Yoko Ono/EMI Suit Exposes Fair Use Flaw

Ian Lamont writes "Yoko Ono and EMI Records have backed down from their suit against the makers of a documentary film who used a 15-second fragment of a John Lennon song — but only after a Stanford Law School group got involved. Even though the use of the clip was clearly Fair Use, the case exposed a huge problem with the doctrine: It's becoming too expensive for people to actually take advantage of what is supposed to be a guaranteed right. Ironically, the song in question was Imagine."

Comments

So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Can't the film makers just countersue to get the losses incurred by this lawsuit? If not, then there's a serious problem with the judicial system.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Okind]

> Can't the film makers just countersue to get the losses incurred by this lawsuit?

How will you coutersue if you're bankrupted before you can?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just piss away more money while the lawyers get rich.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[apathy maybe]

Except that, too, is very expensive...

(Off topic to the story, but relevant to the thread: After being wrongfully arrested once, and had three extra charges (one of which could not have had anything to do with what I was doing at the time, as it only applied to drivers, when I was a pedestrian) added to encourage me to plead guilty to one of them, I flew across the country and before being rung at 5pm (the court time was 9am the next day) by my lawyer to be told that all charges had been dropped. I asked about suing for costs, stress etc., and was told I wouldn't have a chance.)

On topic to the story:
I think this not only exposes problems with the "fair use" defence, but with the entire US legal system. Exposes problems that anyone who has paid attention would already know about mind you. Court is just too expensive.

Justice is meant to be available to all, without regard to the amount of money a person has. But, no where has a justice system, merely legal systems.

(Off topic again slightly, John Lennon wrote a few songs that seemed to have a distinctly leftist bent, does anyone know if he was actually a socialist or anything similar?)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Drakkenmensch]

Off topic again slightly, John Lennon wrote a few songs that seemed to have a distinctly leftist bent, does anyone know if he was actually a socialist or anything similar?

He definitely had a humanist bent, but these days anyone who cares for other people regardless of cost tends to get branded as a "liberal" by the government. It's more politically correct than calling them ouright communists, which you can tell is the word burning on McCain's lips whenever is he says LIBERAL on camera...

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Corporate Troll]

The "makers of a documentary" here is "Ben Stein" and the "documentary" is "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".

I was actually hoping that Yoko and EMI would win this one.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Newt Gingrich (yeah, I know, all you democrats hate him) advocated the "Loser Pays" system. In a nut shell, the loser of any lawsuit pays not only their own legal costs, but also those of their opponent, but only up to the amount that they actually spent themselves.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I've seen a similar scenario. When I was a neutral witness to a road traffic accident, I was asked to attend court to give evidence. This I did, and I was offered some compensation and expenses for my trouble (though my employer was kind enough to overlook the missed day of work and pay my normal salary anyway, which they were not required to do).

What I found concerning was that the accused, who was found not guilty of the offence, did not seem to be eligible for any compensation for their lost time and the effort they had made in defending themselves. My understanding is that had they had a lawyer, they might have received the costs for that, but there doesn't seem to be any provision at all for looking after the wrongly accused in their own right. As the story suggests, defending yourself can be expensive — and I live in the UK, where we theoretically have "loser pays" as the default position in court cases.

I don't know what you call a system that makes someone attend court twice, gives them stress for more than a year in total before their case is resolved, finds them not guilty... and then says "Oh, well, never mind, you'll get over it". I'm not sure the word "justice" would feature in my description, though.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

In so far that "socialist" means to oppose US imperialism and to second-guess the current form of capitalism, yes he was. Certain interests in the US certainly treated him as though he was.

See the docu "The US vs John Lennon" (2006)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Coryoth]

> Can't the film makers just countersue to get the losses incurred by this lawsuit?

How will you coutersue if you're bankrupted before you can?

Getting bankrupted was partly coming from having a crappy film in this case. It currently sits at 8% on RottenTomattoes. This is "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" we're talking about, the pro Intelligence Design movie. I suspect the suit was as much about trying to not be associated with such drivel as it was about getting cash from the producers. Still, fair use is fair use, and Ms. Ono needed to face up to that reality to begin with. The suit should never have been brought to trial.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[RulerOf]

> How will you coutersue if you're bankrupted before you can?

Find a lawyer who is confident enough that he will win the suit, and have that lawyer will charge a percentage. Seek damages in excess of fee.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Except McCain and the Republicans are just as liberal as the Democrats these days. Conservatism is all but dead, replace with the bogus neocons who think that you can get the benefits of capitalism under a welfare-state system. Check out this very interesting article on the subject:

The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

I was actually hoping that Yoko and EMI would win this one.

Then you're nothing but a pragmatist, willing to discard all principles and ethics when it is convenient to your current position. If computers were built by such people, they would still be the size of a room and take 42 days to start up.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

cares for other people regardless of cost

Funny how the people wanting to care for others "regardless of cost" always want to spend other people's money doing it. Hate to break it to you, but most people just aren't worth it.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[stormguard2099]

The "makers of a documentary" here is "Ben Stein" and the "documentary" is "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".

I was actually hoping that Yoko and EMI would win this one.

I totally agree. People who disagree with my views don't deserve the same rights as I do.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Corporate Troll]

Well, "fair use for educational purposes" would apply, except that the "documentary" is pure propaganda. In what sense would fair use be applicable?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[twistedsymphony]

There's a difference between giving your all to help people and dipping into the social wealth to fund things that only really help a small segment of people.

Too much of the latter and your society as a whole will expect it for themselves and eventually become dependent on it.

IMO it shouldn't be the governments job to support causes and "help" the down-trodden but rather be flexible enough to allow it's citizens to support those things themselves.

why should the government be tasked with using tax dollars to support charities when citizens themselves can choose to how and where those dollars are spent by making donations themselves.

IMO the only difference between dems and reps is that the dems want to increase their influence by determining which social groups they will give money too and the reps want to increase their influence by determining which corporate groups they will give money too. Meanwhile they're elected entirely based on a platform of social equality on one side and biblical morality on the other... Neither is doing the American public as a whole any real benefit.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Corporate Troll]

That's not the point.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[dkleinsc]

To answer your off-topic question: Lennon was definitely a leftist, and there were definitely some folks who wanted him pinned as a communist, notably Richard Nixon. The film "The U.S. vs. John Lennon" discusses in great detail his political activities.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

does anyone know if he was actually a socialist or anything similar?

He was anti-war. In Nixon's US, that made him a communist. No doubt in Soviet Russia, it would've made him Capitalist.

(and goddamnit, can a serious socialist really have a paisley rolls royce?)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Vornan19]

Actually both the Dems and Repubs are very conservative (either politically, fiscally, or socially) to varying degrees. In the past there was a greater divergence in the way the parties practiced their core beliefs. But not now. Think of the parties as beer. One is Bud the other is Bud light. No much difference is there?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[rssrss]

The answer is no. In England and Canada, the loser pays the other side's legal fees. In the US, that is not the rule. And, yes it is a serious problem.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Nicholas Hill]

What astounds me the most is that American justice depends on one's ability to pay the most.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Actually both the Dems and Repubs are very conservative

... how so?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

I was actually hoping that Yoko and EMI would win this one.

Then you're nothing but a pragmatist, willing to discard all principles and ethics when it is convenient to your current position. If computers were built by such people, they would still be the size of a room and take 42 days to start up.

Just look at the nick of the person you responded to. Now look at his old posts. He lives up to his nick. ;)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[johnny cashed]

How will you coutersue[sic] if you're bankrupted before you can?

You need Green & Fazio. They don't get a dime until you get 3 dimes.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Your original reply:

The "makers of a documentary" here is "Ben Stein" and the "documentary" is "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". I was actually hoping that Yoko and EMI would win this one.

My reply:

Then you're nothing but a pragmatist, willing to discard all principles and ethics when it is convenient to your current position.

Your reply:

In what sense would fair use be applicable?

So now you want to make an actual argument, rather than resort to what's convenient? What a convenient shift in discussion for you.

I haven't seen the film, and will never see it, so I don't know the context of the song. If it's just stuck at the beginning, with no discussion about how the song's words relate to the topic, then yes it is not fair use.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[R2.0]

"Well, "fair use for educational purposes" would apply, except that the "documentary" is pure propaganda. In what sense would fair use be applicable?"

Funny, I was subjected to far more propaganda in my "education" than I ever was by any special interest group.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[plague3106]

I think the people doing the branding are rightly point out that "regardless of cost" means "regardless of cost to ME, who is an uninterested 3rd party."

If you care about others, regardless of cost, that's fine. Spend your own money. But don't use government to steal my income for such purposes.. I have my own shit to take care of.

Oh, and don't try and associate me with McCain either. I want nothing to do with "liberals" or "conservatives."

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[plague3106]

I'm not sure you understand what pragmatism is.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

They have tricked the american public at large into thinking that conservative and liberal means morally. Neither are liberal when it comes to economically, because all major US politicians sit at the feet of their contributers which are big companies. In a very crude definition economically conservative means you are interested in the interests of the businesses which pay the common people, economically liberal means you are interested in the welfare of the common people which provide the labor to the businesses.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[BobMcD]

There are no more communists, only terrorists and non-terrorists...

That's why they don't say that word anymore.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Sj0]

If you think the Republicans have anything even remotely resembling fiscal conservatism, you're simply stupid.

They spend more and run up the debt more than any other government on the face of the earth.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[discogravy]

I'm not sure the word "justice" would feature in my description, though.

they call it a "court of law" not "court of justice".

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

I'm not sure you understand what pragmatism is.

And I'm not sure you do. First, are you talking about the philosophy of Peirce, James, Dewey, etc, or it's popular implementation - in other words, a combination of a) interest only in the short-term, b) disregard for or refusal to think in principle, c) refusal to identify things in definite terms (everything is "sort of" or "seems like"), d) refusal to rule out the possibility of any specific action (this is related to b).

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[__aamnbm3774]

>What astounds me the most is that American justice depends on one's ability to pay the most.

Have you ever studied history? Anywhere?

Just like prostitution is the oldest profession, people with piles of money usually get their way.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[electrictroy]

>>>anyone who cares for other people regardless of cost

I don't care how much you spend helping other people, so long as it is YOUR money you spend, and not through the process of raiding your neighbors' wallets. Helping others is moral; thieving is not.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Yvanhoe]

If not, then there's a serious problem with the judicial system.

Finally! Some fresh news on Slashdot !

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[plasticsquirrel]

(Off topic again slightly, John Lennon wrote a few songs that seemed to have a distinctly leftist bent, does anyone know if he was actually a socialist or anything similar?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(song)

In the book Lennon in America, written by Geoffrey Giuliano, Lennon commented that the song was "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted." Lennon also described it as "virtually the Communist Manifesto".

Probably not a socialist or communist in the traditional sense, but I think he was politically very close to those ideas. Unlike most socialists and communists, I don't think he had clear ideas or plans about actually enacting change.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[maz2331]

Lennon was a very vocal socialist, nearly a communist in general outlook toward the end of his career.

The FBI had a very thick case file on him, but could never show any actual criminal activity, and the Nixon administration tried to deport him from the USA.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

> Still, fair use is fair use, and Ms. Ono needed to face up to that reality to begin with.

I don't see how it is. Fair use is when you cite or refer to something that's relevant to what you're publishing on, not when you co-opt something for a propaganda film.

If you were making a documentary about John Lennon, or about the mindset of the 1970s, or about the structure of pop songs, it would be perfectly "fair" to play a snippet of the song. But that doesn't mean you can play a snippet in any context you want.

The doctrine of fair use was created so that overzealous copyright lawyers wouldn't kill scholarship.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Richard_at_work]

Partially correct - in the UK, you can petition the court to be awarded costs, and the Judge can award you anywhere from 0% to 100%. You can certainly win and still have costs to pay at the end of it.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[jav1231]

I wondered how long it would take before someone got a dig in about the film and insinuated that it deserved it. Congrats! Within 5 posts too boot! We should really have a drinking game designed around shit like this.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[electrictroy]

I don't really care what label you use: "conservative" or "liberal". What I care about is PRO-CHOICE positions, and the Democrats are slowly but surely eroding that freedom of choice. ----- If you want an education, you go to Uncle Sam High. If you want a home, you borrow from Uncle Sam Fannie Mae. If you need to retire, Uncle Sam Eldercare will send you SS checks each month. And if you want healthcare you will (soon) have to go to Uncle Sam General.

Where's the choice in that??? It's a monopoly, and you can not have true freedom in a monopoly.

I also object to the Democrats' love for raiding my neighbors' wallets, not for the benefit of all, but for a few. The obvious example is the Bail-Out which will collect ~$7000 from 110 million american households in order to give it to a few executives. I was happy when the Republicans rejected the bill the first time.

I'm tired of anti-freedom monopolies. I'm tired of watching politicians raiding wallet, not for everybody's benefit (GENERAL welfare), but to enrich somebody else (welfare for a select few). This is no longer the land of liberty.

Not that the Republicans are much better.
They are merely the better option.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have pointed out in other threads, this may make it impossible for a poor (or even middle class) person to sue a big company, even when the person was truly wronged. The big company would just throw LOTS of lawyers at the problem and if they won - which they're likely to if they throw enough BS into the trial, claim their legal expenses from the plaintiff.

I suggest watching the Paul Newman movie THE VERDICT - not his best, nor the best courtroom drama, but it touches on some of these issues.

Now, to be honest, I understand the sentiment - I'd hate to be sued over something frivolous, or which wasn't my fault. Unfortunately, this is a problem without an easy solution.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[jav1231]

It's shitloads of fun when it doesn't effect you. Since you'll spend the rest of your days bundling fries in kids' meals, the sort of precedent this sets will likely never effect you. No wait, one day James Blunt may stop in on a tour and catch you humming "Beautiful" and slap you with a lawsuit for posting a Youtube of you singing it to your girlfriend. How far do you think your McDonald's wages will get you in a lawsuit? Ass!

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[mea37]

And while the formalities and procedure are surely different, you can try to get an award of court costs in the U.S., too.

But to the GP's point, other than being pretty much the same, the systems are completely opposite.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

If Dicky D used this little ditty it would hardly have concerned anyone, however the hysterical response from those ideologically opposed to the film finally got to poor Yoko. This has little to do with the music and everything to do with tactics to get the movie delayed, discredited, etc. Lets face it ID's never going to get a fair shake from Darwinoids. Guess it's time to revisit Allan Bloom's, The Closing of the American Mind.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

Lets face it ID's never going to get a fair shake from Darwinoids. Guess it's time to revisit Allan Bloom's, The Closing of the American Mind.

I'll give ID a fair shake - it's complete and utter bullshit, based on a bronze age mythology that has no place in rational discourse.

That enough for you?

If not, I'm perfectly willing to shake it some more, but I can't ever see any truth coming out of it...

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Satanicolas]

Yeah they both mostly taste like water with a hint of sewage!

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[residieu]

So in order to excercise your Fair Use rights you need to be commercially successful? Or at least be saying something that your average Slashdot reader agrees with?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

So now you want to make an actual argument, rather than resort to what's convenient? What a convenient shift in discussion for you.

Hate to break it to you man, but pointing that is a strawman argument.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Hate to break it to you man, but pointing that is a strawman argument.

Except that it's not an argument. It's an observation. Stop trying to apply "straw man" to anything besides actual arguments against a position.

My response to his argument was directly below that observation.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[electrictroy]

You could take the option of running.

After all, Yoko may win the lawsuit, but that doesn't mean she will collect the money.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

From the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 USC #107:

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I think that the film infringes substantially on point 2 - Lennon himself would have been deeply opposed to the use of his music to promote ID, and Ono, though not a person I personally admire, has a right to preserve his wishes.

You're right, in a way - people who don't agree with John Lennon's world view have no business using his copyrighted material in a way of which he would disapprove.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[moderatorrater]

So fair use is only applicable when it's a view you agree with? Or do rights extend to people you don't agree with too? I thought the whole point of defending people found with child pornography and such was that if you don't let the evil scum have a right, you won't have the right either.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[moderatorrater]

Bullshit. You can copy portions of the work for a scholarly work (which a documentary is, or at least attempting to be) for the intent to criticize it as long as it doesn't take too much of the work or take away from the original works market. So, in this case, it's at least attempting to be a scholarly work that's criticizing 15 seconds of one of the most famous songs from the most famous band in US history. For some reason I don't think that this 15 second clip is going to undermine their attempts to sell the song.

Don't agree with the film all you want, but this is clearly fair use.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[houghi]

Off topic again slightly, John Lennon wrote a few songs that seemed to have a distinctly leftist bent, does anyone know if he was actually a socialist or anything similar?

That will depend on what you call "socialist" The US version is very different to that idea in Europe. He was not against money, if that is what you are pointing at.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Santa Claus is child abuse?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[infinitelink]

I don't know about that...maybe some of the appearance of conservatism is changing, or softening perhaps. But I've seen it growing too. Here's an interesting piece from a Commentary Magazine: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/is-conservatism-finished--10812

It also has interesting political commentary and history about how presidents and politicians have been portrayed by the media throughout the years.

Anytime people start declaring that such and such is dead or over, is a time you're witnessing stupidity...ideologies don't die, and when their impending doom is prophecied the counter-reactions upsurge to prove the prophets to be false, and idiots.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Frigga's Ring]

I think he was referring to the definition of pragmatism found on either Wiktionary.org or Dictionary.Reference.com rather than the full explanation of the term found in the Wikipedia article (as pragmatism, like most -isms, is far more complicated than any one-line definition can explain). I hope you can understand his (or her) confusion.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[NeutronCowboy]

No, fair use was created so that overzealous copyright lawyers wouldn't kill the public's ability to use the art.

There's nothing in fair use clauses that says anything about the use having to be useful or good - whatever that means. You don't get to define that - no one can, or at least is supposed to.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a fucking viewpoint, it's religious PROPAGANDA. You fucking idiot.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[phantomfive]

I don't see how it is. Fair use is when you cite or refer to something that's relevant to what you're publishing on, not when you co-opt something for a propaganda film.

Were that the case, Michael Moore would have been sued into oblivion. Apparently the lawyers at Harvard thought it was fair use....

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

Sure, rights extend to people with whom I disagree - except that in this case, the doctrine of fair use is being misapplied.

