Newspaper Articles Not Copyrightable In Slovakia

Re:First! by Twinbee · 2012-01-09 20:21 · Score: 1, Funny

You win 270 internet points. Congratulations. Your post however contains copyrighted content (I copyrighted it a few years back). Expect then a visit from Your Friendly Law Enforcement officers within the next couple of days!

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In Slovakia.... by WarJolt · 2012-01-09 20:24 · Score: 1

Your slashdot comments don't get copyright protection either.

Re:In Slovakia.... by Opportunist · 2012-01-09 21:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

You sure? These comments are original works of me, my opinion, my creation.
You have to see the difference between information and creation. That Hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table is not copyrightable. It's information. Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.
A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS copyrightable.

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Re:In Slovakia.... by ciderbrew · 2012-01-09 21:40 · Score: 5, Funny

You sure? These comments are original works of me, my opinion, my creation.
You have to see the difference between information and creation. That Hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table is not copyrightable. It's information. Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.
A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS copyrightable.
Does this mean I can't use the quote button?
Re:In Slovakia.... by shentino · 2012-01-09 21:44 · Score: 1

Actually they do because Slashdot is hosted in the USA.
The implied license might be another hurdle though.
Re:In Slovakia.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-09 22:54 · Score: 2, Informative

You seem confused. The copyright of facts and the copyright of newspaper articles are two distinct things.
Re:In Slovakia.... by fatphil · 2012-01-09 23:41 · Score: 2

I don't know why you were marked funny, it's more worth "insightful". You raise a good point, and it's one that predates web-based communities like /.. There would often be loons on usenet who would like to assert copyright over everything they posted (grand theories about how something impossible was true, usually), who used to get all riled up when people would reply quoting everything. The general consensus was that such posts, whilst copyrighted by the original poster, have been explicitly sent into a medium which by design permits, or even requires, mass duplication and sometimes cosmetic rewriting. So permission to copy has already been granted as soon as the initial "send" was clicked.

I don't recall this precise (fora) idea being tested in court, but I'm far from confident that the decision would go the right way. Similar requires-duplication-in-order-to-even-ever-work scenarios have been tested, and decided upon in the braindead fashion. (Namely that the person who issued a HTTP GET for an image, and who was then willingly send a copy of the image by the web server, was found guilty of copyright infringement.)

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Re:In Slovakia.... by blind+biker · 2012-01-09 23:52 · Score: 1

Does this mean I can't use the quote button?
There is a quote button?

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Re:In Slovakia.... by aix+tom · 2012-01-09 23:52 · Score: 5, Funny

You seem confused. The copyright of facts and the copyright of newspaper articles are two distinct things.
That may indeed be true in the US, where "facts" and "newspaper articles" definitely are two distinct things most of the time.
Re:In Slovakia.... by Ihmhi · 2012-01-10 04:28 · Score: 1

You sure? These comments are original works of me, my opinion, my creation.
You have to see the difference between information and creation. That Hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table is not copyrightable. It's information. Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.
A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS copyrightable.
Does this mean I can't use the quote button?
That joke is so derivative.

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Re:In Slovakia.... by Ihmhi · 2012-01-10 04:30 · Score: 1

A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter.
Ten copies, please. WHY WON'T YOU TAKE MY MONEY?!

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Re:In Slovakia.... by datavirtue · 2012-01-10 06:34 · Score: 1

There is a quote button?! Where is it!?

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Re:In Slovakia.... by evalhalla · 2012-01-10 07:27 · Score: 1

Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.
Not strictly true: if you wrote an elaborate statement to affirm that hydrogen is the element with the least mass you would probably have copyright *on the statement*, just not on the hydrogen fact. This is how you have copyright on e.g. science books, which are basically based on the explanation of facts (and why you can take said facts and put them on wikipedia, but you can't copy the actual phrasing of the book).
Re:In Slovakia.... by Opportunist · 2012-01-12 12:18 · Score: 1

Umm... 'cause I give it away for free? It's not like I think my creations are worth enough to actually charge people for the privilege of reading them.
Actually, I'm kinda glad they don't try to get compensation for immaterial damage...

