"However, I believe that a recording of the speech still could be copyrighted by whoever recorded it."
And I think that would be correct. But... that doesn't give you or anyone else the power to hold a copyright over a recording made by someone else, which I think is the big issue here.
You have a point there. But guess what? The State of the Union address is also a broadcast show which could presumably be copyrighted by the network showing it. There are many networks that would be showing it, from different angles, but still...
But again that illustrates my point: this was public (not in a studio or soundstage) political speech, to a crowd that was not charged admission. Even "free" concerts in the park are usually actually paid for, by the event promoters or whoever.
I think we have to draw the line and say that public political speech, that wasn't done as a "performance" for profit, is public domain.
"Being an ambassador by raising awareness (kind of like a meatspace OSALT) and providing support with help is just as valuable as the greatest bug fix check-in."
Bravo. I was going to say something along that line.
Keep in mind that in a bad economy, sometimes people do what they must, just to get along. Some people would dearly love to contribute back, if only they had the time and money to do so.
To put it a different way: it is unrealistic to expect people to "contribute back" if that open source stuff isn't already making them enough of a profit to have the time and money to contribute back.
But when they give a free concert, it's still understood that it is performance art that is normally paid for... somebody just got lucky and happened onto a rare show that happened to be free.
I think that there is a clear difference between that and a political speech. If he was acting, then let him charge for his act. But that would mean that he was not being genuine.
As I asked up above: should we then let Presidential debates, or even State of the Union speeches be copyrighted? I think that's going a little bit far.
It's not so much that it was in public -- though that's a big part of it -- but that it was also free, and a political speech. It is not the sort of thing that is normally considered "performance art". I don't know... should we allow Presidential debates to be copyrighted? How about State of the Union addresses?
"Given the long, sordid history of record companies ripping off African American artists, I hardly think it would have been MLK's dream to allow his own work to be ripped off well."
"Ripped off", how? This was a public speech. If you want to reserve rights to something, then do it in a studio or in front of a paying audience, not in front of thousands of people, in a park, for free.
I agree that it is a conflict of interest. Lawyers are paid to understand the law... that has no bearing on whether they write good laws. If anything, it results in bad laws.
Contrary to what GP said, it is not like "hiring programmers to program". A better simile is: it's like hiring people who use word processors or PowerPoint to program. The fact that a lawyer might be good at using the legal system does not imply that he or she would be any good at all at building or maintaining one, any more than a typist is good at computer repair.
I don't say this often on Slashdot, because I am aware that this is not Wikipedia, but even so, [citation needed].
Sorry, but the signatories of the Petition Project have been published quite openly and publicly from the very beginning. So who has "invalidated" it? Can you point me to a study that was done on these people that shows they are not who they claim? More than 30,000 of them? Seems to me if that were true, it would be all over the newspapers, Google, Wikipedia, and all the Anthropogenic Global Warming propaganda... but it's not. In fact I have found no mention of any credible refutation of it anywhere in the "AGW" propaganda that I have been able to find. Strange, that. If what you say is true, I'd sure be interested in seeing it. And so would many people, all over the world.
As for your other argument, I have already addressed it: you don't have to be a climate scientist to understand mathematics. And the primary criticisms have been about mathematics. So this is actually a rather stupid argument to try to make. It makes you look ignorant. I am sure you don't want that.
Thanks for this post, it says many of the things I had intended to say. However:
The idea that "there is money to be made both ways" is disingenuous. Most of the research is being done with money from government grants, and grants have been (very much) selectively given to people known to be on the "AGW" side of the argument. The other "money to be had" -- private money -- typically only comes after a study is completed. Which means that one side of the argument has been getting by far the majority of the up-front money, to back its pre-formed conclusions. That is neither "scientific" or fair, and to pretend that it is, is not facing reality.
And then we get to "Once everyone is at step two." Which will probably never happen, because even reputable scientists on the "non-AGW" side of the argument have been blatantly ignored. The very idea that "everybody" should be at Step Two is more than a bit presumptuous, because the much-reported "scientific consensus" about this hypothesis does not even really exist. Heck, even the paper that originally made the claim of "consensus" and got that whole ball rolling (Naomi Oreskes' non-peer-reviewed paper that appeared in Science in 2004) has been soundly -- and quite thoroughly and indisputably -- invalidated.