See section 17 USC #107, item 2 - the nature of the copyrighted work is in no way related to the nutcase belief in ID, so an ID propaganda film should have no fair use defense in this case.

Thanks for the child porn strawman, BTW.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Gizzmonic]

No wait, one day James Blunt may stop in on a tour and catch you humming "Beautiful" and slap you with a lawsuit for posting a Youtube of you singing it to your girlfriend.

I can guarantee you that will never happen. "Never Gonna Give You Up," sure. I'd rather dry-shave my balls with a dull razor than listen to James Blunt.

Also, I don't bundle the fries anymore, I got promoted to manager. That's why I can post to Slashdot all day without worry. Plus, I get all the Hi-C Orange I can drink without paying a cent! And since the financial crisis is on, more and more people are eating at McDonald's. I don't have to worry about job security. Suck on that one, bro! Anyway, I'm off to smoke dope in the walk-in with my counter guy Jesus. He always has the best shit. Enjoy your layoff!

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[NeutronCowboy]

I'll repeat what I said above, but I'll be more obnoxious this time: you do not get to decide what is appropriate when it comes to fair use. Same that you don't get to decide what is good speech, and then ban it.

Or would you agree with the DHS official from yesterday who thinks that free speech is only allowed when it doesn't interfere with government?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[norminator]

one of the most famous songs from the most famous band in US history.

Nitpicking here, but Imagine was a solo effort, not a Beatles song.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

No, you're not being obnoxious - it's the courts that decide whether something is fair use (hint - it's an 'affirmative defense').

My opinion is that since Lennon would have vigorously opposed the use of his music in a 'documentary' about ID, Ono is perfectly entitled to sue the hell out of the film makers under US copyright law (Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 107, clause 2), as the nature of the work is in no way related to ID.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Maybe these "prophets" merely pointed out the ideology's death in order to revitalize it by bringing interest to it. I believe that was the whole point of my post, and of the paper I linked to.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, then there's a serious problem with the judicial system.

The serious problem is with editors or article writers who can't get simple distinctions straight.

Fair use just fucking is NOT A RIGHT. It is "an affirmative defense against a charge of copyright violation". Though it might sound like just being picky, there is a real difference. Get off your lazy ass and look it up.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[compro01]

Compare the Republicans or Democrats policies/positions to those of the Canadian Conservative party (obviously, they're conservative), the Liberal party (generally centrist) and the NDP (leftist social democrats). Both US parties are significantly right of even the conservatives.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Even with those definitions I'm not sure what he's talking about, because they agree with what I have been saying.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I do believe that proponents of ID are evil - teaching kids outright lies is tantamount to child abuse.

I presume you're not including lies-to-children* here? Sometimes you have to be told big lies to help you to grasp the slightly smaller lies that are on the way to the truth (as much as we know it).

*Lies-to-children being a phrase coined by the writers of the Science of Discworld books to describe things like the way that describing atoms progresses: First, atoms are the smallest thing you can get... then, actually, an atom is like a planetary system... then again, it's not really... it's more like a cloud. In fact, we don't know what it is.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[smoker2]

I don't know where to begin -
You are an idiot.
If you want "freedom" such as you espouse, go and live in the woods. It is not possible to have that in a civilised society. Would you prefer private police forces and private fire services too ?
I know, as a resident of a so-called "socialist" country, that if I get a disease, then the state will take care of me until I die. Not until the insurance runs out.
As you seem to prefer the Republicans, I wonder how you feel about McCain offering to double the tax breaks to families with children. Why should you subsidise another persons life choices ? Quite aside from the fact that the inevitable result will be MORE PEOPLE and therefore less jobs OR less money per person. That should suit the Republican company bosses - more wage slaves. There is not an inexhaustible fountain of wealth in the world or the USA. It should be divided according to contribution, not blind stupid animal sex.
Not to say that Obama has a better plan. His comments yesterday regarding the banking crisis showed as much forward thinking as a lump of wood. He said that companies who could not payroll their employees deserved federal help.
I'm sorry, if you are in business and can't pay the wages because you are in debt, then you aren't really in business, you are living off tomorrows chances. They should let the afflicted companies fail. The people who owe those companies money should get a free ride and not have to honour the debt. Maybe that will teach the thieving bastards a lesson, and you won't see many more people starting businesses with the intention of never making "real" profits. It's about time we all starting living in the real world, and stopped being pawns of the damn stock market.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

All you've shown is that people co-opt words for their own purposes. If you trace the source of conservatism, though, you'll find at its root individual rights. Today, however, you'll find that all parties - Canadian and American - are willing to violate any and all rights, on enormous scales, whenever it is politically practical (convenient) to do so. Pragmatism has taken over.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[nasch]

Clause 2 says, in its entirety, "the nature of the copyrighted work". That's incredibly vague. You'll have to provide more evidence that this means the copyrighted work must be related in subject matter to the potentially infringing content to convince me. Now if you don't care about convincing me, that is fine. :-)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is not quite true. In the UK and Canada, loser pays is the default, but can be over riden by the court. In the US, each pays their own, but the court can award legal fees, and yes it does happen, as in at least one RIAA case.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[multisync]

Fair use is when you cite or refer to something that's relevant to what you're publishing on, not when you co-opt something for a propaganda film.

If you were making a documentary about John Lennon, or about the mindset of the 1970s, or about the structure of pop songs, it would be perfectly "fair" to play a snippet of the song. But that doesn't mean you can play a snippet in any context you want.

From the article linked to in the summary:

There should never have been any doubt the filmmakers who were sued here had every right to use a short segment of a song for the purpose of criticizing it and the views it represents.

I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds to me like they were doing exactly what you suggested the purpose of fair use is: playing a short piece of the song for the purpose of criticizing it. The fact that you don't agree with the producer's "propaganda" has no relevance to the issue of whether or not they were exercising fair use.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[lysergic.acid]

that's the problem with how fair use is legally defined. copyright laws are meant to encourage cultural contribution by giving copyright holders the right to control the distribution of their work for a limited time, after which it is released into public domain. but the duration of legal copyrights has more than quadrupled since the 1800's from 28 years to 115 years.

fair use was established because copyright laws had been corrupted from their original purpose and no longer served public interest. copyrights, like patents, have been increasingly used to take away consumer rights. to restore copyrights to their original purpose, fair use was defined to allow some copying & distribution without having to obtain consent from copyright holders.

playing a 15-second clip of a song for the express purpose of criticizing the views it espouses is a clear case of legal fair use. whether or not a partial reproduction is used in a positive or negative light plays no role in whether it is fair use or not.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

The clause is vague, but I interpret it to mean that the intentions of the author should be respected, unless the use is obviously for parody.

A parody defense is perfectly acceptable, but the ID film in question is not a parody of Lennon, so I think the case should have gone to court to define whether the misuse of Lennon's work was justifiable.

I'm a rampant evolutionist and atheist, BTW, so judge my opinion accordingly.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

The freedom of religion is child abuse???

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[crenshawsgc]

I "Saw" that section you refered to and still nothing shows me that what you're saying has any basis in legal reality. Would you care to actualy prove yourself?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

No - your 'lies-to-children' are a necessary part of a rational education - the gradual unveiling of difficult ideas through metaphor is perfectly acceptable (that's how I learnt, and I'm still reasonably rational).

What isn't acceptable is the teaching to youngsters that the world was designed by some unidentifiable creator, and that science is wrong, which is what these ID idiots are doing.

Their bronze age mythology is stupid and harmful, and they should be marginalised and treated as child abusers.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Then why did you say it? The post you link to was made after the post he replied to. Are we supposed to read your mind?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

Y

es - educating children to believe 3000 year old myths are the truth is child abuse.

I'll happily discuss the matter in person, if you like :P

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Sique]

An East German politican (Steffen Heitmann, whoever knows him ;) ) said about the German reunion:

We wanted justice, and we got the rule of law.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

this should be the default position without requiring a separate lawsuit - looser pays all costs.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[rolfwind]

What you refer to as conservativism used to be refered to Liberalism and these days Classical Liberalism. So, in a way, you can say Liberalism is day.

Of course, I'm talking of the liberalism of the enlightenment, not of the Wilsonian Foreign Policy, FDR domestic policy days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Sique]

There is a solution: Split all the costs between the parties, and in the relation as they had to back away from their initial positions.

If I sue Big Company Inc. for 5 billion, and in the end I get awarded 50,000, I have lost 99,999% of my initial claim, so I pay 99,999% of the cost. If Big Company Inc. sues me for 5 billion, and in the end they get 50,000, they pay 99,999% of the cost.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[rolfwind]

deady, not "day", I mean.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

people who don't agree with John Lennon's world view have no business using his copyrighted material in a way of which he would disapprove.

I don't think that point 2 was intended in this way. If fair use precluded any use which did not follow the intent or world-view of the creator of the original work, then the fair use doctrine could not apply to criticism or parody -- two uses which are specifically protected.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets face it ID's never going to get a fair shake from Darwinoids. Guess it's time to revisit Allan Bloom's, The Closing of the American Mind.

I'll give ID a fair shake - it's complete and utter bullshit, based on a bronze age mythology that has no place in rational discourse.

That enough for you?

If not, I'm perfectly willing to shake it some more, but I can't ever see any truth coming out of it...

Thanks, you just proved my point :)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Indeed, I was thinking about that yesterday, but failed to make that point today. An easier thing to say is that pragmatism is alive and well.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

But the film in question is not a parody or a criticism of Lennon's work, so clause 2 applies.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[idontgno]

Yaaaay! The long debate is settled! We have a yardstick in measuring reasonable limits to the 1st Amendment!

If "aproposofwhat" thinks it's propaganda, it's not protected speech!!

Listen 'tard, the most important property of the 1st Amendment is that it specifically shields speech that pisses you off. You are the self-important flamer the Founding Fathers were thinking of.

Oh, yeah, this is a Fair Use discussion. So it's not really about the First Amendment at all. Then let's focus on fair use.

"fair use" is intended to protect scholarly works

"scholarly works", lol. Such works of great academic value as "Amish Paradise"?

There is a standard "four factors" test of fair use. Your venom seems to have rendered you ignorant of them, so let's review these:

1. Purpose and character of use.
   • commercial v. non-commercial use
   • nature of use (criticism, commentary, etc.)
   • tranformation v. verbatim use (this is the fair-use basis of the protection of parody)
2. Nature of copyrighted work (creative v. informational)
3. Amount and substantiality of copied portion
   • Amount: seconds v. minutes, paragraph v. pages, etc.
   • Substantiality: the distinctiveness, recognizability, and relative importance of the copied portion (such as, the opening of "Stairway to Heaven" v. 10 seconds of the middle)
4. The effect of the use on the value or marketability of the original.

All information drawn from http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html and http://www.publaw.com/parody.html.

Notice that there is no fifth test, "Degree to which the use offends strongly-held opinions." So citing that as why you think fair use is inapplicable is flatly asinine, as well as a dishonest and weaselly way to try to interfere with someone else's First Amendment rights.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I've never seen the work in question, but the commentary in TFS (You did read TFS, didn'y you? No, I didn't think so. Ignorant and angry; that's a great combination you've got going for you) tells me that the use in the offending movie was specifically criticising the content and assertions of the lyrics of the song, not just as light background music. There's your scholary usage, you twit. (It also tells me the submitter is a twit, because it's not ironic if it's intentional and to the point. Irony is "wow, he accidentally shot himself". Irony is not "wow, he intentionally shot himself.")

After many preview submissions, I can see that the mods have rightly submarined your clueless post into "-1 Troll"dom. I'm glad, even if this means my response to you is also invisible.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

OK, Mr AC - provide some credible evidence for ID.

Otherwise, you're just another tit proclaiming 'It's my religion, you have to respect it'.

I see no reason to respect your POV if you're so obviously misguided.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[nasch]

I stopped researching when I found a source that says "many legal scholars, politicians, copyright owners and users and their lawyers agree that fair use is so hard to understand that it fails to provide effective guidance for the use of others' works today." Another phrase I saw was "intentionally ambiguous". It kind of sounds like it's supposed to be vague and left up to the courts to decide in each case, which doesn't sound like good law to me but then IANAL.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[ClarkMills]

It can't be that good, it hasn't even made it to BitTorrent yet. :)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

I don't see the relevance of the 1st Amendment here - you're obviously a twat of CR Culver proportions, and deserve to be ignored if I could be arsed.

I'm surprised a clueless ID cunt like you could even read the Copyright act, let alone pen such a long response.

OK - if the 'fair use' defense is criticism, then I stand corrected, but you're still a cunt and so are all your co-religionists.

Oh, and I burn karma to stay warm, so thankyou and goodbye :-)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[plague3106]

Someone doing A through D on your list is not being pragmatic. They may claim to be, but they are not, because no where in pragmatism do you only focus on the short term, or "discard all principles and ethics when it is convenient to [a] position."

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[rotor]

I would argue that being economically conservative means spending where you need to and not just paying money out because you want something. Economically liberal means that you're more likely to spend on less necessary things. In this sense, we have no economically conservative politicians in power right now that I'm aware of.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[electrictroy]

>>>If you want "freedom" such as you espouse, go and live in the woods. It is not possible to have that in a civilised society.

It's not possible to have the freedom to choose?
We must let government make all our decisions for us?
Hmmm.

How is that different from the old Monarchies where government controlled everything? It appears you are advocating having Elected Kings and Elected Ministers run our lives (from school to healthcare to retirement), somewhat similar to the Heredity Kings/Ministers that existed prior to the Human Rights Revolutions of the 1700s. "They" acted like the all-knowing parents, while "we" were just the lowly serfs, expected to fall in line.

In 1776 my country revolted against that kind of tyranny. We chose to make the individual the sovereign (free to make his own choices and pursue his own happiness). If our society is headed in a direction where the individual can no longer run his own life, where some elected king in Washington tells you where to go for education, for health, for retirement..... then we have effectively given-up our individual sovereignty. That is moving backwards, not forward to the future.

>>>I know, as a resident of a so-called "socialist" country, that if I get a disease, then the state will take care of me until I die

Not the state. Your neighbors. You are sucking money out of your neighbors' wallets, and that makes you no better than a thief who steals in the night. Frankly I know I'm going to die. That is certain; no one is immortal. I would rather accept death, and die peacefully, than steal my neighbors' money.

To take my neighbors' money makes me no better than the Planatation Masters who stole labor from their slaves. I refuse to do that.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[badasscat]

Another phrase I saw was "intentionally ambiguous". It kind of sounds like it's supposed to be vague and left up to the courts to decide in each case, which doesn't sound like good law to me but then IANAL.

Some laws are written intentionally such that the standards of society can be applied through case law. There are times when congress doesn't intend to write a blanket law expressly forbidding or permitting something, but instead wants to allow for an organic definition of the law to form over time. There are pros and cons to that approach.

A lot of case law on fair use does exist, and based on what I know of it, I don't see how this case was "clearly" fair use as described in the article summary. The courts themselves have noted that each case has to be considered individually - there is no singular guiding principle to define what "fair" means in every context. Judgments in some cases seem to contradict judgments in other cases, although it usually comes down to some minor detail or just a question of degree. (For example, when 2 Live Crew was at one point found guilty of infringing for their use of "Pretty Woman", the problem was just the amount of the song that they used.)

One thing is for sure - the position of the copyright owners doesn't matter at all. The copyright owner doesn't get to decide what's fair use and what isn't. Otherwise the copyright owners would win every single lawsuit, and they don't. The law is what it is; it's a specific exception to copyright law. The only question is how to actually define that exception.

There are four criteria that are specifically mentioned in the law that courts use in deciding these cases, although the wording of the law makes it clear that those are not the *only* criteria to be used. Still, they are always the starting point. Generally, they will try to look at the balance of how the work in question fits in with those criteria. In other words, use of a copyrighted work can be fair use even if it's *not* parody (one of the four criteria), provided it's just a short excerpt and is used for criticism. It's not that all four criteria need to be satisfied for something to be fair use. Any one or all can be, plus more criteria not mentioned in the law specifically, and the courts have to decide all this on a case by case basis.

I would think this would be a tricky case. It's only 15 seconds, and you could argue it's being used for criticism and comment, but on the other hand it is a for-profit work (nothing about it being a documentary changes that) and it doesn't sound like the song had much to do with the theme of the film itself - an argument could be made that using this song in a documentary on creationism would harm the song's reputation and hurt its future commercial prospects. (ie. it'd be hard for an ad agency to use a song in a Nike ad that's closely associated with creationism). All that and more would be considered by the courts.

It's certainly not "clearly" a case of fair use. It may or may not be.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Since you'll spend the rest of your days bundling fries in kids' meals, the sort of precedent this sets will likely never effect you. No wait, one day James Blunt may stop in on a tour and catch you humming "Beautiful" and slap you with a lawsuit

I recall reading about someone getting sued for copyright infringement for having his player turned up loud enough other people could hear the music to which he was listening. Given that, I would not be surprised if someone got sued for infringement for humming or singing a song.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[badasscat]

I don't care how much you spend helping other people, so long as it is YOUR money you spend, and not through the process of raiding your neighbors' wallets.

So I guess your overall argument is that nobody should ever have to pay any taxes?

In every society, everybody has to pay such that society as a whole benefits. That doesn't mean every single person in society gets to see every single benefit that their taxes pay for. For example, you may never need an ambulance, but your taxes help pay for them for others. Does that make government a "thief" because it took your money to help pay for ambulances?

You likely *will* see other benefits that other taxpayers don't get, though. Maybe you won't ever need an ambulance, but maybe someday you need a state grant for college, or unemployment benefits, or a FEMA-guaranteed loan to rebuild a house destroyed by a natural disaster. That's the tradeoff, and we all accept it. It's part of living in a civilized society. If a benefit exists, it exists for anyone should someone be in a situation to need it, not just those who chose to pay for it. You don't get to directly choose what benefits you pay for and what you don't; that's called anarchy. And you know what? We tried that in this country - it was called the Wild West. And that's not the kind of country I think many people would want to live in these days.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Philip Shaw]

Imagine is fairly Marxist: no heaven, no countries, no possessions, brotherhood of man...

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Son, that tune came out AFTER the Beatles broke up. You whippersnappers don't even know the 70s happened.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[badasscat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(song)

In the book Lennon in America, written by Geoffrey Giuliano, Lennon commented that the song was "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted." Lennon also described it as "virtually the Communist Manifesto".