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whose history survived last time? by harvey+the+nerd · 2012-01-09 20:29 · Score: 1

In the coming Dark Age of lost or purged copyrighted history as libraries physically wink out, Slovakia may preserve more of its history.

Re:whose history survived last time? by Opportunist · 2012-01-09 21:01 · Score: 1

Not only Slovakia, I dimly remember that in our copyright laws there's an explicit note that news are not copyrightable. For the reason that they're news, not the creation of the newspapers.
Well, it MAY be different for the Sun or similar quality papers, where it might be an original work...

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Because, they are not worth by rastos1 · 2012-01-09 20:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Most likely, they are not worth protection, because they are generally crap. Journalism is a dying art. All you get is poorly translated blurbs from AP/AFP/Reuters. With population of 5 millions is not worth attention of foreign reporters and the only case where I've seen local reporters to get to the bottom of the issue are some consumer-protection cases. Never in science, politics or corruption, etc. But who cares. Most people just want tabloid, so they get that.

I get better news coverage here, than from newspaper articles.

Re:Because, they are not worth by SeaFox · 2012-01-09 20:40 · Score: 1

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Oh, wait...
Re:Because, they are not worth by viperidaenz · 2012-01-09 20:55 · Score: 1

What's wrong with only having 5 million people? I live in a country with 4,434,676 people. We have good news articles all the time, perhaps two, maybe three a month!
Re:Because, they are not worth by fatphil · 2012-01-10 00:32 · Score: 1

1,339,646 here. We have a fantastic news service, and I'm not jesting.

Of course, whilst the news may be vitally important and exciting for nationals, it's likely to be of very little interest to foreigners. Whereas when things are happening in the US or Russia, even if we'd prefer it didn't affect us, we still have to wonder how far away the poor victim country will be and whether we'll get any fall-out.

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Re:Because, they are not worth by AmiMoJo · 2012-01-10 02:34 · Score: 1

It isn't really about the quality of the work, otherwise you could argue that all sorts of art is just crap and thus not worthy of copyright. Who would decide? The court in this case is basing their decision on the idea that merely reporting facts is not a significant enough "work" to qualify, in the same way that you can't copyright raw data like statistics or sports scores in most places.
Opinion pieces might be different because they are creative. Unfortunately 99% of the average newspaper is opinion rather than reporting of facts, but perhaps things are different in Slovakia. It would seem that supposedly unbiased sources of raw facts like the AFP could be in trouble here though.

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I live in Slovakia by SlovakWakko · 2012-01-09 20:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

The copyright lobby is still trying to locate us on the map. Once they find us, our politicians will last maybe 3 minutes...

Re:I live in Slovakia by future+assassin · 2012-01-09 21:37 · Score: 1

That's why you have to organise and donate to the politicians first. Keep track of how much was donated and use that info as amo in case the US Media lobsters start to pay them off OR you could gather all the politicians and threaten them with mob and pitchforks.

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Re:I live in Slovakia by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-10 00:00 · Score: 1

Here in the EU (which Slovakia is a member of), "donating" to a politician is a serious crime (corruption) with several years of imprisonment as the punishment.
Re:I live in Slovakia by ScentCone · 2012-01-10 00:31 · Score: 1

Do any politicians run campaigns that cost money? If someone you truly think is the right person for the job is trying to get elected, are you prevented from supporting their campaign, or the political actions of their party/organization?

