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What Could Have Been In the Public Domain Today, But Isn't
SgtChaireBourne writes "Many works published in 1955 would have entered the public domain this year. Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has an overview of the movies, books, songs and historical works that are kept out of the public domain by changes to copyright law since 1978. Instead of seeing these enter the public domain in 2012, we will have to wait until 2051 before being able to use these works without restriction."
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; "
I believe in the benefits of copyrights. Most of my Web pages are copyrighted. However, the current state of intellectual law is unacceptable. Extending copyright coverage to 90 years (Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998) violates the concept of "limited Times". The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) stifles innovation instead of promoting it. And the primary beneficiaries of these laws are not "Authors and Inventors" but corporate publishers, movie studios, and record companies who reap the bounty of others' creativity. If you agree that this situation is intolerable, tell your representatives and senators in Congress.
I copied the above paragraph from one of my own copyrighted Web pages (with a slight modification in the second sentence). I hereby grant to the public the right to quote that paragraph at will, in all contexts, and in all media.
Say if you want to keep your copyright after X years pay X fee. That way Mickey Mouse can say out of the PD as long as the fee is payed. But other stuff and abandonware can go free. Also make it pre work or at least some way to stop places buying up lot's of old corporate conglomerates and clamming copyright to lot's of old works with out proof and may it that they have to use / offer the work for sale. The down side of copyrights is dead works and a copyright extension fee / or tax will help fix that.
If after say 30-40 years from the date of copyright, the material is no longer available for purchase to the common man (Easy to do via digital distribution for movies/songs/etc atleast), the copyright is declared invalid?
Many folks call copyright (rather than copyright violations) "theft", but I'd go farther. Being a form of censorship, it is a crime against humanity.
A mere war against lives is limited in scope. With free dissemination of ideas, oppressive regimes don't last long -- note how the first thing they try is blocking communication among protesters and jailing of authors/journalists/etc who dare to voice something that opposes the regime in question. War on culture has effects that last forever. Books burned don't come back.
Imagine a guy in, say, 400BC, who took a spray^H^H^H^H^Hbucket of paint and wrote something on a wall. Like everyone else born during the next 2300 years, his life is gone. Yet a part of him lives on. Culture has the potential to last forever.
Copyright, by massively hampering culture, is the very worst thing we have.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
That's pretty much how it works here in Czech republic. I'll let you in on a secret: It makes no difference.
The only thing that can make a difference is people taking active part in politics in between elections. If you think that some "perfect" political system will do your hard work for you, you're looking in the wrong direction.
Bah. As we see from this latest primary, each candidate is destroyed in turn as the public begins to consider them. Apparently, our "choice" was Romney all along, and we'll get to "choose" between him and a guy I can't tell a difference from Bush. Well, except there were jobs in the first half of Bush at least.
I love the gp's "capitalism" remark up there. People fall for that shit; that capitalism is some real thing. "Capitalism", is simply free people, and their money. Take away either freedom or money from the people, and that by definition destroys capitalism. That doesn't destroy the rich of course. Oh, you'll get a few; widows and others who didn't earn the money; you can soak them for 50% tax rates. But most of the rich are good with money, and you're not going to trick them out of it. Not with taxes or surcharges or estate taxes... There is a way to take the rich's money. Look to the French and Bolshevik revolutions for recent examples.
TLDR, they killed them all, and their families. It was bad. Counterproductive for the working class you might say. Short of drastic shit like that, you're never going to take enough from the rich to satisfy you.
The best thing for us working stiffs, is to get them to spend it. Generates taxes all along the way, opportunity is spread, wealth is spread, stuff is made, wealth is then created out of sunshine, dirt, and time... yada. Sure, suckers like you and I have to work for a tiny piece of it, by selling our labor; but it's been that way for 10,000 years at least, and we are not going to see the end of that. I work for someone richer than me, as do you (if you work) and the others here. When the working class is deprived of the opportunity to labor for the rich in relative freedom; well North Korea is a solid example. There are other, less extreme examples.
What we finally have in this country, or are pretty close to, is a truly level playing field; where all it takes to be the rich and powerful, is the money itself. Gone are hereditary rulers, racial qualifications, whatever; all you need is the money. That's as fair as it gets. So stop with this class warfare crap.
It is true that rich recently are not spending their money. They are hoarding it. Can't imagine a different outcome, when you threaten to raise taxes (a lot) for 3 years, but then never actually fucking raise taxes. I mean, what do you expect? At least if you had actually raised them; the rich would know how much they have to hide and what they can spend, and get on with things. But they're not spending crap right now; thus getting richer. Now, if you could do the opposite; raise taxes, but don't talk about taxes, and nobody really even notices you raised them, so they go on spending about the same as they did before... Well that would be best, wouldn't it?
I loved the recent ads the Dems ran against tax cutters. They say: Reagan may have cut taxes twice; but he raised them nine times. I was there, and I felt that second tax cut in my minimum-wage paycheck. I never felt or even knew about the 9 increases. I don't remember him talking about that. Funny that, I remember: across the board tax cuts, closing loopholes for the rich, evil empire, jellybeans... Never a word about, 'I'm raising taxes nine times'...
Brilliant! Fucking genius. So let me get this straight: You promise them something good, give them some pittance of deliverance on said promise; and then go do your fucking job, and do what you need to do to run the country. Without scaring anybody. Good job, Reagan.
Bravo!
That's one of the most concise examples of what I've been seeing happen over the course of my lifetime: economic winners writing the rules so that there can be fewer and fewer new winners.
America is now like a basketball game where every time someone makes a basket, their team gets to replace a referee.
This is what pisses me off the most when older folks give my generation the "well if you don't like the way things are, why don't you start your OWN company, Apple started in a garage for chrissakes" ... why? Because we're not even remotely playing the same game that Apple was playing in their garage days .. or Wal-mart ... or hell ... Amazon for that matter.
The winners write the rules so that it's impossible for you to follow the same ... hell ... even a similar ... path to success.