Probably not a socialist or communist in the traditional sense, but I think he was politically very close to those ideas. Unlike most socialists and communists, I don't think he had clear ideas or plans about actually enacting change.

There are three stages of Communism. Most Americans only know of the first (revolution), because that's the only stage we ever actually saw.

From what I recall from my book-learnin' in college, the stages are:

1. Revolution - the entire world switches, violently if necessary, to a communist system.

2. Re-education - the population learns to sacrifice their personal possessions and live as one, with collective ownership. A transitional government would exist during this period to administer the re-education. This could occur region by region as revolution was completed in those areas. But for stage 3 to happen, re-education of the world would have to be complete worldwide.

3. "Utopia" (don't remember what it was actually called) - the world being united and re-educated, the government melts away and citizens of the world live in peace, free of the oppression of organized religion, government, or material possessions.

Now, "Imagine" sounds a lot like stage 3 of Communism, doesn't it?

It is a Communist song. Whether he actually believed stages 1 and 2 could work in practice, he clearly believed in at least the ideals of the ultimate stage of Communism. And I've always found it sort of ironic that so many Americans celebrate this song (and that it is in fact used in commercials!) when it is pretty much the antithesis of all we stand for.

That said, I don't think those ideals are anything most people could argue with (unless you're a rabid capitalist or very religious). Communism was intended to be benevolent - it was supposed to end all wars, all violence, all crime. It was supposed to bring world peace and overall prosperity (not for individuals, but for the world "commune" as a whole). And, again ironically, it was supposed to bring complete and total freedom in its final stage.

Obviously most of the world never got past stage 1. A few areas, like the USSR and China, made it to stage 2. But it was always an idea doomed to failure. If our goal (as it was) was to protect our current system, then the US was actually right to be scared of communism's march in the 1950's - the goal was to take over the world. That wasn't just paranoia. None of the communist countries were intended to last forever - the governments as designed were supposed to be temporary. All we really needed to do was block and then outlast them, and we were always in a naturally better position to do that.

The point being, while in the 1950's it may have been scary to hear somebody described as a Communist, these days it sounds almost quaint, somewhat naive. (Seinfeld taught us that.) People used to get really defensive when someone would say this song is Communist, but they really shouldn't.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Artifakt]

One of the reasons the doctrine of fair use was created was to support scholarship. There are other reasons too, i.e.: criticism, news reporting, teaching or research. There's also a rule that is pretty nuanced, and IMHO isn't always being treated consistently by the courts, that goes into whether a use is transformative or not.
      You can call the larger work the music was attached to propaganda, instead of news or political speech, if you want. (I can just see the US government issuing a court decision that all publication relating to intelligent design is not newsworthy and is instead all automatically propaganda). If it is propaganda, then using some musical work to create, for just one example, an ironic or sardonic tone in the larger work is transformative of the musical work, so it still passes one of the fair use tests. If the documentary counts as political speech, then fair use rights are broader than for commercial speech, so it would probably pass simply on that grounds instead.
      So no, maybe an AC who's started off by simply saying he 'doesn't see how something could be fair use' should just be informed of various ways that it might be, not modded +5. I'm not opposed to him being modded up as interesting, mind you, he raised a genuinely interesting point - you can't automatically use something in just any context you want.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[jav1231]

uh-huh...you're silly!

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Darby]

All you've shown is that people co-opt words for their own purposes. If you trace the source of conservatism, though, you'll find at its root individual rights.

No, that's "Liberalism" that has its roots in individual rights. Of course, what an American describing themself as "liberal" means is generally "leftist" to varying degrees. Conservatism just means fearful of change and what they're afraid of constantly changes. Now the really bizarre thing is that the antique, outdated idea you're still trying to claim "conservative" applies to is actually "Liberalism".

Of course, conservatives are no longer trying to conserve Liberalism. Now all they care about is fascism. Big police state government for the benefit of big business at the expense of the people and religious extremism. So they're not even "conserving" anything at this point. They are radical extremists attempting to completely rewrite America by destroying everything that made it great.

So, while the word conservative is a complete oxymoron given their radical hatred of America, you should really give up on trying to force it to mean anything related to Liberalism. That meaning is dead and gone, just like liberal which it replaced for a while.

It's root, though, doesn't have anything to do with 'individual rights" except that it was absolutely opposed to them from the start. It meant anti-Liberal where Liberal at that point meant pro individual liberty. Conservatives were the ones who hated freedom and were supporters of the absolute rule of the aristocracy/royalty/church.
Conservatives being pro anything at all positive came much later and was a brief blip before it was subverted once again back to its actual meaning.

So conservative now means what it always did except for the very brief time it was coopted to mean what liberal once meant. Of course, the really sad and pathetic thing is that there is no longer a word in modern American English to describe the basis of our country which was, of course, Liberalism.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

You *really* believe that nonsense? I hope that nowhere have you ever once advocated freedom because if you ever have then you're one hell of a hypocrite. You do realize that the Theory of Evolution is, well, still just a theory? I happen to believe in it but to teach it is to teach a belief system. To teach that science has all the answers when any good scientist will tell you that there is no final answer is just as equally "abusive." Hell, it might be more abusive. Disallowing the bliss that religious people have, disallowing their comfort or their faith, is just plain absurd. Disallowing people to hand down their heritage and/or belief system by saying it is abusive is as close to the adage of the pot meeting the kettle as can be seen.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[iter8]

Lets face it ID's never going to get a fair shake from Darwinoids.

ID got a fair shake from the "Darwinoids". It didn't hold up as good science. It's not just that it's bad science. It's dead science. It was rejected as not fitting the data over 100 years ago.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[vrmlguy]

(Off topic to the story, but relevant to the thread: After being wrongfully arrested once, [...] I asked about suing for costs, stress etc., and was told I wouldn't have a chance.)

Sounds like you faced a criminal charge, not a civil suit. Suing a prosecutor is hard, because the justice system tends takes care of itself. Copyright claims, otoh, are a civil matter; the courts are much more balanced in those cases. The problem there is that you have to prove that the people whom you wish to sue knew ahead of time that their original suit was frivolous. In this case, Yoko would just have to testify that she honestly thought that she had a right to protect her dead husband's work.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[stephanruby]

Was this a civil case? or a criminal case? A "not guilty" verdict would imply that this was a criminal case. If you ask me, the standard for finding someone guilty in a criminal case is already too high.

If you'd be willing to lower that standard of proof for criminal cases, then yes, I might be willing to pay for the time of the accused in court. Barring that, if you could prove to me that the police maliciously/lazily pursued someone they knew was probably innocent (as this does happen some times), then I would be willing to pay for the time of the accused in court.

Otherwise coming back to your case, I don't see why someone should be able to profit from being the most likely to have triggered a "road traffic accident". For instance, if your third party testimony cleared him of any wrongdoing, then the police should have taken your statement and he should never have been indicted in the first place.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

no where in pragmatism do you only focus on the short term, or "discard all principles and ethics when it is convenient to [a] position."

Examples? Again are you talking about the philosophy or the popular practice?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[riceboy50]

I see no reason to respect your POV

You don't have to; but you will respect their rights.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Tanktalus]

I don't think Mr AC is asking you to respect his POV. Merely his right to have his own POV.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[HTH NE1]

Given the nature of the movie and the tempo of the song, I imagine(!) the 15 seconds weren't necessarily contiguous and suspect the portions were, "Imagine there's no heaven... and no religion too." I'd argue that 15 seconds is not enough to include to base a fair criticism.

And yeah, I'm just asking for someone to say, "Remember, Ralphie, if you're being sued over Fair Use, it's because you sampled too much... or not enough!"

(I wonder how much one can sample of this movie in another movie criticizing this movie. Could the netiquette-conforming trimmed amount of verbatim quoting in a USENET or other discussion forum posting be a useful metric?)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[jesterzog]

I thought the whole point of defending people found with child pornography and such was that if you don't let the evil scum have a right, you won't have the right either.

Really? I thought it was to objectively establish beyond reasonable doubt that they actually were found with child pornography and that their posession and means of obtaining it broke the law.

There are ways of possessing child porn that aren't necessarily illegal (eg. being involved in relevant police investigations), there are ways of obtaining it that aren't necessarily illegal (eg. having someone place it with your stuff because they want you to be lynched by rednecks), and there are even images people might possess that are widely disputed as to whether they're child porn or not in the first place, or just someone's family photos from a naturist resort.

This is why people are defended.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[sjames]

I can think of plenty of ways it's fair use (but haven't seen any segment of the film, so can't comment in particular). For example a statement like "Popular media has long ago turned away from religion" As you hhear Imagine in the background "...and no religion too...".

If we start taking 'correct' interpretation or 'proper' understanding of a work into account when determining fair use, it will become a de-facto ban on fair use since those things can be quite subjective.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[jesterzog]

Off topic again slightly, John Lennon wrote a few songs that seemed to have a distinctly leftist bent, does anyone know if he was actually a socialist or anything similar?

Well if he was then so were millions of other people who would have completely changed over the next 30-40 years. John Lennon had the distinction of dying when he was really famous at a time when that was who he was.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

+1 grouchyoldman :)

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

copyrights, like patents, have been increasingly used to take away consumer rights

That may be one side-effect but it seems to me that this is just a means-to-an-end.

[Putting a waterwheel in a river isn't intended to stop it flowing, it's to steal energy from the river as the river continues to do its thing.]

The end here being, to allow whoever-buys-the-rights-after-the-artists-are-beyond-caring to continue milking cash from the rest of humanity when they want to discuss what is often some work of genius (eg Lennon's 'Imagine'), whilst they're still alive. These people must not be allowed to stifle the long-term gain of humanity in exchange for short-term financial reward, particularly on the back of someone else's effort.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

troll in what way? Wake up mods!

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[magus_melchior]

By "that is not the rule", I'm guessing you mean it's up to the judge's discretion and whether the prevailing defendant demands attorney's fees. It's not mandated by law, but it is possible.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It was a criminal case, for a minor motoring offence, and I was indeed a little surprised that it ever went to court.

The not guilty verdict was, according to the magistrates' official statement, primarily because the prosection's own witnesses did not appear to support their argument. I hadn't yet given my own evidence, so I didn't see the other witnesses for myself.

Perhaps you're right and it should never have gone to trial, but given that it did and this compelled the defendant to take time off their job to defend themselves, I think it is incumbent on any fair legal system to compensate them for their lost income. I'm not saying they should make a profit on it, but they certainly shouldn't make a loss just because some official decided to bring charges they couldn't prove. Any system where merely defending yourself in law incurs a loss is a very dangerous one, as various popular US-based topics on this forum make all too clear: it leaves the innocent citizen vulnerable to arbitrary harrassment and barratry, with no penalty to those who victimise them.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[spazdor]

A US court ruling on "newsworthiness"?

Lol.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Foobar of Borg]

You do realize that the Theory of Evolution is, well, still just a theory?

It is as much of a "theory" as gravity. Theory, in science, does not mean something someone thought up one night while drunk.

To teach that science has all the answers when any good scientist will tell you that there is no final answer is just as equally "abusive."

No one says science has all the answers. But there are some ideas, like the world was created 6000 years ago, that are so completely wrong, and have been proven so, that they are no longer worth consideration. Or perhaps you think we should teach that demons cause disease as a balance to teaching Germ Theory (which is, as you would say, just a theory).

If you are on my foes list it doesn't mean I don't like you - it means you're an idiot.

So, you put yourself on your foes list?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

There's an idea floating around which says "my belief system is as good as your belief system";

  my belief system:
    * is arbitrarily plucked out of the air and passed-down unchanged from parent to child, generation upon generation - indeed there is an unchanging manual to facilitate the accurate transmission of the belief system
    * is impossible to verify
    * is self-inconsistent
    * requires that you accept it without question
    * is difficult to acquire naturally because there exists no series of logical steps from any belief system known to generate accurate predictions to my belief system
    * has measures hard-wired into it which discourage disbelief
    * once acquired will leave you unable and unwilling to reason about the world around you, leaving you vulnerable to affiliated belief-systems
    * has no benefits to believers short of the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanies certainty
    *

Can you guess what I believe?(*)

* - I don't actually entertain this belief system

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

Lol. I love that this got a +1 insightful. Perhaps more are waiting?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

That's not the way it works. The way it works is:
  1) Arbitrarily choose an idea
  2) Believe it without need of reason or justification

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

You lemme know when you can come back and say it is law or factual. I believe it because it is most likely true. Why would I begrudge someone else the right to believe and teach what they believe to their children? It is not, by any means, abuse.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

This is no longer the land of liberty.

Was it ever? If you are holding an apple, is it necessary to remind everyone you see "this is what an apple looks like" ?*

(*) It's late and I've run out of car analogies

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

Why should you subsidise another persons life choices ? Quite aside from the fact that the inevitable result will be MORE PEOPLE and therefore less jobs OR less money per person. That should suit the Republican company bosses - more wage slaves. There is not an inexhaustible fountain of wealth in the world or the USA. It should be divided according to contribution, not blind stupid animal sex.

Without wishing to appear to be defending a politician (*shudder*); you must sympathise with them. What are they to do? Even if they do know what's best long-term, they need votes. If what's best long term is doing the opposite of what every single stupid-ass voter wants you to do to benefit them individually, without regard to how collectively, that behaviour is seen to not scale well, what are you gonna do?

(a) lie to get elected, do the right thing then fail to get re-elected
(b) say you'll do the stupid thing, get elected, do it, screw the voters for cash, repeat

?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

Yet there are scientists on all sides. The idea that you would, or anyone, be the judge of another person's belief system and would disallow it is absurd to me. I don't think you can justify it to me, ever. If you want to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster than, by all means, feel free to do so and feel free to teach it to your children. My belief system, in Boston though not any more, was Bokanonism. So long as clear lines of what is and isn't allowed (say teaching children that "that touch is not a bad touch") then you, the government, the neighbor, the anything or anyone has absolutely no right in the home or in the raising of a child.

I can't tell if you're pulling my leg or if you're just that stuck? It baffles me that you're actually advocating that teaching a child religion is abuse when it is so basic a human right to have your beliefs and raise your young to believe as you do that, wow... I just can't fathom it.

My children are encouraged to enjoy science and religion and to pick what they believe in on their own. My own theocracy is inclined to believe in a creator or creators but certainly not in any sense that the Bible (as is currently understood in most religions) as opposed to a big bang. Hell, I even believe in evolution. I don't take a whole lot of stock in the whole heaven or hell thing and I have my doubts about some of the interpretations of the teachings of this Christ person/god as those don't even begin to make a whole lot of sense when they then let Paul add shit to it.

I have sat down and explained, to great length, the Christian religion, the differences between it and the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, some of Buddha's teachings, Islam, and even shown them what I know of Wicca while being careful to explain that they shouldn't remind the believes in Wicca that their religion wasn't actually invented until sometime in the mid 1900's.

For the most part they seem to have adopted an amalgam similar to my own and seem to enjoy attending church on Sunday. I don't go unless they make me take them.

To cite science as more than a belief system is faulty IMHO unless one only agrees to believe in proofs. We have people who believe in string theory. They are religious in that sense. Until it is entirely disproven it is theory. Gotta say that the religious folks got a hand up there, that's tough to disprove and that's what faith requires as it is equally difficult to prove.

However, the feeling of security and the belief that they've got something to look forward to after this life is something I'd not wish to take away from anyone. If they want to believe that then they are free to do so. If they want to teach that children that same thinking/belief they're free to do so. They will, in most cases, be exposed to the alternatives even if the parents don't like it.

I seriously hope you're not advocating the removal of one of the most basic of human rights and are not advocating thought police in the name of protecting the children.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

Not the state. Your neighbors. You are sucking money out of your neighbors' wallets, and that makes you no better than a thief who steals in the night. Frankly I know I'm going to die. That is certain; no one is immortal. I would rather accept death, and die peacefully, than steal my neighbors' money.

No. You and your neighbours get together and decide that if any one of you falls down, the others will pick you up again. How does it make sense to say, "I'm not picking him up; I'm not on the ground?"

No doubt it's something that can't be understand until experienced. You should try living in a country with socialised healthcare. As a taster, watch Michael Moore's 'Sicko' film.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[BrokenHalo]

one of the most famous songs from the most famous band in US history.

Nitpicking here, but Imagine was a solo effort, not a Beatles song.

And to nitpick further, both Lennon and the Beatles were British, not American.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[jedidiah]

Here's a free clue for you:

      Multiple scientific disciplines NOT biology managed
to bust the idea of a 6000 year old Earth before Darwin
got on the scene. The theory of Evolution is a result
of the intellegent people realizing that the bible was
bogus, not the cause of it.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

Here's a free clue for you. Religion != "Christianity."

I can NOT believe that you're either so inattentive as to know what we are speaking of or so ignorant as to think that it is OKAY to perclude other's belief systems as some sort of illegality is just, wow... Fucking wow?!?

Sorry but are you stone or just stupid? WTF do you think this country *was* founded on? Why do you think the religious freedoms STILL apply? Do me a favor, as a Marine I ask nicely, get the hell out of my country. Pack your shit and git.

My beliefs aren't really any different than your own probably - I believe in the idea what we adapted to fit our current role and that's called evolution. You want to RESTRICT beliefs? Get the fuck out.

Really.

Pack your shit and get the fuck off of my soil.

I'll take the troll mod if I have to, you sir are too stupid for words.

What part of FREEDOM do you FAIL to comprehend? I don't agree with Christians, I don't agree with Mormons, I don't agree with Islam. I don't agree with Wicca, I don't agree with Paganism, I don't agree with Catholicism.

Again, a hearty FUCK YOU. I have no right, nor have you, to tell people what they can and can not believe in nor what they can and can not pass on to their children.

I am SORRY that you are mentally unable/unwilling to comprehend this. You have NO RIGHT to tell people what they can and can not believe in. You have NO RIGHT to come into the home and prevent certain learnings. As much as we disagree with the message we have NO RIGHT. You can not be that stupid and must be trolling.

Are you SURE you want to DENY as basic a HUMAN RIGHT as that?

Mods... Really, mark this as trolling or flamebait. I don't mind because I'm going to do so now.

Are you REALLY that fucking stupid. There is not one other word for you. This is as BASIC as you get. If you don't get that then please do STOP speaking. You have a RIGHT to believe how you want, I have NO RIGHT to hinder your beliefs.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Most famous band in US history?