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Re:I live in Slovakia by LordCrank · 2012-01-10 05:36 · Score: 1

Does copyright law in Slovakia have the notion of fair use applied as it does in the U.S.? Without fair use of copyrighted materials as a middle ground you'd have a much harder time arguing that news articles can be copyrighted.
Re:I live in Slovakia by SlovakWakko · 2012-01-10 06:20 · Score: 2

I don't know how about other member coutries, but in Slovakia you can donate to the politician's party. The parties also get some state donations after elections based on the votes they get, so they're supposed to get a loan to cover the campaign, and then repay it from this donation. IRL this money is not enough to run a serious political party, so they make a lot of shady deals with the private sector. The corruption is almost universal.
Re:I live in Slovakia by SlovakWakko · 2012-01-10 06:41 · Score: 2

Yes it does. It's not as strict as U.S. law, and it even recognizes 'private use' - for example I may copy a portion or all of certain types of copyrighted works (including movies and music, but not books) for private use, without having to notify or pay the copyright owner. He/she is reimbursed from a small tax levied on all recording media and devices (CD/DVD media and burners, HDDs, ...). The law also recognizes derivative works, which are allowed (a photo of a sculpture, for example) and other useful concepts. Besides, our police has never tried to go after small-time infringers who use p2p to dl movies, music, and software. All copyright-related busts were against companies using unlicensed software on a large scale or against individuals regularly selling unlicensed copies of copyrighted works. The court decision in question here does not mention fair use, it is based on the judge's notion that news articles are just reporting factual events, and thus are not creative works (yes, we still remember the purpose of copyright :). I know the original reasoning of the plaintiff and I have to say that in my opinion the judge is wrong, since the aggregated articles are sometimes also author commentaries, which clearly are creative works, sometimes of high quality. But I cannot imagine that many of our judges are educated enough in the modern issues of copyright in the virtual world to recognize the problem, and copyright laws is not really considered a big issue here. We are still waiting on the bastard who will come and turn it into a serious business.
Re:I live in Slovakia by turbidostato · 2012-01-10 07:04 · Score: 1

"I cannot imagine that many of our judges are educated enough in the modern issues of copyright in the virtual world to recognize the problem"
That's good for you: with regards of copyright notions, the more "luddites" the more probable the judge will reach a fair outcome.
There's absolutly *nothing* in the "virtual world" that means a damn with respect of copy rights except to muddy the waters.
"I have to say that in my opinion the judge is wrong"
With regards of court rules, the damn short letter makes a big difference. Given that the basic asumption seems fair (news are news, not creative work) I'll tend to think that it was the plaintiff the one that failed to show that among the non-copyrighteable facts there were creative work too. A judge must judge about what was presented to him, not about what he can imagine that "really happened".
Re:I live in Slovakia by SlovakWakko · 2012-01-10 07:43 · Score: 1

"it was the plaintiff the one that failed to show that among the non-copyrighteable facts there were creative work too"
You're right, at least the article suggest so. It also says that the court disregarded some EC directives and previous cases based on them. Since precedents are not binding in our law system, it is free to do so, and the plaintiff will have to appeal the decision in a higher court.

In Slovakia... by vikingpower · 2012-01-09 20:50 · Score: 2

...copyright owns you !

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Re:In Slovakia... by airfoobar · 2012-01-09 21:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

No no no, in America copyright owns you. In Slovakia, copyright knows its place.
Re:In Slovakia... by loneDreamer · 2012-01-10 06:37 · Score: 1

No no no, in America copyright owns you. In Slovakia, copyright knows its place.
in the USA, sure. Most countries in in America are much healthier though.

Interesting by gmhowell · 2012-01-09 21:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

There is plenty of creativity in journalism. In the US, journos exhibit creativity when they try to create two sides out of a one sided issue, conjures up non existent reasons for an illegal war, or print outright works of fiction as fact.

