We'll probably remove more mass than we add. Asteroid mining is for getting materials for space based structures and industry. Very few materials have a high enough value on earth to justify the cost of asteroid mining.
Chicken and egg problem. Who cares if the market is not there yet? We will get nowhere in any field if we let details like that stop us. And it's going to take decades just developing the tech and getting the first roids. The investors are in it for long term, and from what they've said publicly, it's just as much about enabling a space presence as profiting from it.
We cannot build a large scale infrastructure in space without either asteroid mining or a space elevator. There seems to be less technological unknowns that needs to be solved in order to start asteroid mining.
It makes more sense to start with the mining, then build whatever you need in space. They are probably decades away from making the mining a reality. Eventually there will be a market for it.
The raw materials are never meant to be returned to earth. While a ton of iron ore is worth less than nothing here, transporting it to LEO costs $10M (multiply that by 5 if you want it on the moon). Our space capabilities are limited by the cost of getting stuff out of earths gravity well.
Asteroid mining would sell raw materials and water to other space ventures, private or public.
In space the rocket fuel is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Just like here on earth. The energy cost in space is negligible compared to the cost of transporting the fuel out of earths gravity well.
Probably correct. But afak they don't have 15-20 cm of hair, leather and blubber armor. Polar bears are on a very short list of animals that hunt adult humans for food.
Bear spray? Polar bears are not like other bears. Not even close. Shooting a polar bears are a absolutely last resort, point blank sort of affair. If you don't wait until it's on two legs, you're just pissing it off by shooting it. Polar bears are known to weigh up to a metric ton, and stand over 3 meters tall when attacking.
People don't create works of art in order to become rich
I fail to see why this is relevant to preserve a the small or nonexistent trickle of royalties to a relatively small group of authors at the expense of everyone else. I'd use it as an argument for reducing the restrictions on reproduction.
I'm also baffled by the argument that because [some/most/not-that-popular/untalented] writers doesn't makes as much a year as you and me, they should be exempt from planning for the future and society should continue to pay them for the [mediocre/not-that-popular] work they put in 20-40 years ago?
It's not the authors of the 20-40 year old works that benefit from keeping it from the public domain, it's the publishers and authors of new works that benefit by not having to compete against: 1) Old works in the public domain 2) New works based on public domain works
Twenty years ago was Bridges of Madison County, still a good seller. Schindler's List and Jurassic Park on the movies side. That's how short twenty years is. And those are the hits, think about the things that weren't popular.
It's precisely because of those not so popular works I want it changed. They are forever lost due to the current regulations. The purpose getting works into public domain is not saving the user a few dollars, it's re-adding them to the cultural history of humanity, and enabling future creators to build upon the ideas of giants past.
I proposed 7 years, with possible (expensive) extensions up to 14 years. But 20 years is still way better then the highway robbery our culture is subjected to today with terms up to 120 years. Copyright extension is theft and willful destruction of our culture.
I see some of your points, but I don't agree with all of them.
Having part of a series become public domain would not decrease the income from new works in the same series, it might even increase the income (from the new works).
Retirement on royalties from work done long ago doesn't seem to be a good incentive to get people to create more works, rather the opposite. I create copyrighted works for a living, and I don't expect any income from anything I've created more than five years ago. However, I still make money from the money I earned and then invested 5 years ago, and probably will for a long time.
Like everyone else I have to prepare for my retirement by saving up for the future (and/or have the state do the planning and saving for me, depending on country). I don't see why a very limited part of society (also a very limited part of active creators) should be exempt from the burden of planning their retirement at the expense of everyone else. The cost to society for providing a retirement income for the 1 in every X thousands of authors that still make any meaningful income from previous works is locking away our entire cultural heritage (and losing large parts of it in the process) for decades (soon to be centuries).
Are we really willing to let a few corporations and successful creators hold the entire cultural output of our society ransom for 100+ years.
Excellent point, and a more than generous period to profit from the work. 28 years probably covers the commercially viable period for something between 99.9 and 99.99% of all works created.
The main reason copyright exists in it's current for is to reduce the competition new works face from old works in the public domain.
20 years is too long. Make it shorter, but with an expensive possibility of extending it to (close to) 20.
Moral rights (attribution) should be significantly longer than copyright, I'm not even sure if they ever should expire -> but derivative works should be allowed from copyright runs out (from day one for partial derivative works, parodies etc.).