The majority of the IPCC's "thousands of scientists" involved in their Assessment Reports are not actually scientists and researchers at all but reviewers, among them schoolteachers who have never done a lick of scientific research themselves, and even a janitor or two. On the other hand, there is the Petition Project (easy enough to find) that has signatures from over 30,000 people from the US alone, all with advanced degrees, 9,000 of them PhDs... and all of whom put their names to a petition saying that AGW is probably nonsense.
Further, you suggest that the criticisms of "climate science" come from non-experts who basically don't know what they're talking about... and that is a mis-statement of fact. The majority of critics actually come from many different fields of science, and almost all of them criticizing the climate scientists for using questionable (at best) statistical methods. You don't have to be a climate scientist to know math, fella.
Note that Phil Plait plays down the fact that this investigation had "concerns" about the statistical methods... yet he doesn't bother to mention that EVERY OTHER investigation that has been completed has also stated concerns about those statistical methods. Need I mention that 100% is statistically significant?
We won't "all scientifically get to step two" until the science is shown to be valid. Today, it is shaky at best. As you say: let science do its work. We'll come to that conclusion if and when it is scientifically justified. Right now it simply isn't.
"Really? I challenge you to name 5 cases or even just 1 case anywhere in the history of man where there were no government welfare programs and yet those at the bottom of the social ladder had anywhere near as high living standards relative to the living standards of the people at the top as they do today in the USA."
There are many places in the world right now that have no government welfare programs, but where the poor are far better off than they were 100 years ago. (Largely due to charity organizations.) You can find them easily.
Of course, there are still places where they are not, but that wasn't your question.
But this is all really beside the point. There have been whole nations that essentially had their entire systems built on what amounts to "government welfare", and they didn't do too well, did they?
"Seems to me that has a lot more to do with the fact that the current tax burden is the least it has been in modern times. It isn't a case of going broke because of over-spending, its a case of going broke because of purposely reduced funding."
And it seems to me that you haven't done your homework. The government budget is up 50% over what it was just 10 years ago! Taxes may be a little lower, but they aren't down by a full third (which is what it would take, in proportion.)
Sorry, dude. It's simple grade-school math. Government overspending is around 80% the culprit.
"So wait a second. First SS "failed" becuase it went broke. But now you are saying that no, SS didn't go broke, its money was "stolen" by other parts of the government."
How, in your mind, do these things become mutually exclusive? Interesting concept.
"I don't see that as indictment of SS in any way shape or form."
Who's "indicting" SS? I simply said they were broke. I wasn't arguing about the concept... just the reality of the situation.
"Meanwhile, nice deflection, that getting all angry and hyperbolic about "reading minds," good way to ignore my central point that what you propose has practically no history at all of succeeding, unless of course, your definition of success is simply letting the poor rot as long as the government always runs a surplus."
It wasn't "deflection", you simply misunderstood me.
The funny thing is, "my way" succeeded for hundreds of years. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. The Federal government way looked good for a long time, but the house of cards is beginning to come down.
To paraphrase what I said before: better a way that has a chance of succeeding than something we know (if you have really done your homework) is failing.
"Yeah, not really true. Perhaps you mean they are over-budget? Although as far as I can tell SS isn't even over budget since it isn't expected to run a deficit until 2025 and that's assuming there are absolutely no changes to keep up with the times."
SS doesn't have any money at all. It has nothing but government IOUs where the money was supposed to be. They count that as "money", because, after all, it's a government IOU. But that's really not the same thing.
Congress raided that long ago. It was originally supposed to be "invested" money... now Congress pays SS on an ongoing basis with borrowed money.
Yes, broke. If you really understand what's going on in Washington, you know that our government is broke.
"The very concept of "money" is artificial in the first place, what exact difference does it make if it's gold or bits?"
The very fact that you don't understand this tells me that I would have to spend several hours teaching you some basic economic principles before we could have an intelligent conversation about it.
"And no, the fact that our ancestors saw gold and thought, "Oooh, shiny" is not a good reason."