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Re:Interesting by LordLimecat · 2012-01-10 04:01 · Score: 3, Informative

When you say "illegal war", you mean "military activity not authorized authorized by congress?"
Because heres the huge irony of all these bashing statements about "Bushe's War" being illegal getting +5 interesting: All of Bush's military activity was explicitly authorized [wikipedia.org] by Congress, in one case by a landslide [wikipedia.org]. The huge irony here is that Obama voted "yea" for both.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for Obama, despite his vocal opposition to non-authorized military activity-- Libya was not approved by Congress (though it was by the UN; I guess that trumps constitutionality requirements in Obama's book).
To be clear, I am not against the intervention in Libya-- I can give Obama credit where credit is due; but there is some HUGE hypocrisy from a guy who stated
"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
and even more so from those who ignore Libya and continue blithely attacking Bush. At least Obama had the good sense to shut up about Bush's "Kinetic Military Actions" being unconstitutional; yall should take a page out of his book.
Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-10 08:23 · Score: 1

No, he means 'military action without a formal declaration of war as required by international law'.
Re:Interesting by LordLimecat · 2012-01-10 09:27 · Score: 1

My links didnt come through due to a bad copy-paste; you are right that Bush had no declaration of war, but that is not a constitutional requirement, and international law allows retaliation in self defense (which, it is argued, Afghanistan was).
Iraq was because Hussein refused to allow UN weapons inspectors in, along with an informant who claimed WMDs and bio / chem weapons were being stockpiled. You can argue that all day long, but basically everyone was for the Iraq invasion when it happened; It is possible Bush would have been "in trouble" had he not done Iraq, and very possible he would have been impeached if he had not done Afghanistan (Congress voted some 520 to 10 on that; whens the last time they were so united?)
All that aside, Im pretty certain that no declarations of war were issued for Libya, so any attacks on bush must be doubly leveled at Obama.
Re:Interesting by Tyler+Durden · 2012-01-10 09:48 · Score: 1

You can argue that all day long, but basically everyone was for the Iraq invasion when it happened; It is possible Bush would have been "in trouble" had he not done Iraq...
Um, the reason that "basically everyone" was for the Iraq invasion is because of a concerted effort made by the Bush administration to make a case for it. A case that was full of information that can be considered, at best, distortions and, at worst, outright lies. If you don't believe me, try watching the program "Bush's War" put out by Frontline. Maybe Congress was too trusting with what was presented to them, but in the end the Iraq war was the Bush administration's cause.
I agree with you about Obama's hypocrisy regarding Libya.

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Manipulative wording by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2012-01-09 21:08 · Score: 2

It's not 'author's rights' to recognition that are neglected rather than the publisher's rights to monopolize monetary or informative value of their writing.

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Re:Manipulative wording by Trevin · 2012-01-10 02:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's closer, but monopolizing the news is not a right. It's a privilege which may (or may not) be granted by the government.

Great, now take it a step further! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-09 21:14 · Score: 1

while the news articles manifests traces of creativity, it is not enough to be considered worth protecting the authors rights

The same should apply to Hollywood movies, for the same reasons! :D

For now by Kikuchi · 2012-01-09 21:18 · Score: 2

US of A Ambassador : "That's a nice country you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to its economy..."

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Misleading conclusion by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-09 21:38 · Score: 1

Slovakia, like most European countries, doesn't have a common law system. This means that precedents have very little significance, and next time someone claims a copyright on a news article, the court may decide differently.

Because they aren't worth it by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-09 22:01 · Score: 2, Funny

The more likely explanation is that they are not worth protecting, because their quality is so low. Journalism is a dying art. Newspapers consist of poorly translated blurbs from AP/AFP/Reuters. With a population of 5 million, Slovakia does not receive much attention from the foreign press, and the only case where I've seen local reporters get to the bottom of an issue are in a few consumer-protection issues. Never in other important fields like science, politics, etc. But who cares. Most people just want a tabloid, and that's what they get.

I get better news coverage here on Slashdot than from Slovakian newspaper articles.

I'm sure you will be more than happy if my edit gets voted to +5. Now imagine if you were a professional, and had your text stolen. Still think it shouldn't be copyrightable?

Re:Because they aren't worth it by riegel · 2012-01-09 22:18 · Score: 1

I think you are confusing plagiarism with copyright.

