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RIAA and BSA's Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts
An anonymous reader writes "Following the appointment of RIAA's champion Donald Verrilli as associate deputy attorney general, here's a complete roundup of all the RIAA and BSA-linked lawyers comfortably seated at top posts at the Department of Justice by the new government. Not strange, since US VP Joe Biden is well known for pushing the copyright warmongers' agenda in Washington. Just in case you don't know, Verrilli is the nice man who sued the pants off Jammie Thomas."
Well, at least this is change I can believe in. As in, it's certainly not hard to believe.
Damn.
So the lawyers brought these lawsuits not the RIAA. I didn't realize Donald Verrilli brought these lawsuits to protect his copyrights. I don't blame the lawyers for this anymore than I would blame the soldiers for fighting Bush's war.
"The ignorant fight to win, the wise win before they fight." -Sun Tzu
yes, as per his campaign agenda he *is* changing things in DC.
He's putting Hollywood's interest ahead of people's. After electing Hollywood frontman as the country's vice president what else would you expect !
I suppose putting the attack dogs for anti-competitive businesses in the DOJ is better than putting tax evaders in charge of the IRS...
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
as President and Vice President, what do you expect? Perhaps all of that Hollywood support from actors and musicians bought something from Obama and Biden.....
This guy is way out there
Cheney|Halliburton = Biden|RIAA
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
With those who've sold their souls in those positions, maybe they'll make things so bad that the public sits up and takes notice and demands reform to our seriously dysfunctional copyright laws.
So I, for one, welcome our new plutocratic overlords. At least, I think I do...
Free Martian Whores!
All art, as all science and engineering, is built on the achievements of those who came before. Engineers have it easy, as patents only last 20 years and I'm told are often easy to get around.
Copyrights are forever when compared to an artist's life. I cannot legally build on any work produced in the last hundred years.
This AP story illustrates the folly of our system.
There is a comparison of the two works, and it's obvious (to me as a content creator anyway) that the Fairey image is fair use.
As to your incredibly ignorant remark, it is exactly like the guy who said "Looks like the days of drunken bums is over" when they passed prohibition. Copyright law is getting worse and worse, and people are responding by ignoring it, just as they ignored laws against alcohol. It WILL reach a breaking point.
I should not have to pay for a digital copy of Jimi hendrix' work. The man is dead and has been for decades. It should be in the public domain as the Founding Fathers wished and as is written in the US Constitution.
Free Martian Whores!
Yes, and we don't want our hunters to start using pointy sticks as they might forget how to kill a buffalo with a club or their bare hands if they get too proficient with the pointy sticks we will have a generation of people unable to bash things with a rock properly. And then we will surely be in trouble and we will all starve.
-Rough translation from a crotchety old caveman
Not only is the RIAA now apparently synonymous with the Justice Department, but we STILL have renditions and we still have a President that believes he has the authority to spy on us (and by extension of the same logic essentially ignore any law or any provision of the Constitution by the same argument).
It was unacceptable when GWB did it, and it is STILL unacceptable and it is still the responsibility of the citizens of the US to put a stop to it.
But hey, Barak Obama is a great guy, we don't need civil liberties.
Fools.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Talk is cheap, actions haven't followed all the hype.
Lets see, Iran is now openly declaring we have to respect their nuclear right. North Korea is again launching test rockets towards Japan.
Yeah, looks like newly found world wide respect.
Throw in, the French laughing at our bail out ideas... I have seen the manure recently (read: two nominees toasted, two more that should have been, and the labor one is on her way out already) but I haven't seen the flowers or unicorns. Instead of substance we get interviews with him about his substance use (read: tobacco)
Science at the forefront? Looks like to me that building water slides in Louisiana is more important (read the stimulus bill he so solidly supports). What science? Must be the 50 plus million to the arts. Go read it http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/hr1_engrossed.pdf (warning it is like only page and half of the 600 page bill)
Don't know where you've been but nothing has changed except for how fast the back peddling has become or where it comes from. If this is change I am not sure it is what we really wanted.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I wondered where he got all the money - most expensive campaign, most expensive inauguration etc. etc. Is this repayment then?
There is no glory in fighting and killing is wrong, period.
If someone is bent on killing you and the only means you have to defend yourself is with deadly force, is it wrong to exercise that force? Or would you stand on your morals and be slaughtered like an animal?
Your lofty rhetoric doesn't stand up to real-world scenarios, I'm afraid.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
...I didn't vote for him.
I guess the 'Change' Obama promised is either only 'change' left in my pocket after paying for all that crap San Fran Nan and the looney left are pushing or the 'change' from a Republic to a Socialist dictatorship.
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
The scary part is that we have more to lose from the government then we do from the BSA and RIAA. This is sort of scary when you consider the type of firepower the government is stocking up on. I mean people who have taken single mothers and blind grandmas to court and dragged them around quite capably. Now we can rest assured that knowing that the government now has people skilled in this area. It sort of balances the power out that has been lopsided towards the people for the last 230 plus years.
Now that's change we can believe in. HOPE and all that shit.
Patently false, you cannot legally build on someones work without paying for the privilege.
It isn't a privelege, it is a RIGHT spelled out in Article 2 Section 8. Copyrights are only there to "promote the useful arts". What I write or paint or record does NOT belong to me, it belongs to humanity. It is supposed to go into the public domain after a "limited time". All I own is a "limited time" monopoly on its distribution, nothing more.
