I think it's only a matter of time before each culture decides to lay claim to their corpus of work, from the beginning of time. It'd be an interesting battle, as arguably the creators of the English language contributed more to The Little Mermaid than Disney did...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
According to the article on BBC, the Luxor Hotel pyramid is exempt because it isn't an exact copy.
I considered submitting the story myself earlier today, but I figured it was already in the pipeline from someone else.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
The reason people don't want to visit the US:
- presumption of being a criminal: get your fingerprints taken at the border, get inspected by idiots in the name of security every hour, get to take your bloody *shoes* off whenever you want to board a plane. Get real. None of that stuff stops terrorism. It does however, stop *tourism*.
- no protection by the law: as a foreigner you are not protected by any american laws. The constitution doesn't apply to you. The authorities can do with you whatever they want, for any reason they feel like. You could be sitting on a beach one moment and being beaten up in Guantanamo Bay the next, and noone would care.
- lawsuits. Get involved in any kind of accident, and american lawyers will bleed you dry. You might not even be able to go back to your own country.
Is any of this true? Well, it really doesn't matter now does it? As long as people like me perceive these risks to be true we won't visit. And there plenty of other places in the world to go to.
Things get even more interesting if you are arabic-looking, or if you have done anything that american law does not approve of (even if it was legal in the country where the act was committed!). In either case, the risk of going to the US increases considerably.
Either:
- Other countries will ignore it, or
- Other countries will enforce it -- which I doubt, or
- It will force a re-evaluation of the Berne convention.
I hope that it is the last option, the Berne convention has been abused by the likes of Disney which has bought votes in the USA senate/... to extend copyright in the USA and thus giving it the ability to milk the rest of the world for things that should have fallen out of copyright, like Steamboat WillieYes, Romans are ahead of Egyptians...
In Italy we already have a law that force you to pay if you want to take a picture of any national monument (like the Colosseum) and use it for commercial use. And it's not limited in any way by the age of the creation.
The fact that the law is not strictly enforced doesn't mean it not exists. As most of italian laws, it will be there, silent, until someone decides to apply you a fine or, worst, to stop your video production, or shut down your web site (with methods similar to Chinese).
Obviously it's more easy to apply the law in the country of origin, so Italians producers of books, websites, etc, usually pay the royalties to the Italian Ministry of Arts or simply removes the pictures (like the Italian edition of Wikipedia).
Egyptians... amateurs.