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Re:First! by WillerZ · 2012-01-09 22:05 · Score: 1

causes damage to the posters reputation

If the poster wasn't AC, maybe

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Re:First! by Urkki · 2012-01-09 22:16 · Score: 2

causes damage to the posters reputation

If the poster wasn't AC, maybe

Oh, no, that just means that everybody who ever posted as AC is is eligible for damages. Actually, this is a class action case!

Finally a test case by Mathinker · 2012-01-09 23:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

Will this cause the total collapse of the Slovakian news business? My suspicion is "no".

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens, so finally there might be some (slightly) more objective evidence for those of us who are interested in how the current copyright laws encourage or discourage various economic endeavors.

Re:Finally a test case by MisterMidi · 2012-01-10 03:24 · Score: 2

No test case. As an AC pointed out, Like most countries in the EU (and for that matter, most countries in the world), Slovakia doesn't have common law, precedents, and test cases. In civil law, law is written, not precedented.
Re:Finally a test case by Mathinker · 2012-01-10 04:47 · Score: 2

I think you misunderstand "test case", here. I did not mean a legal test case. I meant an economic test case --- for that, it is sufficient to have just this one decision.

Re:copyright in Slovakia by pjabardo · 2012-01-10 00:49 · Score: 1

So, Slovak journalists are like journalists everywhere?

2 things by capoccia · 2012-01-10 00:56 · Score: 1

articles that are simplistic reporting of daily news are what has been ruled on. completely original investigative reporting is not affected. there is really very little creativity in slovak journalism. a lot of it is only one-sided rehashing of press releases.

slovakia does not have diversity in the journalism market. that is why piano media was able to get a foothold. hopefully, this will begin to eat away at the paywall and collusion piano media has created.

We could cut the copyright on newspaper articles by rollingcalf · 2012-01-10 01:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

... down to 5 or 10 days after publication, and it wouldn't kill the incentives of journalists to research and write the articles, or of newspapers to publish them. Nearly all of their monetary value is realized in the first 48 hours after publication.

Cutting the copyright short would also make it easier for newspapers to make their archives of old articles available. In America some newspapers get cockblocked by journalists suing to collect royalties again on years-old articles just because the article is republished in a different medium.

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Felvidek by Whiteox · 2012-01-10 01:54 · Score: 1

I ran a manual aggregator service but I stopped because I got paranoid with all the copyright as I paid for nothing. The site was not set up to earn any money and users got what they needed for free. So this news is welcome IMHO as news is news and should be free, notwithstanding the costs that a paper forks out which is basically recouped by advertising and edition sales. I never felt guilty about that, just the paranoia of copyright.
The Slovak model is interesting for another reason, that the newsprint media shy away from some of the real issues which are too hot to handle. These issues stem from Slovak government policy on how they handle their very close neighbours like Moravia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Exposition: The Moravians want their own government, the Czech are typical overlords and most of the southern part of the country aren't Slovaks but Hungarians.
Even though these people are called a minority, there are many towns and villages that have been and are still Hungarian for a thousand years. Due to border changes after WWI (The Treaty of Trianon), most of Northern Hungary is trapped in Southern Slovakia. The end result of this is a nightmare for ethnic Hungarians who are forced into 'Slovakization', losing their identity and in some cases their citizenship. It's no at all rosy in Southern Slovakia :(
So I reckon that if the Slovak newsmedia started to investigate how its own government's policies discriminate against minorities then those court rulings will be turned around pretty fast. It's something they do not want to share.

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Re:Felvidek by VAElynx · 2012-01-10 06:02 · Score: 1

All right. When I saw the title of the post, i thought this will be bad, but congratulations, you have managed to dig under my already low-set hurdle
Firstly, newspapers definitely don't side away from real issues... except that their definition of real issues isn't constantly poking the same stale issue, which is how both Slovak National Party and SMK, Most-Hid or whatever the hungarian party is at the moment get their votes.
Now, let's address things in turn.
I don't think i have ever seen Moravians seriously wanting their own government, of course if we don't count Slovakia getting one, since we are essentially the same people , having been severed from Greater Moravia when the Hungarians showed around.
No, Bolek Polivka and his joke "Wallachian Kingdom" doesn't count.