I think someone switched your S and K key's. I'm going to assume this is what happened since I don't think anyone could mistake The Beatles for being American.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

We have that in Australia, and it's not definitively a good thing.

It is used as a warning to not challenge the government or large organizations because if you do, you get their hefty legal bills plus the court bills.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone can have a POV, it's just that some POVs come with an "I'm an idiot" badge.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the +1 Unfortunate mod when you need it?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

It's interesting that you imagine my implication of intellectual child abuse, where none occurred.

I seriously hope you're not advocating the removal of one of the most basic of human rights..

One of the most basic human rights is the freedom to investigate the world and build (often private) rational theories about how it works. This is removed by organised religion; in the place where such freedom would exist, dogma is forcibly transplanted. Generally this is accompanied by some flavour of "I marinade my children in religion and allow them to choose if they want to soak it up".

Fortunately, the day when there will be no more willing victims to gambol into the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing's cave is dawning. As this becomes clear, the modern-day religios-zealot proclaims, in whining self-defense, "I know what I'm advocating makes no sense at all but I'm as entitled to my arbitrary beliefs as the next guy who, together with a network of like-minded people across the world, working together for centuries have used careful investigation and logic to build a lattice of belief; I'm entitled to this" and "Because I claim this questionable 'right', I also claim the 'right' to corrupt my childrens' minds; to encourage within them at an early age the pattern of blind acceptance of anothers' 'beliefs'; destroying within them the budding ability to reason and leaving them open to such suggestions later in life; I claim that 'right'."

Really, a parallel may be drawn with those who claim "I'm entitled to inject class A drugs directly into my veins, thus slowly killing myself from within and making myself the weak link in the chain as I become vulnerable to viruses to which I would otherwise have a long-fought-for 'natural' immunity". Such a person does not exist in isolation. When they interact with others, the consequences of their way of life often spreads, having disastrous effects. To complete the analogy, the victim of religios zealotry has had their ability-to-reason weakened; as they interact with others, the memes they've been programmed with (prime example 'I'm entitled to my arbitrary and of-questionable-value beliefs", reinforcing the idea that irrationality has equal standing with rationality) often jump to the other, thus spreading the disbelief in the importance of rationality.

Ability to reason and practice of such rationality is what has enabled the human creature to pull itself out of the quagmire of muddy thought. I'm not particularly religious but if I were, I might note that to attempt to discourage the further use of the rational organ sounds like the work of the devil.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

Why do you think the religious freedoms STILL apply?

Umm, so that people are allowed the freedom to be prevented from thinking for themselves, so that they are more compliant?

What did I win?

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music_Inc._v._Dimension_Films

It doesn't matter about the length of the work used, if its for commercial gain.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

That only invalidated the de minimis doctrine, not fair use.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[sorak]

> Can't the film makers just countersue to get the losses incurred by this lawsuit?

How will you coutersue if you're bankrupted before you can?

This is Ben Stein, we're talking about. He'll just do another Visine commercial and be cranking out more propaganda by the end of the week.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[aproposofwhat]

I know, but it was an enjoyable afternoon's trolling - something I only ever indulge in when religion's involved :P

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

Meh... I don't even mind if someone's abusing/using drugs. I just wish we'd take the crime out of it to make it safer.

Either way, I disagree with pretty much entirely everything you said. I don't see any justification in restricting beliefs or practicing beliefs. I don't like that Evangelicals pretty much brainwash their kids. I don't like that Catholics have their children baptized before they're even old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong or understand a concept like a god. Though I don't like it, I have absolutely no desire to stop them from doing so. That is their right, a rather basic one too.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[KGIII]

You've got to be just trolling if you can't understand.

Then again, maybe I'm missing something that you're not expressing clearly enough for me.

If I do understand you correctly I really hope you don't live in my country. This isn't even a freedom that matters a whole lot to me but the idea that you'd want to remove a freedom is just, wow... I don't get it.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[mark0978]

I haven't seen the film, and won't bother with such crap, however, the Article does state:

This is the right result to be sure. There should never have been any doubt the filmmakers who were sued here had every right to use a short segment of a song for the purpose of criticizing it and the views it represents. But the right result came far too late.

So in this case, it wasn't background music, it was criticism of the song.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[norminator]

That was going to be my original nitpick, which is why I bolded US (and forgot to unbold it before I changed and submitted the comment), but then I figured that since the documentary in question is probably from the US, Lennon did actually live in the US for part of his life (at least at the time of his death, I don't know about when the song was released), and the song, along with everything else JohnLennon/Beatles-related has been integrated into the culture of the United States, I'd switch to a different nitpick.

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[easyTree]

Then again, maybe I'm missing something that you're not expressing clearly enough for me.

Yah. I reckon. I appear to be failing to communicate that:

  * The 'victim' of religious belief need rescuing because their 'belief' has only been achieved by the loss of their ability to reason (because there's no basis whatsoever to 'believe' what they claim to believe, they have arrived at the 'belief' arbitrarily; this cannot say good things about their state of mind.)

  * I'm not claiming that people should be denied their beliefs, just that they don't seem to realise that they are being systematically abused by a certain, well-entrenched, section of society; this could be compared to unknowing slavery; but of far more epidemic proportions than any slavery I'm aware of from history.

Likewise, perhaps I misunderstand you. Would you be good enough to explain why/how I'm mistaken by claiming that 'for someone to have arbitrary beliefs which are to remain unquestioned, means giving-up/failing to exercise their ability to reason' ? - In my opinion, they should mourn this loss of reason but seem to fail to notice its passing :S

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[nobodymk2]

US courts seem to be a loser-takes-all-system but the cases were dropped, it would the media was insured (so no direct cost to the producers), and the producer was probably just happy to move on.

Furthermore DMCA takedown notices, no matter how fraudulent, have no negative effect on the person filing the notice (as long as they own the copyright, if you are not the copyright holder or a representative of them you can not claim infringement [but they will/should CTA and take the post/file/etc down] because "content is the responsibility of the user" never seems to have stood up in court especially when all hosts are required to report things illegal to the government or face $3000/case fines)...just look at isohunt, most of there takedown notices are from movie or music companies that file takedown notices for anything remotely containing the names or parts of names (not subject to copyright, sometimes not even trademark) or resemble something popularly infringed even when clearly the description, the file (which they don't download the .torrent to prosecute the offenders for uploading it to them...hey, if US juries are convinced that "Files merely available on the system" leads to the defendant being found guilty and resulting in a mistrial and retrial later, what makes you think they'll be able to tell the difference between a .exe and a .mp3, let alone actually verify the file is the file in question?) and even when the file type (not a .zipped archive) and MIME type is clearly not music or a video. Of course, once they file a DMCA suit the safehabor provisions should protect you, but generally also means taking down stuff questionable, in gray areas, or downright frivolous, like how wikipedia was forced to remove publicly available information on their site within 100+ articles due to the copyrighted method of sorting out the data.

Now, that being said, it's probably much worse for those who don't receive DMCA notices first (or people like me in which case it would be shipped to barnegat due to the post office database auto-correcting the entry "barnegat light"...and everyone uses the postoffice database--which doesn't work (you don't EXIST in the database) if you don't have a mailbox and instead have a post office).

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[nobodymk2]

15 seconds, I believe, is not enough to constitute copyright infringement, because/and it is fair use regardless of how you use it.

there's defamation cases for things like that

Re:So sue to recover the losses

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Here in the UK, the various higher courts (such as the Court of Appeal and the High Court) are collectively known as the Royal Courts of Justice, and the corresponding government department is now known as the Ministry of Justice.

Meanwhile in the Real World

[Anonymous Coward]

> If a film with Hollywood producers has trouble
> using media clips, what hope does an average
> citizen have of using something without
> worrying about huge legal expenses that could
> result?

Pah. The "average citizen" is busy on bittorrent without a worry about "fair use".

Sue us all. I dare you.

Re:Meanwhile in the Real World

[Miamicanes]

> Pah. The "average citizen" is busy on bittorrent without a worry about "fair use".

Pah. The "average citizen" is busy on bittorrent^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h
YOUTUBE without a worry about "fair use".

There. Fixed it for ya! :)

IMHO, the situation is more like, "An average citizen has no hope of negotiating the legal minefield for any kind of profit, but can use Youtube as an expressive media for personal gratification and let THEIR army of lawyers deal with the licensing arrangements that would otherwise make its creation and distribution impossible."

Aside from the harm created by perpetual copyright, the other big problem with IP law right now is the transaction costs of licensing. Want to make your own Southpark episode starring Beavis & Butthead? Good luck getting the media firms responsible for licensing them to even return your phone call unless Trey Parker, Matt Stone, AND Mike Judge personally intervene on your behalf to cut the red tape. Otherwise, you'll be spending several thousand dollars per hour, plus expenses, on negotiations ultimately leading to boilerplate licensing fees so outrageous, even the lawyers will admit that they're intended more to weed people out than actually open up new business possibilities. To them, you're *so far* below the commercial radar, you're wasting their time. Ergo, Youtube's ultimate business model... leveraging the economies of scale that only a major media conglomerate can afford to hammer out bulk licensing deals for content that's not quite lucrative enough to justify dealing with the parties individually.

Nothing new...

[A beautiful mind]

Fair use is a legal defense to be used in court, therefor everyone who wants to avoid defending their case in a court avoids including copyrighted stuff in their works even if it's clearly fair use.

Terrible state of affairs.

Re:Nothing new...

[crnium]

This is exactly what a lawyer would tell you--fair use is a defense and not a right. There's no mention of fair use in the Constitution, but rather the defense evolved in the courts over a number of years and was a part of the 1976 Copyright Act.

With that said, our common sense tells us it's a right. We hear about cases where fair use was successfully argued and we (I think rightly) feel that we can claim similar uses as fair.

The flaw in the system is really that that fair use defense might need to be re-argued in court, should the owner of a copyrighted work decide to be a "jerk" about it.

Re:Nothing new...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a misconception that the constitution defines all our rights (in the USA), and that anything not in the constitution is not a right. The constitution lists SOME rights (and they were hesitant to do so because of idiot who thought it did contain the total list).

Re:Nothing new...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair use is a right and the courts have said so many many times. It's also in the Constitution. Freedom to repeat what others have said and done is clearly a protected right. Jefferson warned that copyrights would end up abridging free speech and he was right.

Shock and Awe

[pcwhalen]

Money protects money by the overwhelming use of money. If you can't afford the same legal team Yoko has scouring indie film makers for infringement, you whimper and give in right or wrong. Same with the RIAA: bow unless you have a defense team assembled.

gold digger

[Anonymous Coward]

Yoko's a cunt. Ever since she lost her breadwinner she's been living on savings even though she's used to living like a queen. You don't seriously expect people are throwing money at her for her "art" because of any intrinsic talent. In fact she's such a suck-ass artist that even the fact that she's the widow of a Beatle is not enough to have an audience.

I mean ...

[Van Cutter Romney]

Could it be any other song?

Re:I mean ...

[sorak]

Could it be any other song?

(Emphasis mine) No. The whole point of the film was to create a vast conspiracy theory tying secularism, science, atheism, Darwin, and the Holocaust together. Here are the words to John Lennon's Imagine:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

If I understand correctly, this was used to convince the viewer that popular culture has turned against him, and whatever each viewer think is going to happen, has already begun.

What's yellow and lives off dead beatles?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's yellow and lives off dead beatles? Well, it's obvious innit?

Re:What's yellow and lives off dead beatles?

[eeyore]

Tsk, tsk it's an insectivorous submarine!

Re:What's yellow and lives off dead beatles?

[conureman]

Banana Slugs?

Imagine

[wombatmobile]

When John Lennon wrote "Imagine no possessions" he was worth $150 million.

Re:Imagine

[HBI]

Hypocrisy only counts if the media calls you on it.

Re:Imagine

[aussie_a]

That's why he had to imagine it. If he had no possessions it would have been called "no possessions, so could you please spare a pound?"

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

When John Lennon wrote "Imagine no possessions" he was worth $150 million.

I don't think he wrote Imagine to say "I'm better than you because I'm living in a world without possessions." I think he was truly imagining a better world that obviously does not and never will exist. With or without him.

Re:Imagine

[QuantumG]

Yeah, cause "imagine being poor" was what he was trying to say.

All that "brotherhood of man" stuff, meh, he wasn't trying to suggest that society was sick and pathetic or anything.

Re:Imagine

[BobMcD]

"Be the change you want to see in the world" was before John Lennon's time. Wonder if he did? Does anyone know?

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if he gave it all away it's unavoidable. In the same way that he was in The Beatles, but can't simply entirely walk away from that.

Re:Imagine

[BoomerSooner]

Well in his defense it was fiat money... ;)

And has Yoko Ono never not been a total cunt? Lennon was an asshole too from what I understand.

this is why copyright terms need to be 10 years

[timmarhy]

why does anyone need the exclusive rights to something for more than 10 years? if you can't make your money on it in 10 years, it's time to stop flogging a dead horse, and if it's still popular it's long since passed into pop culture and should enter the public domain in recognition of all the support it's had...

Re:this is why copyright terms need to be 10 years

[Sockatume]

I think you'd be rightly pissed off if you wrote a book, it didn't really sell, and then ten years later Fox released a profoundly successful blockbuster hit based on it, starring Bruce Willis in that role you really imagined for Herman Munster. And you got absolutely nothing for that. Likewise if ten years after your underground rock anthem was released to cult popularity, it was the best-selling techno-remixed ring-tone-tastic theme tune to Big Brother: The Z-List Edition, and your only available course of action was to kill yourself for being associated with such an abomination.

Re:this is why copyright terms need to be 10 years

[mordred99]

While I would love to see that, I think you are looking a little short sighted on this. Lets say someone like Dick Dale came on the scene. Early 60's. He played a little song called "Miserlou". He recorded it, enjoyed moderate success. Now in 1994, 34 years after the first 45 was released, some movie producer played that song in a movie. Now all of a sudden, that record is popular as hell. Yes the guy is still around, and he is making money hand over fist because he wrote a song, and is re-releasing that, his old stuff, and new stuff. This was his art. Yes it was 35 years before it's time, but he wrote it and recorded it. You cannot take that away from him.

If he was dead, yes, then I agree, it should not be left to all the family members. But the dude should be given his fair share, no matter what the time frame he happened to live.

Note: That song is the theme song to the "Pulp Fiction" movie. Now Miserlou is a Armenian lullaby sped up 4 times as fast and put through reverb and distortion on a guitar. But it was his composition.

Re:this is why copyright terms need to be 10 years

[Nevyn]

I think you'd be rightly pissed off if you wrote a book, it didn't really sell, and then ten years later Fox released a profoundly successful blockbuster hit based on it

And the alternative is what? That it's never famous and you never make any more or get any recognition ... along with dragging society down into a neverending cespit of "I thought of 2+2 before you did, and so deserve a dollar".

Sounds awesome.

Re:this is why copyright terms need to be 10 years

[HungryHobo]

Same reason patents run out even if the person who filed them is still alive.
Because we can take that away from him.

The only aspect of copyright which I believe should be kept rock solid is attribution. His name should still appear even if the copyright has run out and he isn't due money. That way even if it's 30 years down the line people will go "wow, what a great piece, what else has he published" and he gets to sell new records.

Re:this is why copyright terms need to be 10 years

[HungryHobo]

Just for an examle: how do you think this guy felt?
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=9630
should patents last for however long the inventor lives?

Use "Fair Use" for P2P hosting?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can legally use a piece of a track under 'Fair Use', is it possible to create a legal P2P system where each user hosts (ie. makes available) this amount?

Could I host 30 seconds legally, and you host 30 seconds legally, and Bob hosts 30 sec and Jill hosts 30 sec?

Everyone in the country could host 30 seconds of every track in the world.

Could this work?

CH

Re:Use "Fair Use" for P2P hosting?

[mangu]

Could I host 30 seconds legally, and you host 30 seconds legally, and Bob hosts 30 sec and Jill hosts 30 sec?

That's *exactly* how BitTorrent works. But the doctrine of fair use also implies the purpose for which the parts are used. You can quote parts of a work, for instance, to make a criticism, but not to create a full copy of the original work.

Re:Use "Fair Use" for P2P hosting?

[morgan_greywolf]

Could I host 30 seconds legally, and you host 30 seconds legally, and Bob hosts 30 sec and Jill hosts 30 sec?

Everyone in the country could host 30 seconds of every track in the world.

Could this work?

No. "Fair Use" says that it's alright to use 30 seconds provided that it is used for the 'purposes of critique' or something like that. The basic idea is that it must be used as part of an original copyrighted work and that there is 'value added' in that copyrighted work.

So the answer is 'no'.

Re:Use "Fair Use" for P2P hosting?

[91degrees]

Nope.

Fair use is deliberately vaguely defined. Since this is a clear desire to do nothing except deprive the right holder of their exclusive rights, and not intended for criticism or other aspects of fair use, then it's illegal.

Your motivation has much more to do with whether it's fair use than the length.

Re:Use "Fair Use" for P2P hosting?

[DriedClexler]

But the doctrine of fair use also implies the purpose for which the parts are used. You can quote parts of a work, for instance, to make a criticism, but not to create a full copy of the original work.

That looks like a distinction without a difference. Here's an easy workaround:

1) Everyone participating hosts their 30 seconds, such that in total, the whole work is represented.
2) Some automated script comes up with an essay criticizing the work, which includes that clip, appropriately metatagged. Sharer signs off as endorsing that essay.
3) People come to the site to "read criticisms" of the work.
4) Once they've downloaded all the criticisms, software on their home PC (aided by the metatags) puts the work back together so they can use it.

That way, everyone using it has a fair use defense (nobody's contribution by itself infringes on the market for the work), but if someone were to read all "criticisms", they have the whole work.

Then what rule do you tag on to make that illegal? Make people have to go to multiple sites to get all the "essays"? Have an inspector judge whether you "really mean" the criticism presented in your essay? Ban such "splicer" programs? Prohibit people from telling the exact location within the work of the clip they're using(!)? Give someone the arbitrary authority to rule something "obviously an attempt to get around Fair Use"?

Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

...there's no lawyers.

How timely

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy Birthday, John!

Family Values

[pcwhalen]

True. But famous kids would stop coming home to the 'rents house for the holidays if they thought they weren't getting royalties down the road when the death rattle sounds.