Besides the longer I can keep some hip hop freakin' idiot from corrupting my work the better as far as I'm concerned..
An archetect might say the same thing, but I have the right to do anything I want to a property I own. And we ALL own ALL intelectual "property". If you don't want some "hip hop freakin' idiot from corrupting" your work, don't do it to begin with.
Art isn't really where the innovations come from anyway
Despite the fact that your statement there has no bearing on the argument, I should remind you that archetecture IS art. You could not build a skyscraper in 1800.
if you think that copyright is stopping progress you are in the wrong business
Copyright itself is a very useful structure when properly implimented, and does indeed promote the arts. When it is poorly implimented, as it is now, it is a hindrance to progress.
Free Martian Whores!
See, the way I see it, your response is perfectly understandable, but it fails to make sense when you take a more holistic view of things.
One cannot effectively defend oneself unless one is PREPARED to defend oneself. That might at first glance seem to be merely a sensible thing to do, be prepared (hey I was even a Boy Scout once, lol).
The problem is that being prepared consists of being armed. Once you arm yourself, you ARE by definition now a threat to everyone else. Thus they must arm themselves. Thus even the mildest form of defensive thinking leads directly to an arms race or the conditions for an arms race.
More than that, it leads to a kind of thinking which inevitably involves the logic of power, and the rule of power is the rule of force. Inter armis legis non. No law can exist between armed parties willing to defend their interests by force except force. Either the force of the other party, or the force of some third party.
So peace fails, even amongst well meaning peoples, because first they subscribe to the doctrine of self defense. Second they must arm themselves, 3rd their armed state precipitates a need for all other parties to be armed, and then no authority can exist which is not armed force. Finally that armed force will sooner or later be used. Thus the doctrine of self defense, innocent as it seems on the surface, is the seed which ultimately leads to war and violence.
Even when violence does not proceed directly from the logic of power, it creates a corrupting effect on the thinking of the armed individuals. First they reason that collective security is better than individual security and the full panoply of the armed state comes into existence. People in large numbers acting in a mass in the armed state do not subscribe to any of the recognized moral principles of normal society to any high degree. This is a situation always extremely hazardous to peace.
Finally the corruption goes even deeper in the sense that to arm oneself is in essence a threat, and thus each person in this armed society is essentially at a fundamental level saying to all of the others "I reserve the option to get my way by force." Granted that most people will not want to exercise that option, but it always exists and it has an inhibiting effect on people's willingness to reach a real and genuine accommodation with one another based on mutual agreement and shared benefit.
Thus my position is that the doctrine of self defense is actually antithetical to the best interests of all individuals in the real world. Not in some moralistic philosophical sense, but actually in the real world as it is.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
It's perfect.
Prior to him getting into office, Slashdot was full of Obama worshippers. They really thought he was going to be a president for nerds. Suckers!
BTW, since this post surely hits too close to home for many, please keep an eye on the moderation.
I don't think the artist's lifespan should have anything to do with it. All music, movies, books, etc that were created when I was young and Hendrix was alive should be in the public domain by now whether their artists are dead or not.
Patents only last 20 years, why should copyright be any different? I think 20 years is a perfectly reasonable time frame. With a few exceptions (Asimov's Foundation being the most notable I can think of), if you haven't made a profit off it in 20 years you're not likely to in the future. Hasn't Blade Runner made its costs back by now.
Free Martian Whores!
A flat-earth first approximation is perfectly adequate for people at a flat-earth level of technology. Lack of relativity and quantum mechanics is perfectly adequate for an 1890s level of technology. Actually, if you are a modern civil engineer, you could probably get by just fine using nothing but Newtonian mechanics.
"Using a computer does not preclude understanding basic mathematics."
Yes it does, IF, most especially, you have never learned to do basic math in the first place. A calculator can only give you examples, it will not teach you effective methods of performing arithmetic.
Further (as I have noticed personally), if you constantly use a calculator, your math skills DO get rusty, from lack of practice.
Your example of non-linear dynamics is fine as far as it goes, but it does not apply to simpler mathematics. Learning to do it manually (or in your head with practice) is an important step... and in fact if you do know the basics well, you will be able to use your calculator or computer much more effectively.
Computer programming is -- in every way -- nothing more than applied mathematics. Even natural-language processing by computer is, at its deepest level, nothing more than math.
Trying to optimize the loops and control structures in my programs would be pointless if I did not have a grasp of the "big O", which requires foreknowledge of geometry and even calculus.
I do agree with you that computers are essential, but I am not sure we agree on where the line should be drawn between "you must know how to do this yourself or you will not graduate" and "get out your calculator".
Let's not confuse who exactly is evil here. The RIAA is. The RIAA people who started and didn't stop the litigation campaign. The lawyers were just paid cogs in the RIAA yourmoney machine. Lawyers argue for whomever pays their fees. I'm sure these highly skilled, if morally fickle barristers are willing to bend all their talents to championing their new bosses' causes! :)
At a shooting range or gun-related event, people are really nice to each other. They don't get in fights.
At the international level, notice how there has never been war between a pair of countries with nuclear weapons.
Having Palin an even weaker hear-beat away from being President made the choice a no-brainer.
Gee what a surprise. Huge support from the entertainment industry to get Obama into office. Did everyone think there wasn't going to be a cost to this? What a refreshing CHANGE.