Now, ignoring your pointless jab at the Czechs, let's say something about the idiocy that you try to pass as historic fact.
To uproot these misconceptions we have to look before 1914. During that time , the land that now constitutes Slovakia (and Subcarpthian Ruthenia, but that's another story) was a part of Uhorsko, or Greater Hungary - the second half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Now, if we are to ask what were the national rights of Slovaks, Romanians, Ruthenians or whoever else living in this country, the answer is simple - none at all. State provided education was hungarian only, and people of other nationalities were treated as second-class citizens on their own land.
Both of these factors provided a mechanism for hungarisation of the population - even to this day, there are jokes about "madaroni" - slovaks that tried hard to pass off as hungarians, going so far as to hungarise their names and try to dig in their history for a gramme of hungarian ancestry. I cannot say, but I am pretty sure that similar things were happening in the other regions as well.
Now, a partial result of this was ,that indeed, when the borders of Czechoslovakia were drawn after the first world war, a part of the land did indeed contain significant proportions of hungarian population, in the same way as the border part of hungary contained a significant slovak population.
However, over the years (For now on , i will ignore the second world war and the so-called "small war" where hungarian armies invaded the Slovak State, supposedly their ally, and claimed land up to Nitra) hungarisation has been still going on in hungary, while in Slovakia, the hungarian minority has had relatively extensive rights.
As a result, the slovak population in Hungaria was assimilated while the hungarian population in Slovakia still tends to differ from the main population

Now, let's look at the present situation. Slovak hungarians have state-issued hungarian textbooks and can learn in their own language, there are two-language sign tables in many places - a good example would be the district hospital in Galanta, and there are two hungarians representing Slovakia in the European Parliament who interestingly enough refuse to talk in Slovak, while babbling about how discriminated they are.
In comparison, Hungarian slovaks have none of the above, furthermore , they had trouble from the Hungarian government even gaining a place for their own House of Culture.
If you still talk about "Slovakisation" with all that going on, you are either stupid, or a liar. Furthermore, the talk about hungarian villages, while true, is demagogy, because alongside them, there are villages that have been slovak for a thousand years. It is simply that the population naturally segregates as each nationality tends to live with their own.

As a final point, it needs to be said that the reason for the often needless concessions to the hungarian minority in Slovakia is that the government of Dzurinda, starting in 1998 has , among others, relied on SMK, the hungarian party, to defeat the immensely popular Vladimir Meciar - it's an issue of a political trade-off. As such , they have encouraged and went nodding to any Hungarian complaints to the west - it is sadly a slovak nature that we'll do bad to ourselves just to spite our enemy more so - which has created an illusion about the large-scale mistreatment of ethnic hungarians in Slovakia.
Re:Felvidek by Whiteox · 2012-01-10 12:08 · Score: 1

Thank you for all the responses. It is very interesting to hear your collected views and I appreciate them.
Firstly, I do not have any issues with the Slovak peoples or their rights. My post was about contentious issues and possible Slovak government reactions to them based on practice
So: http://www.foruminst.sk/en/66/visual_bilingualism/0/research_on_usage_of_hungarian_language_in_southern_slovakia/1 will give you a perspective on bilingual problems (English).
Dual Citizenship: I do not have the time at present to provide links, but I know of at least 2 ethnic Hungarians where their Slovak citizenship was taken away because they applied and got their Hungarian citizenship. One was Boldoghy Olivér (CEO of Autobank) and another 102 year old woman that got some (Hungarian) press recently. This is discriminatory.
The Moravian movement for cultural autonomy can be found here: http://moravane.eu/category/aktuality/
As for the Magyarization in the decades preceding WWI, was not just a move for assimilation as you suggest, but stemmed from the Hapsburg directive that the official language of the Empire be German. The Hungarians who already had Magyar as an administrative language from 1849 (previously it was Latin), thought this was idiotic. As they were seceding slowly away from Austrian domination and already had cultural and political control of most of Slovakia and Uzbekistan, did go ahead with this.
As for the Little War, the Nazi government did agree to the border changes based on ethnic demographics, but you are right that the Hungarians took the lands a few days before they were supposed to.