Sensible copyright terms for the 21th century: Max 7 years for commercial reproduction - possible shorter for non-commercial reproduction Possible extension could be considered for physical works like sculptures, buildings etc with a significant landscape impact. For both cases: creators retain moral right indefinite -> no plagiarism, always attribute
Possible extension schemes for works still commercially viable after 7 years: yearly extensions cost $1 000 000 ^ (1,05 ^ extension_year)
Current DRM laws lacks balance - copyright holders must relinquish something to gain additional rights: * Either protected by law and restricts copyright period to 2-3 years (restriction is absolute, no format shift, backup etc. without license -> after 2-3 years a full version must be made public * Or not protected by law and retains same rights as other works (DRM becomes an private matter / arms race)
Why ever should we be restricted by imbecile ideas from another millennium when deciding what is appropriate for today? If you're going to pick one number from the last millennium, I'll just go ahead and pick another: Maximum copyright term should be 14+14 years (copyright act of 1790 US / statute of Anne 1710 UK)
It could easily be argued that the early protection if 14+14 is WAY TO LONG for the 21th century. Way-back-when 14 years (extendable only if the author still lived) was sufficient it might take a significant part of those 14 years just for a work to be transported from one place to another; and the average expected commercial value of a creation was more than 14 or 28 years. Less than 1 in every 1 million works today have any commercial value after the copyright runs out. Even with a 14 / 28 year period, far less than 1 in every 1000 works would have any remaining commercial value.
How can anyone in good faith argue that keeping the 99.9% of works without any remaining commercial value out of the public domain is a worthwhile bargain for the public to accept in order to enrich the owners of the last 0.1% of the works?
It's mainly our expectations that change. What we considered unbelievable fast 10 or 20 years ago seems like a turtle with arthritis today. I remember booting up my brothers tricked out Amiga 1200 (68030, 120MB hd, 8MB? ram) a few years ago, it completely shattered my memories of how fast and awesome everything was on the Amiga (and my memories of how awesome and fast everything was came from my floppy-booted A500 - I don't want to try to boot that one up again)
Slashdot Mirror
We'll probably remove more mass than we add.
Asteroid mining is for getting materials for space based structures and industry.
Very few materials have a high enough value on earth to justify the cost of asteroid mining.
Chicken and egg problem. Who cares if the market is not there yet? We will get nowhere in any field if we let details like that stop us. And it's going to take decades just developing the tech and getting the first roids. The investors are in it for long term, and from what they've said publicly, it's just as much about enabling a space presence as profiting from it.
We cannot build a large scale infrastructure in space without either asteroid mining or a space elevator. There seems to be less technological unknowns that needs to be solved in order to start asteroid mining.
It makes more sense to start with the mining, then build whatever you need in space.
They are probably decades away from making the mining a reality. Eventually there will be a market for it.
The raw materials are never meant to be returned to earth.
While a ton of iron ore is worth less than nothing here, transporting it to LEO costs $10M (multiply that by 5 if you want it on the moon).
Our space capabilities are limited by the cost of getting stuff out of earths gravity well.
Asteroid mining would sell raw materials and water to other space ventures, private or public.
Rocket fuel is not a source of energy, it's an energy carrier.
In space the rocket fuel is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Just like here on earth.
The energy cost in space is negligible compared to the cost of transporting the fuel out of earths gravity well.
False choice.
We should do both.
Probably correct. But afak they don't have 15-20 cm of hair, leather and blubber armor.
Polar bears are on a very short list of animals that hunt adult humans for food.
Bear spray?
Polar bears are not like other bears. Not even close.
Shooting a polar bears are a absolutely last resort, point blank sort of affair. If you don't wait until it's on two legs, you're just pissing it off by shooting it.
Polar bears are known to weigh up to a metric ton, and stand over 3 meters tall when attacking.
Amazon scored their CIA brownie-points by taking down Wikileaks without any legal requirement to do so.
It's blame the government day at slashdot today.
Been a lot of those lately.
You sir win the Internet.
Might as well shut the whole thing down, we will never again see awesomeness on this scale again. Ever.
Re-read the GP.
And I'm of the opinion it's way too long. 8-15 years would be sufficient to extract >99% of the commercial value of a work.
Hmm.
Not bad. My main concern is also all the works that get lost due to the ridiculous terms today.
I'm still in favor of a shorter protection for all works in the long run, but as a compromise for the next 100 years or so this would do nicely.
People don't create works of art in order to become rich
I fail to see why this is relevant to preserve a the small or nonexistent trickle of royalties to a relatively small group of authors at the expense of everyone else. I'd use it as an argument for reducing the restrictions on reproduction.
I'm also baffled by the argument that because [some/most/not-that-popular/untalented] writers doesn't makes as much a year as you and me, they should be exempt from planning for the future and society should continue to pay them for the [mediocre/not-that-popular] work they put in 20-40 years ago?