"Take this job and shove it. I got a famous Dad."

Much worse than that

[Kupfernigk]

He is said to have bought the entire apartment below theirs in NY, and used it to hold their collection of fur coats. If he hadn't been killed when he was, he might just have lived to be bombed by an animal rights activist.

Personally, I was around in the 60s, and the Beatles were far inferior to Pink Floyd. Mind you, I'm a Southerner, I have to say that.

Re:Much worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I was around in the 60s, and the Beatles were far inferior to Pink Floyd. Mind you, I'm a Southerner, I have to say that.

I'd think you'd have to say they were far inferior to the Allmans or Skynyr'! (I was around in the 70's, so know that's a bit anachronistic, but still I wouldn't expect a Southerner to like Pink Floyd over the others ...)

Re:Much worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

He's probably talking about Britain, numbnuts.

Re:Much worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

I was around in the 60s, too. Everyone is far inferior to Pink Floyd. I'm a Northerner.

Re:Much worse than that

[tm2b]

the Beatles were far inferior to Pink Floyd. Mind you, I'm a Southerner, I have to say that.

Alabama pride for a different bunch of Brits? Or is this like Doctor Who, "lots of planets have a north?"

Re:Much worse than that

[Philip Shaw]

Except in England, it is the south which is considered civilised and the north not, rather than the US where the opposite applies (assuming CA is given honorary status as northern).

The bigger flaw is the court system

[blackchiney]

Seriously, you can be sued at anytime, for anything, with any reason. It's a strategy those with more money than you will use to force you to settle. Even if some states have written anti-SLAPP laws, it's written by lawyers to make sure lawyers always come out on top.

Re:The bigger flaw is the court system

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you have to use force to settle it. Personally I'm a pacifist, but I'm not naive.

P.S. Expelled sucked.

She's right

[4D6963]

I hate to admit it, but she's right. Everybody knows that such types of fair-use are what make record sales plummet. Why buy John Lennon's record when you've got a 15-second fragment of one of his song in a documentary that you can just reply as many times as you like?

That's right, you don't, which is why so many baby seal-killing pirates are now resorting to listening to documentary soundtracks just to avoid buying discs just so they can avoid giving $2 of royalties to starving artists like John Lennon. God I hate these bastards.

Re:She's right

[Alain Williams]

Why buy John Lennon's record when you've got a 15-second fragment of one of his song in a documentary that you can just reply as many times as you like?

And if you are smart enough - you just get many documentaries, each with a different 15 second fragment, and hey presto you have the whole song.

Why did I not think of that before ? I'll never have to pay royalties again!

Re:She's right

[TaoPhoenix]

I hate to admit it, but she's right. Everybody knows that such types of fair-use are what make *Ring-Tone Sales* plummet. Why buy John Lennon's *Ring-Tone* when you've got a 15-second fragment of one of his song in a documentary that you can just reply as many times as you like?
------------------

Fixed that for ya!

Re:She's right

[4D6963]

Oh my God, are you saying that these filthy pirates will go as far as hooking up a DVD player to their cell phone just to avoid paying for a ringtone??

Blast! They just won't stop until we sue and bankrupt the last of them!

Re:She's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows that such types of fair-use are what make record sales plummet.

You should know that "record sales" are not the only means of selling music. There is also a huge market for selling music for film and television soundtracks.

And yes, the artists and songwriters and engineers that create that music deserve to be paid fir their efforts.

God forbid that they would have had to pay a musician to record something for them. It's easier to steal the music and claim "fair use!".

Re:She's right

[Kehvarl]

baby seal-killing pirates

Infant buccaneers who slaughter cold-water marine mammals that come onshore to breed?

Conservative Flim == SUE

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

Would Yoko Ono have sued about this if Michael Moore borrowed that same 15 second clip?

I think not.

It's only OK to "Imagine" a world that believes exactly as you do.

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[forand]

Glad to see you have your head on straight and are receiving signals from the mothership. How in the world do you justify such a statement? Do you know her personally? Has she expressed her willingness to let other, more left leaning, documentary producers use her dead husbands songs?

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[Coryoth]

Would Yoko Ono have sued about this if Michael Moore borrowed that same 15 second clip?

I think not.

And (presuming for a moment that this wasn't a matter of so clearly falling into fair use that suing should never have been contemplated) that's her right. Copyright is as much about keeping control of how your work is used for the duration copyright, as it is about extracting tolls for use. It's perfectly reasonable to use it as tool to ensure your work isn't used in ways you disapprove of (indeed, this is exactly what the GPL uses coopyright to do -- ensure that the software isn't used in ways the original author disapproves of: as closed source software).

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[Sockatume]

Actually, in a wonderfully apt counterexample, Yoko Ono refused to let Michael Shermer use an excerpt in one of his books a few years before. (The chapter in question was on changing attitudes to religion, for maximum appropriateness.) Difference is, of course, that Shermer actually asked and deferred to her for the sake of a quiet life. She's famously protective of the Lennon estate.

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[Sockatume]

(I should also point out, of course, that Shermer's backing down is an example of the too-expensive-to-defend situation again. For those with too little money, fair use de facto doesn't exist.)

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[Anonymous Coward]

s/flim/film/

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[mjhacker]

Michael Moore's drivel doesn't even hold a candle to the mountain of bullshit that is Expelled.

I just watched it, and I can confirm it's awful. If you like conspiracy theories about the big evil atheist scientists that conspire against intelligent honest researchers that just want the truth, you'll probably nod your poor brainwashed head repeatedly as you watch it. Anyone with an IQ of 90 or above won't fall for it, though.

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[discogravy]

So if your dead relative (spouse, parents, whatever...) wrote a popular song, you'd be OK with an excert being used in a way you don't agree with? Say, a pro-NAMBLA documentary? or a pro-white-supremacy film? It's easy to trivialize someone else's views, especially on a subject that you're either neutral or on the other side of. Ono's rights (as the final arbiter over use of Lennon estate properties) are in fact trumped by fair-use, but she doesn't have to be happy about it.

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[aproposofwhat]

The Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 107, clause 2 specifically includes 'the nature of the copyrighted work'

'Imagine' is so diametrically opposed to the ideals of the film in question (and a parody defense is not appropriate) that 'fair use' is a dubious defense at best - why should we trumpet fair use for these idiots, when we can look to other instances where fair use is a valid defense?

Re:Conservative Flim == SUE

[bigstrat2003]

Copyright is as much about keeping control of how your work is used for the duration copyright...

Fair enough, but it isn't her work. She has no rights to it.

The film is rubbish

[Improv]

If it wern't for Yoko's history, I'd wonder if this was more about stopping that terrible film from being associated with Lennon than any real copyright concern.

Re:The film is rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that Yoko Ono's suit had more to do with what "Imagine" was used in, and not royalties.

According to press reports, "Imagine" was used as a backdrop to footage of Nazis, where the filmmakers were making a ludicrous attempt to portray evolution and atheism as causing eugenics and Nazism. I could see her objecting to such a usage merely on personal reasons.

Re:The film is rubbish

[mjhacker]

I've seen the terrible film, and I can confirm it's terrible.

The reason science is "elitist" and denies intelligent design as a theory is because IT ISN'T ONE. It is not a valid scientific theory, so why should it be taught along with valid ones? Science is not a democracy; what the majority of people think sounds good doesn't get to be a theory, and wanting something to be true really badly has no impact on reality.

Scientists are more than welcome to have independent thought and scientists change their minds on closely held theories all the time. The fact is that there is no evidence for a "god," so why should scientists try to include one? A god would have to be infinitely complex, and everything we know about the universe shows that you have to start with simple and work your way to complex. An infinitely complex entity with no origin, other creator, or evolutionary development is nothing more than an untestable, untenable hypothesis.

If the ID people had a valid scientific theory, they would be published in the peer reviewed literature like everyone else. But they don't.

Re:The film is rubbish

[texaport]

Another ex-Beatle was in the news yesterday for misuse of his image by a US Fortune 500 company. Paul McCartney instead resorted to urging fans to boycott McDonalds for putting up the vegetarian activist's likeness in order to sell more hamburgers.

Is it a lemonade stand using someone's likeness with sales of $50 a year or a local restaurant grossing $5,000,000 a year? Will it be a documentary viewed by 50 or 5,000,000 people? Most everything here is based on degree - on who is hawking a product, and to what extent are they trying to use something for free in order to further their own profits.

Re:The film is rubbish

[magus_melchior]

Surely there had to be a better way than the old "summon the lawyers" tactic. Release a new "Imagine" music video, for example, but with a refutation of the video that used the 15 seconds. Maybe she doesn't understand new technology, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to creatively express your disagreement with something without invoking copyright law.

The labels are simply trying to squeeze the market for royalties to songs that, while still great songs, are probably yielding diminishing returns by now.

Copyright doesn't cover fair use

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't a defense. It is an explanation of how the act was not a copyright controlled action.

However, and for good reason, those things that are fair use are not coded into law, so you can be sued (hell, you can be sued for being maliciously Donald Duck, it's only the police that have to have an excuse) and you have to say what fair use means there's no merit to the accusation.

Re:Copyright doesn't cover fair use

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't a defense. It is an explanation of how the act was not a copyright controlled action.

In other words, a defense.

Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[mangu]

I think the following provision should be in the law: if a jury decides a lawsuit is frivolous, then the lawyers that started it should pay everything they got plus punitive damages to the part that got sued, where "punitive" means "enough to hurt". No lawyer should be allowed to get *any* profit from a frivolous lawsuit. And lawyers should know enough about the law to realize that they are embarking on a frivolous lawsuit, whose purpose is just to intimidate or send a political message.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Bishop Rook]

I think the following provision should be in the law: if a jury decides a lawsuit is frivolous, then the lawyers that started it should pay everything they got plus punitive damages to the part that got sued, where "punitive" means "enough to hurt". No lawyer should be allowed to get *any* profit from a frivolous lawsuit. And lawyers should know enough about the law to realize that they are embarking on a frivolous lawsuit, whose purpose is just to intimidate or send a political message.

And then you have a chilling effect on valid lawsuits that might, potentially, maybe be declared frivolous if the wrong jury or judge get a hold of it. And you'll have lawyers everywhere less willing to work on contingency, everyone will require a retainer.

The overall effect? Poor people with legitimate legal claims get fucked.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[SpinyNorman]

I don't think so. On a spectrum of lawsuits from valid (plaintif clearly harmed and has law on his/her side)-iffy-frivalous, one might only expect that a judge/jury would rule suits frivalous that are on the iffy-frivaloue side of the spectrum. Of course you might once in a blue moon get a valid suit thrown out, just as occasionally people get wrongly convicted, but that's invevitable if you're going to be making judgements - sometimes you'll be wrong and people will suffer as a result... Still better than not having a legal system in the first place, or having one where money always wins (big company sues joe six pack and wins not because of the law being on his side, but rather because of the company's better monetary ability to sustain the lawsuit).

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[mangu]

The overall effect? Poor people with legitimate legal claims get fucked.

When did you last see a poor person suing someone to intimidate, send a political statement, or to put someone out of business?

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[BobMcD]

I seem to recall that this was all the rage in the 2004 presidential election. Edwards was all about it, IIRC.

It got dropped like a hot rock, which is sad, because a little malpractice limitation would go a long way towards reducing health care cost...

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[TehZorroness]

issues that poor people sue over will be thrown into the frilolous bucket while all these damn bullshit cases will still be fought in court

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[maz2331]

You say that as if it's a bad thing. The idea is to whack FRIVOLOUS lawsuits filed to intimidate or as a political tool.

Poor people have difficulty suing already - unless it's a personal injury case that's pretty clear-cut, lawyers won't take them on contingency anyhow.

Stopping cases such as this one, or SCO vs. Everyone, or some of the RIAA cases is a good thing.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[j79zlr]

Maybe I am misunderstanding your point, but Edwards was the guy suing doctors for malpractice. I don't think he would be for tort reform.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Salo2112]

The easy joke to make is SCO, but I think ACORN and the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world have started off poor and used the court systems, the treat of lawsuits (and the bad publicity that comes with them) and the threat of boycotts to become quite wealthy.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[BobMcD]

Right, that was one of the 'gotcha's that they kept hitting him with: That he didn't really mean it being a trial lawyer himself.

His retort was, being a trial lawyer made him keenly aware of the issues at hand...

Obviously, it didn't score too many points with the voters.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Poltras]

Is that a trick question? Cause I'm not sure if there should be a sarcasm tag or not there...

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[bdenton42]

And lawyers should know enough about the law to realize that they are embarking on a frivolous lawsuit, whose purpose is just to intimidate or send a political message.

The intent is honorable but sometimes what is and is not frivolous is a gray area. One would think suing them over use of this clip was frivolous, but what if the clip was 30 or 45 seconds long instead of 15... at some point it's not fair use anymore correct? Where is that line?

Also if this was the case one could also argue that anyone trying to contest an existing law would be pursuing something frivolous and all of a sudden you couldn't get anyone to contest provisions of the DMCA or Patriot Act.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[compro01]

I keep seeing this argument brought up in every "frivolous suits" story, yet I fail to see this "chilling effect on legitimate lawsuits" happening in various other countries with a loser-pays system.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's kinda the point. They can't afford to, hence you don't see it happen... because even when you win, you lose... a loss most people are incapable of incuring.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until this law none, but after this law were to be passed, the well paid lawyers of huge corporations could EASILY get any lawsuit against them by people with overworked or poor lawyers dismissed as frivolous and yes, they would be fucked.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Bishop Rook]

Because "Person A sues Company Y" makes the news, while "Person B doesn't sue Company Z" doesn't, perhaps?

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did you last see a poor person suing someone to intimidate, send a political statement, or to put someone out of business?

Because only these lawsuits would ever be held frivolous? The problem is not that frivolous lawsuits would be declared frivolous; the problem is that there's a non-zero chance that a NON-FRIVOLOUS lawsuit would be declared frivolous.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[UnderCoverPenguin]

I keep seeing this argument brought up in every "frivolous suits" story, yet I fail to see this "chilling effect on legitimate lawsuits" happening in various other countries with a loser-pays system.

IANA, but, perhaps those countries have better protections against using process to delay real judgement? This is where having more money is key: If you can afford it, you have your lawyers keep filing things that require the other party to file responses. If they miss too many deadlines, you can then file for default judgement in your favor.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[AmberBlackCat]

I think it's dirty to put civil rights activists in the same category as SCO. They may not be everybody's favorites but at least Jesse & Al have done some good things.

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[Tanktalus]

I think the bigger threat to lawyers is disbarment. It's a disgrace to the law profession to put through frivolous lawsuits, and feeds the negative view of lawyers that the general populace already has. Disbarment proceedings should be automatic any time a judge (not jury) decides that a failed lawsuit is frivolous (the jury can recommend, but only a judge should decide this, IMO). And "but my client would have just hired someone else if I said no" should not be construed as a defence.

However, your idea is not without merit, IMNSHO. I would say that the plaintiff of said frivolous lawsuit (i.e., the party hoping to profit off the mess) should be held accountable for the entire costs of both parties, plus punitive damages as appropriate given the plaintiff's means and amount sued for. And then only allow insurance companies to insure a certain percentage (say 50% or 75%) of frivolous judgements to ensure the pain is real. (The lower the percentage, the more affordable the coverage is, and the less it affects those who don't use frivolous lawsuits to bully their way in the world.)

It gets much more fun if it's a law firm frivolously suing someone...

Re:Why can't we sue the lawyers?

[XantheKnight]

How on earth was this post modded as "insightful"?

As usual, people blame lawyers for the ridiculous law suits people bring against each other. Lawyers don't bring lawsuits, guys, plaintiffs do. Lawyers merely represent those plaintiffs in the judicial system regardless of whether they think their client's case is morally right or wrong.

It's extremely rare for a lawyer to bring a patently frivolous case into the courts, and those that do incur penalties. Just because you think a case is ridiculous doesn't mean it's frivolous. Cases must have some legal merit - a legitimate cause of action- in order to make it into the courts. The case from the article may sound ridiculous, but it isn't frivolous.

Not your decision

[mungtor]

Just because you don't want others to retain rights doesn't mean that copyright needs to be limited by anybody other than the creator. If they want to give it away, fine. It's not up to you to decide that they've gotten enough out of it and it should be yours for free now. It's perfectly in your power not to use it or pay for it, but people seem to have issues with that as well....

Re:Not your decision

[QuantumG]

Copyright is enforced by the public. It is entirely up to us how long we choose to enforce copyright terms. I, for one, am all for zero length copyright terms.. but some people think slightly longer terms are acceptable. Only Disney and similar megacorps think the life + 90 year crap is acceptable (until they need another 30 years added on).

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly don't think you understand what the top post to this part of the thread is about. It is not about giving it away, but limiting the length to encourage continued creation and etc.

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

Just because you don't want others to retain rights doesn't mean that copyright needs to be limited by anybody other than the creator. If they want to give it away, fine. It's not up to you to decide that they've gotten enough out of it and it should be yours for free now. It's perfectly in your power not to use it or pay for it, but people seem to have issues with that as well....

Unlike European copyright law, which is premised on creators' rights, US copyright law is premised on public benefit -- encouraging creation of new works as a first and primary goal, accomplished by means of a temporary, government-provided monopoly by which creators can make a return on their work.

Perpetual copyright leads to economic inefficiencies (in which the cost to the public as a whole vastly outweighs tho benefit to the author and inheritors (if you need me to cite an peer-reviewed analysis to this effect, let me know and I'll dig up a few), to older works being lost because nobody has the rights to reproduce them (or enough economic incentive to do that at the price the present rightholder wishes to charge), and to new works which could leverage the public domain (the "creative commons") not being created.

If you want to argue that 10 years is a bad idea, that's an eminently reasonable position to take. Arguing that copyright should be perpetual, on the other hand, goes against everything US copyright law is based on, and favors a position which would be very much to the detriment of the public, including those who create new works.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

in 1893 a school teacher made up a ditty (and most likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other songs from that time period.)

Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.

She died in 1916.
twenty years after "Good morning to you" was first sung a song with the same melody became popular.

Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday Dear _____
Happy Birthday To You

The sister of the deceased sued and took the copyright because the songs were obviously so similar.

My parents sang that song at my first birthday party (Illegaly I may add as it was probably in a public place like a resteraunt) and the copyright will not expire until after I am dead.