It is simply that the population naturally segregates as each nationality tends to live with their own.

With the average town population around 1000-1500 people, you soon run out of gene pool. Most genealogical research shows that racial intermarriage was common (pre-industrialization) within the confessions, be it Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Evangelical. In fact, most ethnic delineations in Eastern Slovakia are by religious confession.
As for the Hungary today, they have serious internal political issues and they can't help themselves let alone their kin in bordering countries. I've never heard of large-scale mistreatment of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia, just a few bashings/killings by irate Slovak gangs.
The Slovak government has a trick up their sleeves in that they will comply with EU directives only if 2 concurrent censuses (10 years apart) show a minimum of 10% ethnic residency. In other words, it will take 20 years before some communities get their bilingual rights. This is an eye for an eye attitude in retribution. That's why I used the word 'Slovakization' which is now considered to be politically incorrect.
Now if you read a bit of military history, you will find that the Czech controlled much of Vienna's administration and I wonder what effect they had on the Empire, bringing it almost to bankrupcy building useless forts down south against the Ottomans.
There are arguments on both sides of this.

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Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!

FTFY, DMCA by Kamiza+Ikioi · 2012-01-10 02:11 · Score: 1

You xxxx? These comments are xxxxxx works of xx, xx opinion, xx creation.

Xxx have to see the difference between xxxxxxx and xxxxxxx. That xxxxxxx is the lightest element in the periodic table is not xxxxxxxxxx. It's information. Even if I xxxxx an elaborate statement that culminates in xxx essence in this and little else, there's no chance that X'xx retain xxxxxxx of it. Because the main part of what I xxxxxx is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.

A fantasy xxxxx about various xxxxxx coming together and having a party, while playing puns on xxxxx weight and some of their properties (and look how fat xxxxxx looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS xxxxxxxxx.

Does xxxx xxxx I can't use the xxxxx button?

FTFY, DMCA compatible now.

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I8-D

Re:FTFY, DMCA by ciderbrew · 2012-01-10 03:45 · Score: 2

You've just made that filthy. Well done.

Re:In 1968 by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-01-10 06:33 · Score: 1

Czechoslovakia was not annexed in 1968; not any more than, say, Iraq was annexed by U.S. in 2003.

Neither are Vowels, It Appears by Tablizer · 2012-01-10 09:28 · Score: 1

(Obligatory Onion reference)

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Table-ized A.I.

Re:Good sense? by msmoriarty · 2012-01-10 13:11 · Score: 1

Copyright (by US definition, at least) does NOT cover facts or information but the "expression" of those facts or information (when it comes to news, this is how it applies -- can't copyright facts). So you can actually take any news story, take all the information out of it, write a new story based on those facts and you're fine -- no copyright violation.

With that, there's no reason to ask them to give up the copyright in that anyone that same day or anytime can take the information and share it with everyone -- its not restricting the information. Yes, a reporter can and will be pissed if not credited for any exclusive information they dug up, but you're not violating copyright by sharing what they reported, with or without credit.

journalists stealing other stories.. by AssholeMcGee+ · 2012-01-10 19:43 · Score: 1

So what happens when journalists steal other journalists stories?? I guess that is okay?

here in india by alancore2duo · 2012-01-11 00:21 · Score: 1

here in india,all news paper have their content copyrighted times of india lead here just cause 2 !

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