You're absolutely right: it's not a good reason. But you obviously don't understand what the good reasons ARE, or you wouldn't have even brought that kind of idiocy up.
"That's a vast over simplification and may not even be true taken in the naive way you mean it. "
The "naive" way I mean it? So now you're reading minds? You'll have to teach me how to do that.
On second thought, don't bother, since you didn't get it right.
What I "meant" was simply this: Social Security, Welfare, and long-established Federal "medical care" programs ARE FAILING. Not in some "naive" or overly-simplistic way: they are going broke. Plain and simple. They have been consistently cutting care and yet costing more on an almost annual basis, and now the Federal government is -- to put it "naively" and simplistically -- flat f**king broke.
It isn't "naive" to accept reality when you see it.
"Because both of them have blue-collar jobs and have to work long hours to put food on the table."
That doesn't make any sense. If money is tighter, they should want LESS government programs and go with private day care, since government programs always cost more to achieve the same thing. You don't have to take my word for that: it's simple grade-school-level math.
He used historical records to find the purchasing power of money (as close as you can figure such things; you can't directly compare things that did not exist in the past) from 1665 through 1991.
I take exception to one graph he shows, however, which is supposed to represent inflation/deflation on pretty much an annual basis, over 150 yers ago. The chart swings wildly one way, then another, from year to year. I think he was actually charting just certain economic indicators, not the actual inflation or deflation for a given year, since his own charts show those things to be relatively flat at any larger time scale.
After seeing some of the charts being referenced by a number of different sources, I had to buy the book. I'm still waiting for it to arrive. I want to verify that it shows what it purports to show.
Slashdot Mirror
Who. "... kids who get it wrong...". My grammar is better than that. It's late.
Can we add a "Blue Screen of Shame" mask for the kids that get it wrong? :o)
"However, I believe that a recording of the speech still could be copyrighted by whoever recorded it."
And I think that would be correct. But... that doesn't give you or anyone else the power to hold a copyright over a recording made by someone else, which I think is the big issue here.
You have a point there. But guess what? The State of the Union address is also a broadcast show which could presumably be copyrighted by the network showing it. There are many networks that would be showing it, from different angles, but still...
But again that illustrates my point: this was public (not in a studio or soundstage) political speech, to a crowd that was not charged admission. Even "free" concerts in the park are usually actually paid for, by the event promoters or whoever.
I think we have to draw the line and say that public political speech, that wasn't done as a "performance" for profit, is public domain.
"Being an ambassador by raising awareness (kind of like a meatspace OSALT) and providing support with help is just as valuable as the greatest bug fix check-in."
Bravo. I was going to say something along that line.
Keep in mind that in a bad economy, sometimes people do what they must, just to get along. Some people would dearly love to contribute back, if only they had the time and money to do so.
To put it a different way: it is unrealistic to expect people to "contribute back" if that open source stuff isn't already making them enough of a profit to have the time and money to contribute back.
Ah... but on the other hand, it is generally considered to be "fair use" to record something that is happening in public and not being charged for.
There is a gray area, to be sure, but I think political speeches rightfully belong on the "fair use" side of the line.
But when they give a free concert, it's still understood that it is performance art that is normally paid for... somebody just got lucky and happened onto a rare show that happened to be free.
I think that there is a clear difference between that and a political speech. If he was acting, then let him charge for his act. But that would mean that he was not being genuine.
As I asked up above: should we then let Presidential debates, or even State of the Union speeches be copyrighted? I think that's going a little bit far.
It's not so much that it was in public -- though that's a big part of it -- but that it was also free, and a political speech. It is not the sort of thing that is normally considered "performance art". I don't know... should we allow Presidential debates to be copyrighted? How about State of the Union addresses?
"Given the long, sordid history of record companies ripping off African American artists, I hardly think it would have been MLK's dream to allow his own work to be ripped off well."
"Ripped off", how? This was a public speech. If you want to reserve rights to something, then do it in a studio or in front of a paying audience, not in front of thousands of people, in a park, for free.
I realize his message was mostly about race, but MLK was all about social justice.
There is no justice involved in trying to hold a copyright on a speech that was given in PUBLIC, and broadcast to the public, almost 5 decades ago.