It's not the authors of the 20-40 year old works that benefit from keeping it from the public domain, it's the publishers and authors of new works that benefit by not having to compete against:
1) Old works in the public domain
2) New works based on public domain works
Twenty years ago was Bridges of Madison County, still a good seller. Schindler's List and Jurassic Park on the movies side. That's how short twenty years is. And those are the hits, think about the things that weren't popular.
It's precisely because of those not so popular works I want it changed. They are forever lost due to the current regulations.
The purpose getting works into public domain is not saving the user a few dollars, it's re-adding them to the cultural history of humanity, and enabling future creators to build upon the ideas of giants past.
I proposed 7 years, with possible (expensive) extensions up to 14 years.
But 20 years is still way better then the highway robbery our culture is subjected to today with terms up to 120 years.
Copyright extension is theft and willful destruction of our culture.
I see some of your points, but I don't agree with all of them.
Having part of a series become public domain would not decrease the income from new works in the same series, it might even increase the income (from the new works).
Retirement on royalties from work done long ago doesn't seem to be a good incentive to get people to create more works, rather the opposite. I create copyrighted works for a living, and I don't expect any income from anything I've created more than five years ago. However, I still make money from the money I earned and then invested 5 years ago, and probably will for a long time.
Like everyone else I have to prepare for my retirement by saving up for the future (and/or have the state do the planning and saving for me, depending on country). I don't see why a very limited part of society (also a very limited part of active creators) should be exempt from the burden of planning their retirement at the expense of everyone else. The cost to society for providing a retirement income for the 1 in every X thousands of authors that still make any meaningful income from previous works is locking away our entire cultural heritage (and losing large parts of it in the process) for decades (soon to be centuries).
Are we really willing to let a few corporations and successful creators hold the entire cultural output of our society ransom for 100+ years.
Excellent point, and a more than generous period to profit from the work.
28 years probably covers the commercially viable period for something between 99.9 and 99.99% of all works created.
The main reason copyright exists in it's current for is to reduce the competition new works face from old works in the public domain.
Seems sensible, but you have to start higher than $10.
I'd like the same formula with a $1000 starting point -> ~$2 million for year 10-20.
And I'd argue that one should start lower than 10 years. Most works should end up in PD after 8-15 years.
20 years is too long. Make it shorter, but with an expensive possibility of extending it to (close to) 20.
Moral rights (attribution) should be significantly longer than copyright, I'm not even sure if they ever should expire -> but derivative works should be allowed from copyright runs out (from day one for partial derivative works, parodies etc.).
Sensible copyright terms for the 21th century:
Max 7 years for commercial reproduction - possible shorter for non-commercial reproduction
Possible extension could be considered for physical works like sculptures, buildings etc with a significant landscape impact.
For both cases: creators retain moral right indefinite -> no plagiarism, always attribute
Possible extension schemes for works still commercially viable after 7 years: yearly extensions cost $1 000 000 ^ (1,05 ^ extension_year)
Current DRM laws lacks balance - copyright holders must relinquish something to gain additional rights:
* Either protected by law and restricts copyright period to 2-3 years (restriction is absolute, no format shift, backup etc. without license -> after 2-3 years a full version must be made public
* Or not protected by law and retains same rights as other works (DRM becomes an private matter / arms race)
Why ever should we be restricted by imbecile ideas from another millennium when deciding what is appropriate for today?
If you're going to pick one number from the last millennium, I'll just go ahead and pick another:
Maximum copyright term should be 14+14 years (copyright act of 1790 US / statute of Anne 1710 UK)
It could easily be argued that the early protection if 14+14 is WAY TO LONG for the 21th century. Way-back-when 14 years (extendable only if the author still lived) was sufficient it might take a significant part of those 14 years just for a work to be transported from one place to another; and the average expected commercial value of a creation was more than 14 or 28 years. Less than 1 in every 1 million works today have any commercial value after the copyright runs out. Even with a 14 / 28 year period, far less than 1 in every 1000 works would have any remaining commercial value.
How can anyone in good faith argue that keeping the 99.9% of works without any remaining commercial value out of the public domain is a worthwhile bargain for the public to accept in order to enrich the owners of the last 0.1% of the works?
It's mainly our expectations that change.
What we considered unbelievable fast 10 or 20 years ago seems like a turtle with arthritis today.
I remember booting up my brothers tricked out Amiga 1200 (68030, 120MB hd, 8MB? ram) a few years ago, it completely shattered my memories of how fast and awesome everything was on the Amiga (and my memories of how awesome and fast everything was came from my floppy-booted A500 - I don't want to try to boot that one up again)
In a decade's time?
Are you a time traveler from 1999?
Touchscreen have been the rule the last 4-5 years. I'm not sure I know anyone who's bought a button phone this decade.