The "artist" never saw a dime.
The "artist" only created something vaguely similar.
A pack of lazy useless family members and lawyers have been living off the income for the last hundred years contributing nothing to society while doing so and being nothing but a pain.

That is the copyright system as it stands.
Work for an hour and you can gain the right to charge other people for making certain sounds in public or making certain marks on paper for the rest of your life, then your kids inherite that right and then sell it to some random company and the best thing is that it will never expire since the terms keep getting longer and longer and longer.

copyright is broken.

It should last no longer than is needed to get your book published and on the shelves or your song recorded and into peoples ipods.

Re:Not your decision

[mungtor]

My argument is that it should be up to the creator to decide how long they wish to enforce copyright for. They want to enforce it for 50 years, fine. Refile something every 5-10 years and be done with it. If they can't be bothered to file, copyright expires. It should not be up to a bunch of people who are not involved in the creation of a thing to decide how long the creator should have rights to it.

The reason people attempt to file perpetual copyright is that the things being copyrighted, in most cases, still have value. If others are uncomfortable with that, they are perfectly free to create something different/better. People should stop arguing for the removal of other's rights because it's inconvenient for them.

Re:Not your decision

[mungtor]

So write a better song, and don't sing Happy Birthday. Also, stop whining. Copyright on an existing entity does not stop you or anybody else from creating alternatives.

Re:Not your decision

[JasterBobaMereel]

The copyright to Happy Birthday is not owned by the original author ..not by the new words author ..but by Warner Music Group

due to expire in 2030 (US) 2016 (Europe) currently estimated to be worth US$5 million

and is a good example of copyright that is largely ignored by the general public ...

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero length? So, people should spend their time and money to create art for you for free. Is that it your highness???

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S. duration of copyright is to be limited by the public. Copyright is not a natural right. If the creator wants to retain full perpetual control of his/her work, they may still do so --- by not releasing it to the public.

Re:Not your decision

[DAldredge]

Why would I spend time and effort to develop a computer program if it could be freely copied?

Re:Not your decision

[timmarhy]

you've got it all ass about face. the creator isn't the one responsible for the concept of "copyright" it's the public and the government which is backed by the people. i pay taxes which funds the government that protects those creators copyrights, so who the hell do they think they are, that they should keep benefiting for 90+ years from the protection i afford them?

Re:Not your decision

[Richard_at_work]

Pretty much every law is 'enforced' by the public, including the laws that say you can leave your car in the public car park and be reasonably sure it will still be there after 8 hours. Copyright is no exception.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

You seem to have missed the point.
the person who got the copyright isn't the person who wrote happy birthday, happy birthday which was performed for years on radio and in public without any copyright notice before then just happened to be similar to a song written by a dead woman who's family then used the courts to make their own.

so even if you write your own song and don't bother to copyright it then some fucker with more money can you can just come along, take the copyright then sue you if you want to use it.

great isn't it.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

bah! "make it their own" and "than you" not "can you "

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

The reason people attempt to file perpetual copyright is that the things being copyrighted, in most cases, still have value. If others are uncomfortable with that, they are perfectly free to create something different/better. People should stop arguing for the removal of other's rights because it's inconvenient for them.

You're looking at this through the European perspective -- as if the creator's monopoly on their work is a natural right.

Look at it again, as if the natural order of things in for information to be usable without restriction, and copyright is an artificial monopoly created for the sole purpose of benefiting the greater good of the public as a whole.

To be sure, things which are copyrighted may have value to the eventual rightsholder 90 years later -- but if you calculate present value at the time of creation (if you've never taken an accounting class, this determines the amount which would need to be invested, at current interest rates, to yield the same eventual income as the extended monopoly period would grant; this sum effectively represents the amount of economic motivation granted to an author to create their work), the amount of value which the creator receives at the time of creation based on this extended grant of exclusive rights is absolutely minimal. On the other hand, the costs levied on the rest of the economy -- even excluding the unknowns of derivative works which aren't created, public-benefit performances which don't occur, and enhanced breadth of society's culture as a whole based on expanded exposure to knowledge -- are considerable indeed.

See this amicus brief to the Supreme Court challenge of the DMCA, An Economic Analysis of Copyright Law (Landes and Posner), Forever Minus A Day? Some Theory And Empirics of Optimal Copyright (Rufus Pollock), and (for lighter reading) this analysis in the Financial Times.

I agree that shorter terms with an option to renew are desirable, but also hold that the length of renewal should be limited either explicitly or via economic incentives (ie. attaching significant cost for renewal after a reasonable period).

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

Shakespeare seems to have produced pleanty of work despite others being free to copy his work at the time.

Pleanty of companies do quite well producing items which are not protected by copyright or patent in any way.

Re:Not your decision

[DaFallus]

Apparently the copyright was supposed to expire in 1991 but due to all the recent extensions it probably won't expire until at least 2030.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

I have no problem paying to see performances and sponsoring artists is an old tradition which worked quite well during the renaissance with no copyright around.

What is a problem is a claim that you own something in my head.

That you can charge me for making certain sounds in public for no other reason than you made those sounds first.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

While I'm on the same side of the argument I feel I must poke a hole in this.

"i pay taxes which funds the government that protects your property rights, so who the hell do you think you are, that you should keep benefiting for 10+ years from the protection i afford them? Your car should be free for anyone to take from your driveway 10 years after it's been bought!"

Re:Not your decision

[Phroggy]

due to expire in 2030 (US) 2016 (Europe) currently estimated to be worth US$5 million

This assumes it doesn't get extended again before 2030.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. Don't do it. Other people find other motivations than to make money of it.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the one claiming you own something in my head. So, is that what you think music is? Simply a set of sounds. Just random stuff? No effort what so ever, and you should be able to just take them, and use them as you see fit, with absolutely no effort on your part? It is the same for movies, books, programs? After all, a program is just a collection of bits. So, I spend a year making my collection of bits, and you should be able to repeat my bits (because I just "happen" to make them first). I don't think copyrights should last more than 10 or 20 years, but for you to think you can just take them the day I make them (because they are just simple patterns or whatever) is disgusting.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

My argument is that it should be up to the creator to decide how long they wish to enforce copyright for. They want to enforce it for 50 years, fine. Refile something every 5-10 years and be done with it. If they can't be bothered to file, copyright expires. It should not be up to a bunch of people who are not involved in the creation of a thing to decide how long the creator should have rights to it.

they be able to sell the rights? yes? since they're "property"

You know what would happen then- companies would spring up which just buy up all the cheap copyrights they can and set up an automatic system for refreshing them. (unless you think there should be a significant fee to get time added) it's a winning investment since it pays off forever and you can make sure it never expires. These companies would add no value. zero ziltch nada and people would be forever walking on egshells for fear of violating some ten thousand year old copyright and getting sued into oblivion.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

You're name suits you, Hobo. I should work for a living, and you should be able to mooch off of me.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

Simply a set of sounds. Yes. exactly. 100%. Utterly utterly correct.

You might have put effort into making that patern but then I put effort into drawing a giant picture in the sand. it's still just paterns in little bits of broken rock and that doesn't mean I own your sand if you make the same patern.
You're free to spend a year making your collection of bits on your hard disk which you own but you don't own my hard disk and I can arrange them however I like.

And who said anything about taking anything from you? You're perfectly free to keep it where I cannot see, I have no right to break into your house and take your information but if you choose to give it to me, sell it to me or show it to me then I can do whatever the hell I like with the knowledge.

Re:Not your decision

[aproposofwhat]

I totally agree - the only CD I've bought in the last few months was Angela Brown's 'In a Dangerous Mood'

She's awesome live, and I got the CD at a gig in the West End Centre.

Check her out at her myspace page - she's one hell of a blues singer.

Go out and see music live, and buy the CDs directly from the artist - it's their living, not some shyster RIAA bastards.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

yes, yes you should work for a living just like I and most of the human race already do.

Re:Not your decision

[Sockatume]

It should last no longer than is needed to get your book published and on the shelves or your song recorded and into peoples ipods.

So you'd be happy for Dreamworks to rake it in with a multi-million dollar multimedia franchise based on Megatokyo, starring Rob Schneider and Paris Hilton? I mean, it's hit the bookstore, it's fair game right? I'm all for stamping out ridiculous copyright protections, but that goes way in the opposite direction. Creators need some sort of protection.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Not your decision

As a matter of fact, it is. The default state of everything is public domain. Regardless of who created it, the public owns it. In order to encourage more things to be created and contributed to the public domain, WE allow the creators temporary control over OUR property.

Look up the original justifications for copyright sometime.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

If I wrote a book "harry potter and the toaster" following on from the popular series and published it how many sales would I get assuming I didn't try to pretend it was written by JK which would be covered under trade mark as far as I know.

If every studio can make a film about it freely which one do you think the fans will get excited about? Joe blogs version or the one which the author has agreed to help produce of course.

There wouldn't be a franchise and the authors participation in other projects ends up being worth more.

It moves the focus from trying to leech more and more out of old work and towards creating new things which people like. Authors who can consistantly produce good work would be fine.

How many millions do book companies make by printing and selling shakspeare? I'm fairly sure I saw a big section dedicated to books and plays written in that era in my local bookstore....

Re:Not your decision

[RobotRunAmok]

I have no problem paying to see performances and sponsoring artists is an old tradition which worked quite well during the renaissance with no copyright around

Will you pay to hear me read my novel? The next show is tomorrow at 4:30am Eastern in my basement. Bring your own coffee.

Well, no, of course you won't. You'll expect me to publish it online and make it available for free. Or you will wait until someone else buys it, rips it, and publishes it online for free.

Message: Artists whose work translates digitally are screwed. Best, really, to become a sculptor. True, few enough people will actually pay to see a gallery showing, but if they want to "own" the art they will have to pay the artist for the privilege.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

of course thats completely bogus.

the "natural" state of affairs is complete and unrestrained savagery degenerating into mob rule. Its only society that gives us these ideas like physical (and intellectual) property.

Re:Not your decision

[bigstrat2003]

You're looking at this through the European perspective -- as if the creator's monopoly on their work is a natural right.

Yeah, of course. That's because it is.

Re:Not your decision

[Sockatume]

I'm not talking about what happens after a book has taken off, though. In that case the book's popularity is obviously sufficient protection from infringement. I'm talking about the 99.99% of cases where somebody creates something which isn't a hugely successful cash-engine, or which has yet to become one.

Imagine if Jon Stevens got his hands on Watchmen back in the 1980s, in the copyright climate you propose. No legal power on Earth could've stopped him from producing a movie in which a flamboyantly camp Rosarch battled giant spiders. He could've turned it into a kids' TV show, and a cereal, and become de facto creator of Watchmen, because nobody would know about Alan Moore apart from his terrible, violet, twisted parody of Stevens' incredibly popular childrens' series.

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

You're looking at this through the European perspective -- as if the creator's monopoly on their work is a natural right.

Yeah, of course. That's because it is.

But why?

Economic analysis demonstrates provably that the "natural right" view leads to suboptimal results for the public good. What evidence can you offer in opposition?

If the meme you hold is demonstrably harmful to society as a whole, including creators, why would you continue to assist in its propagation?

Re:Not your decision

[16K Ram Pack]

There was copyright in Shakespeare's day.

Re:Not your decision

[bigstrat2003]

Frack the public good, and economic analysis thereof. This is how it breaks down:

Any man has a natural right to attempt to sell his goods/services, without the interference of others.
Since art is so easily copied, the right of an artist to attempt to sell copies of his work, free from interference, must be protected by law.
Since it directly follows from a basic natural right, copyright is a natural right, or at the least, necessary to implement a natural right.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

You mean just like with disney and Grimm's Fairy Tales? Those unpleasant parodies of our beloved disney stories?

Or how they themselves stole Sleeping Beauty from Charles Perrault or how he himself took the story from Giambattista Basile?... and on and on.... tell the same story better and people will choose your version. Simple as that.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

Odly enough I've never downloaded a book, for some reason I like to own a paper book as do most people and as I said, it should last long enough to get your books on the shelf or songs into ipods.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

[citation needed]

From what I've read I was under the impression that there were no copyright laws protecting Shakespeare and his works during the Elizabethan era.

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

Since art is so easily copied, the right of an artist to attempt to sell copies of his work, free from interference, must be protected by law.

I am by no means whatsoever a copyright abolitionist -- but with regard to this line of argument, it bears mention that artists made a living long before copyright existed. The argument that copyright is necessary for a natural right to be implemented is thus bogus. Indeed, the additional faults of this argument are many:

• Even were an exclusive monopoly on copies of their work may be necessary for an artist to profit off the sweat of their brow, it does not follow that this exclusivity period must be eternal: A construction worker must create new buildings, no matter how successful one they created in the past has become.
• Inasmuch as an economic analysis measures the total compensation an artist receives for their work in present-value dollars as of the time of its creation, that analysis most assuredly takes into account the need of that individual to be compensated.
• Moreover, the public-good view of copyright requires that the artist be incentivized to the extent necessary for them to create, as lack of creation is most assuredly to the public detriment; consequently, the straw-man argument that the public-good view of copyright leads to artists being unable to sell their goods and services (and thus unable to live off of their work) is simply a bogeyman, and false on its face.

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

Please read the second line in my previous reply to contain the line "the idea that eternal copyright is necessary", rather than "the idea that copyright is necessary".

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

I'm wondering what orifice this "natural right" was pulled from.

"Since art is so easily copied, the right of an artist to attempt to sell copies of his work, free from interference, must be protected by law. "

Or just as validly you could say

Since art is so easily copied, either artists who's works can be easily copied should work out a better revenue model, say a performance based one or get a real job.

A food dish can be copied fairly closely yet I see no special law protecting chefs from having their works copied by each other or by the evil ready meal companies.

Imagine this: I come up with a new dish which is very popular and people flock to my restraunt as long as I can forbid anyone else from making something similar. Otherwise other chefs will copy me right away and evil companies will mass produce ready meals which copy my dish then I'll go out of buisness and the children they will spit on me as I lie dying in the gutter!

Re:Not your decision

[bigstrat2003]

it bears mention that artists made a living long before copyright existed. The argument that copyright is necessary for a natural right to be implemented is thus bogus.

Making a living is not what I speak of. The artist has the right to attempt his business model free of interference. Many artists choose to attempt to sell copies of their work, and they must be protected from any interference.

it does not follow that this exclusivity period must be eternal.

I never said it must be eternal, merely that it must exist. Where to fix the length is another matter altogether.

the straw-man argument that the public-good view of copyright leads to artists being unable to sell their goods and services (and thus unable to live off of their work) is simply a bogeyman, and false on its face.

Your rebuttal is, itself, a bogeyman. I made no such argument. I merely said that artists must be able to attempt to sell their work in a manner of their choosing, no more. I don't care if artists are able to make a living under all systems equally well, as my views on copyright stem not from the financial motivation, but the right of the artist to pursue business as he sees fit.

Re:Not your decision

[bigstrat2003]

Since art is so easily copied, either artists who's works can be easily copied should work out a better revenue model, say a performance based one or get a real job.

Utterly irrelevant. A common argument by those who wish to abolish copyright, but completely irrelevant. The artist has the right to pursue whatever revenue model he sees fit, free from the interference of others. If his revenue model is poor, then he'll starve, or change it: no one guarantees the right to have a successful business model. We do guarantee the right to pursue a business model unfettered, though.

Re:Not your decision

[Areyoukiddingme]

You post this question on slashdot? Just lob a great big fat one right across the plate...

I'm going to assume you knew what you were doing...

Re:Not your decision

[bigstrat2003]

Fair enough. Perpetual copyright is not the answer, and I didn't really see that part. I just figured you were arguing for the abolition of copyright, which is a safe assumption for the vast majority of posts here.

Re:Not your decision

[Sockatume]

Those works were largely public domain to begin with (the Grimms were collectors of local fables, and you can't copyright a version of your nation's Johnny Appleseed) and even if they weren't, the authors have been dead for quite some time. I'm sure we can both agree that copyright protection should've lapsed in those cases.

Re:Not your decision

[DAldredge]

So should I make my software bug ridden so I can sell support?

Re:Not your decision

[DAldredge]

Why would I want to develop software for internal business use which may be used by less than 10 people for free?

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

"We do guarantee the right to pursue a business model unfettered, though."

So if I want to sell the fruit of my labour. Say shoes.
I and others in the business find that I'm having a problem with low sales because people are re-selling the shoes second hand after using them for some time or getting them repaired.

By your logic - to preserve my "right" to pursue any business model I wish and have that model protected and helped along by law I should be able to demand that it be illegal to pass ownership of my product to another person or artificially prolong the life of the product beyond it's designed limit and so deprive me of future income.(imagine Nike suing shoe repair shops)Of course this model would violate your property rights since they're your shoes once you've bought them.

If you're trying to make money in an area which is doomed to failure because of new technology then you either find a new way to make money or get a different job. Twisting property rights to say "well even though you bought that it still doesn't really belong to you" is just a corrupt solution.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

@cduffy

You're right in that continental European copyright (author's right) law focuses more on the rights of the authors. But this is only part of the story: you get your moral rights (including paternity of the work and the right to prevent it from being defiled), which are PERPETUAL and IRREVOCABLE, and you get your patrimonial rights (notably the right to authorize copies, etc), which authors may assign, license or otherwise exploit however they like. Only this latter part corresponds to 'copyright', and the systems don't work out much differently.

I'm Portuguese and therefore am used to dealing with authors' rights instead of plain copyright. From my perspective Yoko Ono might have a reason for her suit other than financial gain - e.g. to protect the integrity of the work "Imagine" by preventing its association with specific doctrines. But I don't have the full facts so I'll refrain from passing judgement.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

Because your boss has paid you to. Same reason you scrub the floor if he tells you to.

if a company needs custom software they'll have someone make it. if they don't want their competitors to get it they'll keep it confidential.

pretty simple.

Re:Not your decision

[HungryHobo]

Or lock it to the first machine it's installed on.

The principles of competition still apply.
2 companies offering open source and selling support, do you buy the contract from the ones with a reputation for setting up buggy systems or the ones who make their money from providing occasional good service to 1000 companies rather than awful constant service to 10 companies.

In other words. your argument is a joke.

Re:Not your decision

[Areyoukiddingme]

My mistake. He didn't actually know what he was doing.