Obviously the family is not very big on living up to MLK's dream.
I agree that it is a conflict of interest. Lawyers are paid to understand the law... that has no bearing on whether they write good laws. If anything, it results in bad laws.
Contrary to what GP said, it is not like "hiring programmers to program". A better simile is: it's like hiring people who use word processors or PowerPoint to program. The fact that a lawyer might be good at using the legal system does not imply that he or she would be any good at all at building or maintaining one, any more than a typist is good at computer repair.
Hah! A rational response from a rational person!
If only you knew how relieved I am that you still exist...
"No, the money is given to people who have demonstrated competence in that scientific field."
Sigh. If only that were true. I'd be a much happier person.
I don't say this often on Slashdot, because I am aware that this is not Wikipedia, but even so, [citation needed].
Sorry, but the signatories of the Petition Project have been published quite openly and publicly from the very beginning. So who has "invalidated" it? Can you point me to a study that was done on these people that shows they are not who they claim? More than 30,000 of them? Seems to me if that were true, it would be all over the newspapers, Google, Wikipedia, and all the Anthropogenic Global Warming propaganda... but it's not. In fact I have found no mention of any credible refutation of it anywhere in the "AGW" propaganda that I have been able to find. Strange, that. If what you say is true, I'd sure be interested in seeing it. And so would many people, all over the world.
As for your other argument, I have already addressed it: you don't have to be a climate scientist to understand mathematics. And the primary criticisms have been about mathematics. So this is actually a rather stupid argument to try to make. It makes you look ignorant. I am sure you don't want that.
Thanks for this post, it says many of the things I had intended to say. However:
The idea that "there is money to be made both ways" is disingenuous. Most of the research is being done with money from government grants, and grants have been (very much) selectively given to people known to be on the "AGW" side of the argument. The other "money to be had" -- private money -- typically only comes after a study is completed. Which means that one side of the argument has been getting by far the majority of the up-front money, to back its pre-formed conclusions. That is neither "scientific" or fair, and to pretend that it is, is not facing reality.
And then we get to "Once everyone is at step two." Which will probably never happen, because even reputable scientists on the "non-AGW" side of the argument have been blatantly ignored. The very idea that "everybody" should be at Step Two is more than a bit presumptuous, because the much-reported "scientific consensus" about this hypothesis does not even really exist. Heck, even the paper that originally made the claim of "consensus" and got that whole ball rolling (Naomi Oreskes' non-peer-reviewed paper that appeared in Science in 2004) has been soundly -- and quite thoroughly and indisputably -- invalidated.
The majority of the IPCC's "thousands of scientists" involved in their Assessment Reports are not actually scientists and researchers at all but reviewers, among them schoolteachers who have never done a lick of scientific research themselves, and even a janitor or two. On the other hand, there is the Petition Project (easy enough to find) that has signatures from over 30,000 people from the US alone, all with advanced degrees, 9,000 of them PhDs... and all of whom put their names to a petition saying that AGW is probably nonsense.
Further, you suggest that the criticisms of "climate science" come from non-experts who basically don't know what they're talking about... and that is a mis-statement of fact. The majority of critics actually come from many different fields of science, and almost all of them criticizing the climate scientists for using questionable (at best) statistical methods. You don't have to be a climate scientist to know math, fella.
Note that Phil Plait plays down the fact that this investigation had "concerns" about the statistical methods... yet he doesn't bother to mention that EVERY OTHER investigation that has been completed has also stated concerns about those statistical methods. Need I mention that 100% is statistically significant?
We won't "all scientifically get to step two" until the science is shown to be valid. Today, it is shaky at best. As you say: let science do its work. We'll come to that conclusion if and when it is scientifically justified. Right now it simply isn't.
"Really? I challenge you to name 5 cases or even just 1 case anywhere in the history of man where there were no government welfare programs and yet those at the bottom of the social ladder had anywhere near as high living standards relative to the living standards of the people at the top as they do today in the USA."
There are many places in the world right now that have no government welfare programs, but where the poor are far better off than they were 100 years ago. (Largely due to charity organizations.) You can find them easily.
Of course, there are still places where they are not, but that wasn't your question.