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

I never said it must be eternal, merely that it must exist. Where to fix the length is another matter altogether.

Then you're arguing with the wrong person. I provided links to extensive economic analysis earlier in this thread, as well as an in-depth discussion of my position; even a cursory review of that discussion, or the references given, would have made it crystal clear that I argue for shorter copyright terms calculated to maximize public welfare, rather than the eternal copyright favored by many of those who see the first and foremost goal being innate rights purportedly owed to those who create.

Making a living is not what I speak of. The artist has the right to attempt his business model free of interference. Many artists choose to attempt to sell copies of their work, and they must be protected from any interference.

Copyright is interference! If I publish books or sing songs written by others, how does the author's or artist's right to "attempt his business model free of interference" outweigh by own? A monopoly of any sort (and copyright and patents undeniably establish monopolies) is by its very nature a restriction on the actions that others can take, and thus impingement on their own rights (of freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of contract, and the like).

The correct argument here is to calculate that interference in such a way as to maximize the public good (by increasing the amount of material created to be published or performed), rather than to argue that it is an innate right, and thus deserving of maximal protection in all cases -- as the "innate right" argument both fails to benefit the public and fails to take into account the other innate rights with which such a monopoly interferes.

Your rebuttal is, itself, a bogeyman. I made no such argument. I merely said that artists must be able to attempt to sell their work in a manner of their choosing, no more. I don't care if artists are able to make a living under all systems equally well, as my views on copyright stem not from the financial motivation, but the right of the artist to pursue business as he sees fit.

Taking a position that an individual has an exclusive right to sell copies of works they created as necessary to exercise an inherent right to earn income from the sweat of one's brow (which I believe to be an accurate restatement of your explanation of why copyright is an innate right) implies that if one did not have the exclusive right to sell copies of works they created, one could not earn income from one's work; otherwise, the "necessary" clause given above would not apply.

Re:Not your decision

[LatencyKills]

I'm in complete agreement. Did Yoko Ono write Imagine? No. She gets rich because she married John Lennon. Let me correct that slightly by saying that she got rich marrying John Lennon because he was quite rich at the time anyway, but is there any sense in the copyright for Imagine ending up in her hands? Here's an idea, let's bring an end to the idea of corporate ownership of copyright. The guy who creates something gets the copyright, and he may assign it to anyone he chooses at that time. On the death of that person, be it old age or tragic accident that claims them ten minutes after the copyright is assigned, it falls to the public domain. The creator (or their proxy) derives benefit for their entire lifetime, and then the public gets it.

Re:Not your decision

[vrmlguy]

The "artist" never saw a dime.
The "artist" only created something vaguely similar.
A pack of lazy useless family members and lawyers have been living off the income for the last hundred years contributing nothing to society while doing so and being nothing but a pain.>

So what's the problem? Just sing this instead, and rest easy knowing that the performance fees will support the widow of the original artist.

Re:Not your decision

[cpt kangarooski]

There was copyright in Shakespeare's day.

Yes, but it was not what we think of as being copyright now.

Copyright in the modern sense first appeared in Britain in 1710, well after Shakespeare. Prior to that, there was a thing called the Stationers' Copyright. Basically it was a form of official censorship (nothing could be legally printed without being approved by the government) and a collusive monopoly amongst the printers to keep prices high and competition low. Each printer would choose a book and register it, and thus have a monopoly on printing it. But the authors didn't have any rights to their own works. Printers could get copyrights on authors' books without permission and without payment. All they needed was a copy of the manuscript or some such.

In fact, in Shakespeare's day, there were plenty of unauthorized editions of his plays (generally acquired by paying actors who had learned the play to dictate it to a scribe, sometimes with hilarious results) but no authorized editions. It wasn't until the First Folio, after Shakespeare died, that a good edition came along.

And it's a fairly good thing, too, that there wasn't meaningful copyright at the time, since all but one of Shakespeare's plays was based on previous works, some historical, some fictional, some quite recent. He wasn't the only person writing about Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, you know.

Since the Stationers' Copyright died a long time ago, and has no relationship to copyright since then, most people ignore it, and can justifiably say that copyright didn't really come along until 1710.

Re:Not your decision

[cpt kangarooski]

I am by no means whatsoever a copyright abolitionist ...
the public-good view of copyright requires that the artist be incentivized to the extent necessary for them to create

Well, I think you've got a little bit of a conflict there.

First, remember that there are two public goods: the public benefit of having more works created, and the public benefit of being unrestricted as to those works. Encouraging more creation by granting copyrights reduces the second benefit at the same time as it increases the first. The trick is that they don't scale linearly; even a very short copyright term, with a very small scope of protection can yield a much larger incentivizing benefit than its inherent detriment. But a very long, broad, term could wind up having little additional incentivizing benefit, making it a net detriment, and thus a bad idea.

Second, this being the case, it is possible in some circumstances that granting any copyright would have no incentivizing benefit outweighing the inescapable detriment. Architectural works strike me as being of this type. We didn't grant copyrights for buildings until 1990. Prior to that, we had plenty of buildings being designed and built. Afterwards, nothing changed. Construction is really governed by how much money people have for buildings, how much demand there is, what's tasteful, etc. Copyright does not play a role. Thus, there's no more works being created as a result of the copyright incentive to the point where it outweighs the public detriment that is automatic from granting copyrights. This sort of copyright, then, should be abolished.

Likewise, it is possible, if much less likely, that changing circumstances in the future could result in copyright not being enough of an incentive to ever justify itself. So we ought not to forever forswear abolition. Rather, we ought to leave it on the table as one possible option, should circumstances ever change to make it the best policy. I don't think we're there yet, and we may never be, but let's not arbitrarily get rid of the idea.

Re:Not your decision

[cduffy]

Likewise, it is possible, if much less likely, that changing circumstances in the future could result in copyright not being enough of an incentive to ever justify itself. So we ought not to forever forswear abolition. Rather, we ought to leave it on the table as one possible option, should circumstances ever change to make it the best policy. I don't think we're there yet, and we may never be, but let's not arbitrarily get rid of the idea.

I wholeheartedly agree with your post in its entirety; the "by no means whatsoever a copyright abolitionist" statement was intended to communicate only that I do not seek the elimination of copyright as an end in and of itself.

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Making a living is not what I speak of. The artist has the right to attempt his business model free of interference. Many artists choose to attempt to sell copies of their work, and they must be protected from any interference.

That's not true in any country. If I'm allowed to attempt my business model free of interference, my new business model is going to be called "holding you hostage." Seriously, most every country (no matter how "free market") has regulatory limits on pretty much everything.

...my views on copyright stem not from the financial motivation, but the right of the artist to pursue business as he sees fit.

Heh? Does anyone have a reason for pursuing business other than financial motivation?

Re:Not your decision

[DAldredge]

I asked my boss - he says we need to sell the software to make money. He is on slashdot if you wish to talk to him. His UID is DAldredge (2353)

Re:Not your decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Disney and similar megacorps think the life + 90 year crap is acceptable (until they need another 30 years added on).

Damned right! The Constitution specifies that copyright is to be for "a limited time".

The accursed Sonny Boner got into congress and argued, "Life + 70 is a limit, is it not?"

The sorry bastards swallowed that whole and signed his fucking law. Note that the heat death of the universe also constitutes a "limit".

By the logic of these shits, given enough time and burial under pressure, coal, oil and natural gas are all "renewable resources".

Re:Not your decision

[bky1701]

So because one (rightly) sees the natural order of things, as far as copyright goes, as being total freedom of information - they are automatically anarchists? Nice straw man.

It's worth saying that copyright is a very recent idea. If you need to know what the actual default position on copyright is, just go back and look at how media was handled before the printing press. There was pretty much no concept of anyone having rights to profit or control their works; it was invented only after the creation of media was made an industry.

Re:Not your decision

[BZ]

The artist has the right to pursue any model he sees fit, but that does not imply that some models should therefore receive government protection.

In other words, if the model works, great. But you are in fact advocating that the government support and encourage what would otherwise be an unsuccessful business model (mostly due to the fact that it's a poor business model nowadays).

Re:Not your decision

[BZ]

And just to clarify, that's just the argument that copyright is not a "natural right" in the way that freedoms of speech, association, etc. are.

It might still be a useful tool, of course. My personal view is that it is, in a more limited form than what we have now.

Fool as a client?

[kieran]

Would it really be unfeasible or inadvisable, in cases as clear-cut as this, to turn up to court yourself, sans lawyer, and say "This clearly falls under fair use. Can I go home now?"

Re:Fool as a client?

[QuantumG]

If only. The way it actually works is that long before a court date is set the judge says "send me a brief" and each party has to write up their case. If you hand in a homework assignment the judge won't even read it. If you hand in nothing, the judge will consider it a default and you immediately lose.

Re:Fool as a client?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Someone who represents themselves really does have a fool for a client.

Representing yourself is generally done under the basic principle that the court is just and fair and will come to the right decision. Time and again this has been proven completely and utterly wrong.

Courts and the bar system are essentially a private guild to which the government subcontracts the legal system. Like all guilds, the court is a closed shop. They operate under their own idiosyncratic rules and customs and demand that you do so as well. Hence someone representing themselves is a fly in their ointment and will generally find themselves tied and tripped up by layers of procedure and red tape before they even get a chance to plead their case.

And what most people don't realize is that most lawyers and indeed many judges have no interest in justice. They are interested in procedure and etiquette and quotas. If you are convicted, regardless of your guilt or innocence, then the prosecuting lawyer will be happy, the judge will be happy and because you have no layer representing you, there will be no one in the guild who is unhappy with the verdict. Since your please for fairness and justice are not phrased in the guilds technical language, no one in their will understand what you are saying, or will choose to ignore it with impunity. Hence the court will have little incentive, or reason to find you innocent. And please remember that despite some idealistic thinking to the contrary, it is not they who must prove your guilt, but you that must prove your innocence.

It would be nice to have a better legal system. The first step is to get rid of the current guild system. Until then, do not under any circumstance even think of representing yourself. Ever.

Re:Fool as a client?

[Beezlebub33]

If only. The way it actually works is that long before a court date is set the judge says "send me a brief" and each party has to write up their case. If you hand in a homework assignment the judge won't even read it. If you hand in nothing, the judge will consider it a default and you immediately lose.

Is this true if you are representing yourself? I would think that there is a thin line between 'homework assignment' and a very terse 'Here's the court case that says this is fair use'. Does it really need to be more than a page long?

Expelled was a truly horrible movie, but this is so blatant that I have to side with them. I hate it when I'm so conflicted and have agree with people I despise.

Re:Fool as a client?

[icebrain]

Well, from a more practical standpoint, representing yourself is inadvisable because of emotional involvement. You're the one on trial, and regardless of whether you're guilty or not, you're going to be nervous, probably scared, and almost certainly unable to think clearly. That's a bad thing when you're trying to poke holes in the opposition's argument. You also don't have ready access to case law (or at least the ready knowledge of where to start).

By contrast, a lawyer is detached from the situation. He most likely won't get nervous questioning a witness and won't be prone to emotional outbursts (or accidental slips) during a trial.

It's basically the same reasons why doctors shouldn't self-medicate... you generally aren't going to be capable of proper judgment.

Re:Fool as a client?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it really be unfeasible or inadvisable, in cases as clear-cut as this, to turn up to court yourself, sans lawyer, and say "This clearly falls under fair use. Can I go home now?"

How does it "clearly" fall under Fair Use? Heck, they needed the smartest guys in Copyright involved.

Re:Fool as a client?

[UnderCoverPenguin]

If only. The way it actually works is that long before a court date is set the judge says "send me a brief" and each party has to write up their case. ... If you hand in nothing, the judge will consider it a default and you immediately lose.

Is this true if you are representing yourself? I would think that there is a thin line between 'homework assignment' and a very terse 'Here's the court case that says this is fair use'. Does it really need to be more than a page long?

Years ago, I read about a case where a large company brought a trademark infringement suit against some grad students - law students. I don't remember the details, but the kids spent 3 years filing responses to briefs and motions filed by the company. At that point, for some reason I don't remember, the judge assigned to the case actually reviewed it and decided it had no merit, so found in favor of the defendants - the kids.

Imagine...

[Ihmhi]

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

Way to bury the needle on the irony meter, Yoko.

Re:Imagine...

[QuantumG]

For sure. And I know it may be a little off-topic but this is basically the philosophy of the Zeitgeist people (along with some of the funniest tin foil shit I've ever seen in film). This is basically the "if everyone would play nice the world would be great" school of thought.. and the way to get there is to subjugate yourself to being "part of something greater". Apparently the problem is not religion.. it's the non-inclusiveness of current religion. If we had one religion that was all about people working together (presumably with flowers in their hair) then everything would be perfect.
 

Re:Imagine...

[SvnLyrBrto]

Consider, though, is that the film in question is a right-wing propaganda piece. That's fairly outrageous and ironic in itself, considering that the message in "Imagine" is practically the polar opposite of republicanism; especially when you get the parts about no countries, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.

If I were in Yoko's place, I'd probably have sued as well; if only to make it damn clear that I was not affiliated with, and in no way endorsed, the drivel spouted by those people.

cya,
john

Re:Imagine...

[bky1701]

"If I were in Yoko's place, I'd probably have sued as well; if only to make it damn clear that I was not affiliated with, and in no way endorsed, the drivel spouted by those people."

Funny, because a press release would probably get just as much press, and would save everyone a whole lot of money, including the tax payers who fund the courts.

And remember; if you do not allow those you disagree with to speak, you do not deserve to speak yourself.

If they want to give it away, fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have given it away. The moment they published a book, sang a song to someone else, performed a play in front of people, exhibited a picture, the work of art is no longer theirs. I cannot force them to do anything, but I can copy it myself. To make that perfectly clear: That's something I do! That we allow them to exercise a monopoly on the distribution for a limited time is our choice, not theirs. The only choice they make is to keep their work a secret or not.

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The good die first

[Farenji]

And they take with them all good things. One day, the only thing that's left of the beatles is that Yoko bitch and her army of lawyers, and that guy with the big nose, whatshisname, Gringo Fart or something.

By then, all music will be banned because record companies failed to find a way to charge people as soon as music hits their ears so they decided to eliminate music entirely.

Re:Democrats raped taxpayers and destroyed economy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you say so.

While were at it let's also ignore the fact the the last Democratic president left office with a RECORD SURPLUS, and we've had a Republican at the helm for the past 8 years. The first 6 years enjoyed a Republican majority in Congress. Their is no way that ANY decisions made during the past 8 years could have had ANY negative effect on the economy right?

I would never argue that the Democrats have historically been the poster children of fiscal responsibility. ...But, More than Half of our national debt has been racked up under the past 3 Republican presidents. ...So Am I supposed to vote Republican to be fiscally responsible? I'm sorry but I'm having a hell of a time following that logic.

Ironically

[mcgrew]

The irony isn't that the song was imagine, the irony is that the US Constitution grants Congress the power to give copyright "To promote the progress of science and useful arts".

Good luck getting John Lennon to write any more songs. Today's copyright law is clearly unconstitutional and perhaps should not be obeyed.

Re:Ironically

[Pushpabon]

Good luck getting John Lennon to write any more songs.

Umm..isn't he dead?

Re:Ironically

[PotatoFarmer]

Indeed. That's kind of the point of the post you're quoting - when you have a system that's been designed to encourage producers to produce, there's no reason to enforce it once said producer has kicked off.

Re:Ironically

[mcgrew]

Yes, he is. Like I said, good luck getting him (or Hendrix or Bonham or Morrison or Harrison or Douglas Adams) to do any more creating. Copyright should NOT last so long.

Re:Ironically

[Ihmhi]

So? Tupac and Biggy have been dead for years and they're still coming out with new chart-toppin' hits! Zombie MCs are the newest rage.

On Second Thought

[bugeaterr]

You can not be my Yoko Ono.

"Too expensive"

[Tolkien]

It's becoming too expensive because the doctrine is being abused to no end for monetary gain rather than the protection of the property.

The irony is in the lyrics

[RobBebop]

And I quote:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

QED

Re:The irony is in the lyrics

[BobMcD]

And I quote:

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

QED

This was John's way of saying "Imagine what if I hadn't married Yoko..."

Re:The irony is in the lyrics

[Mauzl]

Nonsense.

Direct from the lyrics, again:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

They were using the song in a doco to promote the theory of Intelligent Design.

Perhaps Yoko was hoping to stop John's message being used for the wrong ends?

Bill Hicks was HALF right... Add Dennis Leary

[thompson.ash]

If you put the two together you get quite an insightful speech!

"Gandhi - Dead, Martin Luther King - Dead, John Lennon - Dead, JFK - Dead, Reagan...Wounded, I mean take John Lennon. We live in a country where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest. Yoko Ono is standing right next to him. Not one Fucking bullet. Explain that to me!"

Ok, it's not word for word but you get my point!

Fair Use is not a right

[crosbie]

'Fair Use' is what's left of the right to copy after most of it has been suspended to create a privilege to benefit publishers (in the belief this ultimately benefits the public).

You have a right to copy anything you create, purchase, or discover. The state has suspended this right apart from those few exceptions it terms 'fair use', but those exceptions only come into effect as defences after you have been prosecuted for copyright infringement, not before. There can be no 'fair use' without infringement.

It would be better to demand the complete restoration of the right to copy, and to abolish copyright, than to quibble about whether certain exceptions should be acknowledged prior to the commencement of any litigation.

She's only doing what Yoko Onos do.

[trudyscousin]

46 of 50.

Quite right too

[robajob]

Imagine? They deserve to be sued just for lack of taste.

Re:Quite right too

[Sockatume]

It's a movie about how if you teach evolution, it's like taking people to the gas chambers. If it could be sued for lack of taste, believe me, it would've.

Perhaps Forfeiture would be in order

[voss]

That if a copyright holder repeatedly uses legal harassment to prevent obviously legal uses of its copyright, perhaps it should lose that copyright. All you would need is one or two lost copyrights and you would see media company behavior dramatically change.

Re:Perhaps Forfeiture would be in order

[Sockatume]

More reasonably, they can (as happens in some other cases) be banned from filing lawsuits for being a vexatious litigant. I think.

Re:Perhaps Forfeiture would be in order

[compro01]

AFAIK, only California has that in the US.

Re:Perhaps Forfeiture would be in order

[Alsee]

It is almost never done, but yes, the courts do have the option to nullify a copyright if it is being abused for an impermissable purpose.

It remonds me of some of the talk about the eu anti-trust case against Microsoft. Some people were saying that Microsoft could or even SHOULD ignore the orders of the EU court, with the notion that the European nations would be held hostage and would suffer and would lose if both sides got into a battle of wills. Thier notion was that the EU could only throw Microsft out, that Microsoft would go home and not sell in the EU, that Microsoft would merely not make as much profit but that the EU would pretty much come to a grinding halt without Windows available.

No. If a copyrigth holder, such as Microsoft, were to break the law, and were to refuse to pay court lawful damages, and were to willfully defy direct orders of the court, and were to attempt to abuse their monopoly and abuse their copyright to attempt to blackmail entire nations, the courts could and would terminate the local copyright on Windows. Then anyone and every would be free to copy and sell and modify Windows without restriction. Windows would be unlimitedly available for free or for independent sale.

Microsoft would not only be kicked out of doing business in the EU. If Microsoft defied lawful court orders, if Microsoft ignored and defied the courts, then Microsoft would also lose the PRIVILEGE of entering EU courts requesting those courts to issues orders against European citizens who copy Microsoft's products.

Courts almost never take the step of suspending or terminating a patent or copyright, but that option is available. You do NOT want to get into a battle of wills defying courts, or to otherwise piss them off in the extreme. Especially not when you are dependent upon those courts to enforce your patents or copyrights for you.

-

Imagine all the people ...

[multisync]

Sharing all the world

Re:Imagine all the people ...

[houghi]

It is about imagining it. The lawyers did and they thought it was a bad idea.

mod parent +1 funny

[rasactive]

small closed mind lulz

Having seen Expelled, I don't blame Yoko.

[gmarsh]

...well, I must admit I only partially saw it. It's such an angry, pointless, biased rant that it's almost impossible to watch the whole way through.

It's 1.5 hours of trashing the theory of evolution with well-thought-out reasons like "it's only a theory" and "certainly evolution, not a mustached psychopath, was responsible for the Holocaust".

I wouldn't want any song I own placed in this movie...

Re:Having seen Expelled, I don't blame Yoko.

[Lord Bitman]

wouldn't want any song I own placed in this movie...

What makes you think your wishes about how you want something to be used matter?
Oh right, broken and horribly mis-applied copyright laws.

Use without paying royalties is one thing, but this "moralistic" argument that artists have a right to "control their work" is bullshit and has no place outside of informal politeness. (read: Not courtrooms)

Re:Having seen Expelled, I don't blame Yoko.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I wouldn't want any song I own placed in this movie...

It's not up to you.

I wouldn't want to set such a precedent against fair use. If a few horrible movies using 15-second clips of good songs is the price we have to pay for (slightly) saner copyright...

Re:Having seen Expelled, I don't blame Yoko.

[gmarsh]

I wouldn't want any song I own placed in this movie...

It's not up to you.

I wouldn't want to set such a precedent against fair use. If a few horrible movies using 15-second clips of good songs is the price we have to pay for (slightly) saner copyright...

Don't worry, I'm not attacking fair use at all. I'm glad I'm able to copy a CD I own onto 10 different devices that I own, and that I can rickroll someone without getting sued because some 80's icon somehow lost a record sale because of it.

I'm just saying that if you see this movie, you'll certainly think to yourself that there should be exceptions to fair use. "All fair use of this music is allowed, except in the context of Expelled and gay porn. Thanks."

Re:Having seen Expelled, I don't blame Yoko.

[SanityInAnarchy]

All fair use of this music is allowed, except in the context of Expelled and gay porn. Thanks.

I'm sure I'd entertain the notion for a moment... and then dismiss it.

I mean, think of the precedent. And imagine if someone else got to choose what those exemptions are.

Too much money goes to lawyers...

[Anonymous Coward]

...instead of to research, production and innovation that help evolve our world.

No such thing

[torstenvl]

There is no such thing as a use which is "clearly fair use."

Fair Use is not a right, it's a guiding principle used in courts (it's what is called an "equitable doctrine" and acts as an "affirmative defense" -- "equity" refers to rules which are not law but are designed to overcome unfairness in some applications of the law, and an "affirmative defense" is where you admit to breaking the law but claim that it shouldn't matter because of some extenuating circumstance). Courts weigh several different highly "fuzzy" factors in determining whether Fair Use should apply.

Some people might think this distinction is pedantic, but it's important for the following reason: people in the open-source/media-rights community need to understand that current law is not as much in their column as they'd like. This means two things:

1) You should not assume, just because some use seems fair, that you would win in a copyright infringement case based on Fair Use.

2) If you want to make Fair Use into a well-defined right, you'll need to write to your representatives in Congress.

People who submit summaries on Slashdot which mischaracterize Fair Use do injury to the political goals of the readership.

Re:No such thing

[Sockatume]

Part of the 1976 copyright act (quoted below) includes "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" as a consideration in fair use. That's a big one, I'm sure, in situations where the rights owner objected to the work their material was being featured in. It's not clear that Ono objected because it's Expelled, she's protective in general, and arguably Imagine already has near zero market value these days anyway, but it's worth thinking about. If I were to create a movie about how fun it was to squish kittens, over a looped extract from Don't Stop Me Now, it might not qualify as fair use for example.

A defense, not a right.

[Jinjuku]

Fair use is an affirmative defense against being accused of copyright infringement. It's not a right.

Not a fair use issue

[Jerry Beasters]

This was absolutely positively NOT a fair use issue. There are many legal reasons why they had no right to use that clip in the movie that went beyond the protections allowed by fair use. Yet again slashdot users don't even attempt to understand the issue.

Re:Not a fair use issue

[compro01]

many legal reasons

For example...?

Oh Yoko

[Anonymous Coward]

Your love will turn me on.

John, you're such an ass!

Poison the Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Easiest way to protect your own copyright.
1. Make extremely flawed file copies of your music and albums.
2. Upload a massive number of highly defective files with names like "Imagine", "Double Fantasy", "Best of", "Lifetime Compilation".
3. Monitor the torrents. Look for good copies of your copy-written music.
4. Poison those torrents with files of the same name, size, even CRC checks.
5. Torrent downloaders get tired of downloading 4 G of worthless jumbled music and go by a CD.
6. Continue to profit

Re:Poison the Torrent

[compro01]

IIRC, torrents use SHA-1 hashes, not CRC, and AFAIK, there are no known collisions for that yet, which makes #4 infeasible at present.

It would be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey lawdy mama,
Can't afford no shoes
Maybe there's a bundle of rags that I could use
Hey anybody,
Can you spare a dime
If you're really hurtin', a nickel would be fine

50 Years of making friends and influencing people!

[Cur8or]

Man, Yoko really knows how to piss this planet off. Think Paul Mcartney has forgiven her yet?

The article asks...

[maillemaker]

The article asks, "Is Fair Use decided by who has the most money?"

The answer, of course, is yes.

Money decides nearly everything.

Not necessarily frivolous

[Patrick May]

The 1976 Copyright Act (quoted on Wikipedia) says:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. Â 106 and 17 U.S.C. Â 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

1. the nature of the copyrighted work;
2. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
3. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Obviously I'll defer to the opinion of a Stanford law professor, but it seems on the face of it not to be a clearly frivolous lawsuit.

Ben Stein, Mark Mathis, and the rest of the lying scumbags (see Expelled Exposed for proof) who produced this piece of dreck were using the song for a commercial purpose and were not criticizing, commenting, or reporting on it, and their disingenuous pseudo-documentary certainly doesn't qualify as teaching.

Say what you like about Yoko Ono, but wanting to avoid association with this misfire in the culture war is understandable.

Proof the legal system is not a justice system

[Atrox666]

If the legal system was even trying to pretend it was a justice system then you wouldn't need to pay anyone to get a fair shake.
The fact that successful lawyers make huge money is proof positive that the law like everything else is biased toward the rich. If you would get the same result no matter how expensive a lawyer you got then why would you pay a lot of money?
Maybe a right to justice would have been a nice addition to a constitution.
Not that the rights you do have really exist. If you read a bit you'll find out that the only thing you have a right to do is complain to the government which doesn't really work if the government has been purchased by large corporations.

Tenacious D did it

[Arthur Grumbine]

So write a better song, and don't sing Happy Birthday.

Doing what you're suggesting may end up having disastrous unintended consequences.

Re:Margaret Sanger

[Anonymous Coward]

*ludicrous attempt to portray evolution and atheism as causing eugenics and Nazism*

Margaret Sanger founder the Population Council, which formulated modern eugenics. She thought Hitler circa 1930 to 1940 was wonderful. She wanted to stop births of "Catholics, blacks, Jews, and other mental defectives" (her words).

Only after the evils of the Holocaust were publicized in photographs did she tone down and change the name to Planned Parenthood. You will notice most of her clinics are in black dominated neighborhoods, and blacks have abortions out of all proportion to their numbers in society.

Nothing ridiculous about the movie, bunkie.

How does this tie atheism and evolution to eugenics and Nazis?

The ideas behind eugenics, terrible as they are, came from animal husbandry, not evolution: You improve your herd by allowing the best animals to breed.

Furthermore, in the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, eugenics was a popular idea among much more people than just Margaret Sanger. Both government and Christian church leaders supported it for a while. Ellen White, a leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Christian denomination and formulator of the modern Biblical interpretation of young-Earth creationism, advocated eugenics. (For more information, read Ronald Numbers' book "The Creationists" and Christine Rosen's book "Preaching Eugenics.")

Finally, Nazism drew upon historic Christian anti-Semitism. For example, towards the end of his life Martin Luther wrote a horrible -- although popular -- book called "On the Jews and Their Lies," which heavily influenced Hitler.

I suggest, bunkie, you learn more about history and science so that next time you won't be so easily swayed by blatant propaganda pieces like "Expelled" that profess to be unbiased documentaries.

Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole problem with Fair Use in this country is that it is an affirmative defense to an accusation of copyright infringement. That is, once you've been accused, the burden of proof is on you to prove that you fall in an exception.

Any sane legal system would require the person suing you to address all fair use cases in their initial pleadings.

If Copyrights were...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Copyrights were as they should be, anything by John Lenon would have been in the public domain for many years no. Copyrights need to be for 5-7 years only, and totally non-renewable, even if transfered to another party. Same with Patents.

That does not justify breaking the law (I am not qualified to say if the law was broken in this case).

TTYL

No

[Anonymous Coward]

"You shouldn't be walking there" doesn't have a defense of "That's a public right of way". The accusation is baseless.

This doesn't stop someone calling the police or suing you for being there, though.

And when you get to court, you have to say "It was a public right of way".

Not a defense, it's the negation of the entire case.

20 seconds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought you could use 00:00:20;00 (20 seconds) of a clip.

What Would David Do?

[Just Some Guy]

Does David Archuleta know that Yoko Ono took his song?

This is already a rule

[314m678]

That is the law of the united states. It is the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure #11. A lawyer must sign every paper he files, certifying that the information based in it is based upon evidence and is not meant to delay, harass or increase the cost of litigation. http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule11.htm

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

They put all that effort (and that IS effort) into the screenplay.

You, meanwhile either had enough money from the 10 years of monopoly to live off and create another book (which will still be under copyright and which will make more money because of the new movie being free advertising). So why be all pissy about someone else making money of a story?

Re:So what?

[Sockatume]

No, you didn't have enough money off the book. You didn't make any. Unlike the movie, nobody noticed it. It languished on the shelves for ten years until some random screenwriter decided that it was great. And everyone lapped it up, and that jerk's published your own book as "the novelisation of the movie", because it's out of copyright, and he's making thousands of dollars off it, and you're a joke because you're pretending to have written the movie. And legally there's nothing you can do about it.

Re:So what?

[HungryHobo]

You cannot copyright food. (currently)
Is this right?
why?/why not?

To most people even the idea of copyrighting food is silly as it should be with most things so it makes for a good example.

Imainge you come up with a new dish say.... deep fried banana and shrimp served in an orange skin or some other weird crap.
Nobody likes your restraunt because it's dark and dingy and almost nobody likes your dish because you're a crap cook.

but some big name cheff comes in one day, sits down and orders it.

2 weeks later you see him on his cooking show preparing "your" dish with a few minor changes and serving it in his well run popular resteraunt and people love it.

He's removed the black hairy bits which put everyone off your version and he's marketing it better.

You would be very very pissed but just because your pissed doesn't mean you get to have the courts shut him down.

The public benefit because they get the well prepared and marketed version rather than your poorly prepared shite.

Now replace "dish" with "story", "resteraunt" with "publishing house" or "shop" and "black hairy bits" with "plot holes and poor writing style and spelling"

somehow I see more resteraunts as I walk down the street than book publishers despite such an "unfair" system.

Re:So what?

[Sockatume]

We're not talking about some product where the skill in creation is vital to the end result, though. If someone takes your un-noticed novel, copies it word for word, and puts it back out to great acclaim, popularity, and gigantic sacks of cash, you would feel rightly aggrieved, no?

Re:So what?

[Sockatume]

(I should say, the manual skill in creation and reproduction. Dune is Dune is Dune, on pulp or magazine stock, as the same words are there, but a Rodin is not a Rodin when it's been carved from meat by a blind robot.)

Re:So what?

[HungryHobo]

yet you haven't dealt with the problem or copies which are not exact.

Say some other author picks up some unpopular novel, goes through it with a fine tooth comb and fixes all the problems with the plot, characters, etc and republished it. What makes this different from the cheff taking the crap dish and improving it?

Re:So what?

[HungryHobo]

as would the cheff, this validates copyright as it stands how? feeling bad is not a basis for law.

Re:So what?

[Philip Shaw]

That is where moral rights legislation such as exists in the UK would be helpful. This basically makes it possible to sue if someone plagiarises your work, and in some other related situations. This protection lasts forever

Re:Democrats raped taxpayers and destroyed economy

[Anonymous Coward]

You are deluding yourself. Government budget surpluses are a myth, because the government ALWAYS expands to eat up those surpluses. Always. Republican and Democrat alike. The best you can hope for is to pick the guy that is for the least government intrusion into your daily life.

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Ho Ho Ho!

[aproposofwhat]

Well, since that comment was submitted, I've gone from +1 to +5 Insightful, then as soon as the US woke up, back down to 0, Troll.

Fuck y'all, you Creationist assholes - I'm burning karma to keep warm, since your asshole fucking bankers and thieves have fucked the rest of the world.

You're all cordially invited to an asskicking at the Trafalgar in Aldershot, UK, as soon as you can make it.

BTW, when the cops come to my house, they generally send six - 'cause four's not enough :P

Re:Ho Ho Ho!

[Mister Whirly]

Just FYI - most of the people in the US dislike the small (but often vocal) population of the "Creationist assholes" over here too. We are not all wankers across the pond.

Bollocks

[smoker2]

The submitter and the so called legal expert claims this was a clear case of fair use.
Considering the clip makes up part of a commercial DVD and really has no relevance to the subject matter of that DVD, I don't see any fair use claim.
I don't support the current copyright laws, but whatever the lifespan of a copyright, the regulations should be obeyed. This case did not meet fair use guidelines, in fact it was an example of the rules acting as they should.
Considering both sides dropped their respective claims anyway, and the clip was removed from the dvd, I don't see what the fuss is about. If I want to make a dvd of video I've shot, and add a published artists music as a soundtrack, then I should be able to. The moment I attempt to profit financially from that DVD I should get permission from the rights holder and pay a fee if required.

Berne Convention

[tepples]

Copyright is enforced by the public. It is entirely up to us how long we choose to enforce copyright terms.

No, it is up to them, the other members of the World Trade Organization. They have set the minimum copyright term for works first published outside of our country at the life of the author plus 50 years.

This is normal

[OrangeTide]

Life is feeling pretty easy when you are rich. You can afford to have crazy theories about a utopian society.

all i can imagine...

[airdrummer]

is freezing in the dark...

in copyright cases, loser often does pay

[Trepidity]

This is being extensively litigated in the RIAA cases and has gone both ways, but in the few instances where an appellate circuit has made a clear statement on the matter, it's been that there ought to be a presumption in favor of awarding attorneys' fees to prevailing defendants in copyright cases. The presumption is strengthened if the plaintiff brought a case that they ought to have known was frivolous, or if the plaintiff has much greater resources available than the defendant. To my knowledge, the first, sixth, and seventh circuits have all explicitly ruled to that effect.

what we need...

[airdrummer]

b4 socialized medicine is socialized law;-)

thus illustrating the EAFP maxim;-)

[airdrummer]

easier to ask forgiveness than get permission...

a little more complicated than that

[Trepidity]

"Affirmative defense" and "right" aren't wholly distinct things. For example, raising First Amendment rights in litigation is generally done as an affirmative defense, and there too, "courts weigh several different highly 'fuzzy' factors" in their determinations.

The EFF has a small bit about this in q5 of their FAQ.

Re:a little more complicated than that

[Anonymous Coward]

OP never said they were distinct. He said rights and equitable defenses were distinct. The fact that the equitable defense is an affirmative defense was only for more information, and doesn't go to the heart of the matter.

This is so not slashdot

[blai]

Why's everything insightful today?

Summary wrong,please fix: documentary to Expelled

[Anonymous Coward]

The phrase 'a documentary film' should be changed to 'Expelled'. In the current version the summary is not just committing a lie by omission, but it is also plainly incorrect, as Expelled is not a documentary film, but a propaganda film. Please fix the summary.

Yoko Ono

[Anonymous Coward]

Whew! I misread the title. I thought that Yoko Ono was going to sue over use of "her" music.

Anyone who has ever heard Yoko Ono sing can attest that singing is best applied loosely to what she did.

Anyone can claim "prior art" on her music. All you need to do is to put several cats into a sack and dunk them in a river repeatedly. The sounds the cats will make is very close to what Yoko Ono singing is like.

Insane accusations==DO_NOT_COOPERATE

[sorak]

Would Yoko Ono have sued about this if Michael Moore borrowed that same 15 second clip?

I think not.

It's only OK to "Imagine" a world that believes exactly as you do.

If someone was trying to say that you were part of some insanely elaborate and genocidal conspiracy (as Stein did by claiming that Darwin, Science and Atheism caused the holocaust), would you be helping that person?