But this is all really beside the point. There have been whole nations that essentially had their entire systems built on what amounts to "government welfare", and they didn't do too well, did they?
"Seems to me that has a lot more to do with the fact that the current tax burden is the least it has been in modern times. It isn't a case of going broke because of over-spending, its a case of going broke because of purposely reduced funding."
And it seems to me that you haven't done your homework. The government budget is up 50% over what it was just 10 years ago! Taxes may be a little lower, but they aren't down by a full third (which is what it would take, in proportion.)
Sorry, dude. It's simple grade-school math. Government overspending is around 80% the culprit.
"So wait a second. First SS "failed" becuase it went broke. But now you are saying that no, SS didn't go broke, its money was "stolen" by other parts of the government."
How, in your mind, do these things become mutually exclusive? Interesting concept.
"I don't see that as indictment of SS in any way shape or form."
Who's "indicting" SS? I simply said they were broke. I wasn't arguing about the concept... just the reality of the situation.
"Meanwhile, nice deflection, that getting all angry and hyperbolic about "reading minds," good way to ignore my central point that what you propose has practically no history at all of succeeding, unless of course, your definition of success is simply letting the poor rot as long as the government always runs a surplus."
It wasn't "deflection", you simply misunderstood me.
The funny thing is, "my way" succeeded for hundreds of years. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. The Federal government way looked good for a long time, but the house of cards is beginning to come down.
To paraphrase what I said before: better a way that has a chance of succeeding than something we know (if you have really done your homework) is failing.
"Yeah, not really true. Perhaps you mean they are over-budget? Although as far as I can tell SS isn't even over budget since it isn't expected to run a deficit until 2025 and that's assuming there are absolutely no changes to keep up with the times."
SS doesn't have any money at all. It has nothing but government IOUs where the money was supposed to be. They count that as "money", because, after all, it's a government IOU. But that's really not the same thing.
Congress raided that long ago. It was originally supposed to be "invested" money... now Congress pays SS on an ongoing basis with borrowed money.
Yes, broke. If you really understand what's going on in Washington, you know that our government is broke.
What? You guys haven't gotten your masks from Fed Ex yet?
"The very concept of "money" is artificial in the first place, what exact difference does it make if it's gold or bits?"
The very fact that you don't understand this tells me that I would have to spend several hours teaching you some basic economic principles before we could have an intelligent conversation about it.
"And no, the fact that our ancestors saw gold and thought, "Oooh, shiny" is not a good reason."
You're absolutely right: it's not a good reason. But you obviously don't understand what the good reasons ARE, or you wouldn't have even brought that kind of idiocy up.
"That's a vast over simplification and may not even be true taken in the naive way you mean it. "
The "naive" way I mean it? So now you're reading minds? You'll have to teach me how to do that.
On second thought, don't bother, since you didn't get it right.
What I "meant" was simply this: Social Security, Welfare, and long-established Federal "medical care" programs ARE FAILING. Not in some "naive" or overly-simplistic way: they are going broke. Plain and simple. They have been consistently cutting care and yet costing more on an almost annual basis, and now the Federal government is -- to put it "naively" and simplistically -- flat f**king broke.
It isn't "naive" to accept reality when you see it.
"Because both of them have blue-collar jobs and have to work long hours to put food on the table."
That doesn't make any sense. If money is tighter, they should want LESS government programs and go with private day care, since government programs always cost more to achieve the same thing. You don't have to take my word for that: it's simple grade-school-level math.
The source is a book called "How Much Is That in Real Money?: A Historical Price Index for Use As a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States", by John McClusker.
He used historical records to find the purchasing power of money (as close as you can figure such things; you can't directly compare things that did not exist in the past) from 1665 through 1991.
I take exception to one graph he shows, however, which is supposed to represent inflation/deflation on pretty much an annual basis, over 150 yers ago. The chart swings wildly one way, then another, from year to year. I think he was actually charting just certain economic indicators, not the actual inflation or deflation for a given year, since his own charts show those things to be relatively flat at any larger time scale.
After seeing some of the charts being referenced by a number of different sources, I had to buy the book. I'm still waiting for it to arrive. I want to verify that it shows what it purports to show.