Who can forget the Turkey Day MST3K marathons on Comedy Central? Absolute bliss -- the perfect combination of gut-busting humor with movies bad enough to kill brain cells like nothing else. By hour five, you could accept that there was some government conspiracy behind movies quite that bad. Not to mention the shorts (see the Prelinger Archive for some of these gems -- for full racist effect, see Goodyear's Island of Yesterday: Sumtra)...
So if my plans don't materialize because I'm cheap, broke, and hate to drive (especially on New Years Eve), I'll dig up every episode of MST3K I have, and ring in the New Year with a John Carradine movie and a Jam Handy short.
Has there ever been proof that spam isn't already a money-losing proposition in nearly all cases?
I can't imagine many people are netted by it, since it is so arbitrary and comes in such volume.
My short blurb was ill-representative of my full idea. The author's work remains his copyright for life plus 70 years.
I believe cooperatives are a better solution to the problem than corporations, and that joint copyright combined with contract law can resolve many of the same issues corporate copyright does without introducing the same problems.
One gotcha with corporate copyright is that the time limits are arbitrary and intangible. The relationship of the created work to the creator is clear, and the extension of rights beyond death makes sense. For corporations, there is no parallel to death, and the work, being technically joint, is not of the corporation, but of its contracted employees.
All of that said, I'm aware my pet solution is as full of holes as the many others strewn about the IP wasteland...
No. DisneyCo gave us derivative works of these stories.
Now you've confused me even more. Neither Disney work is in the public domain, nor would it be under old copyright duration (contrary to what I previously said, oops).
The source material whence the Disney productions came is under public domain; the full text of both Kipling's The Jungle Book and Lorenzini's Pinocchio can be obtained online with a minimum of fuss.
Disney's Pinocchio, being published in 1940, prior to the copyright extension, would have become public domain in 2015. Disney's The Jungle Book, being published some two decades later, would not appear until at least 2035.
Under the newer rules, these dates are pushed back 20 years. Which, like I said, I don't agree with any more than I agree with your egregious claim that it is a privilege of the author to control his work. However, all this has little to do with Abandonware.
And there's no way to fix the bugs I find...
Forget it. I'm either failing to make the analogy clear or analogues are lost on you. Either way, I meant to draw a parallel, and you're envisioning a substantial intersection.
So solving this buyability will solve...
No, I said the problems with the copyright system are compounded by Congress's buyability, not caused by it. I made no mention of patents, which are a separate issue.
The United States supports Israel because it is a democracy with similar values. Note, however, that the US, despite its clear loyalties, is not above official rebuke of Israel's actions, e.g., the reoccupation.
I am amazed that you can distort truth so readily while turning a blind-eye to cold facts. It is a fact that Palestine houses many terrorist groups--Hamas, for instance--that have gone unmolested by the Palestinian government. Arafat has, many times, excused this fact by saying he is not
in control of the terrorists and cannot exert control of the terrorists. It is a fact that only this past week Arafat made a symbolic, and mostly meaningless move, to shut down a small fraction of Hamas and only then under threat. It is highly likely that, as before, those arrested will be released. Yet you ignore this. More, you ignore the fact that the US, under the Clinton administration, endlessly negotiated with Israel and Palestine and put forward a truce, accepted by Israel, that gave Palestine 95% of its demands. Arafat refused, clearly demonstrating his unwillingness to compromise and the lie that is his pledge for peace. If Arafat cannot accept 95% of the Palestinian demands handed to him on a platter, and cannot stop the terrorist groups, then what is his purpose? If he is so stubborn and inept, he should step down. Yet he will not, and you will support him, all the while ignoring the cold, hard facts that Palestine sponsors the murder of Israeli children, supports the murder of Israeli children,
and--by refusing a compromise slanted heavily in their favor--causes the murder of Palestinian children.
What do you think will happen if the US gets their way?
This comment would be offensive if it weren't so blatantly moronic and baseless. Lest you forget, it is the US that has pioneered the use of stem cells and biotechnology. The transistor? The television? The phonograph? Maybe the telephone (although there's at least a dozen claims to creation, 2 from Italy)? Stephen Hawking's voice (but not Stephen Hawking)?
The Internet? The list of US technical innovations goes on and on and on. To claim that the US is a ludite nation is nearly as much a flight of fancy as your claim that Israel is the worst terrorist state to exist in history.
Israel's not even the worst terrorist state to be on the Gaza strip. And to claim that the US wishes to halt the progress of technology is silly while you support Palestine and other nations with a strong fundmentalist movement that would have these countries ban television, the Internet, music, etc.
That said, I don't agree with Bush's stem cell research decision on any level. It was a political cop-out which showed neither the strength of Christian morality his supporters claim or the secular stance that I would prefer. You paradoxically excuse his decision, however, by saying that non-scientists should serve as the conscience of society. Isn't this what Bush was (expected to be) doing?
As with the example of the car, there is a predefined timelimit for when the property moves into the public trust.
It is quite often, in this digital age, too long. That is an issue that begs a special case for resolution and not a general denigration of copyright or
devaluation of creators.
I think that very many people assume a work is abandoned merely because it's no longer marketed or mass produced. I cannot find any legal or moral support for this view.
It seems more a rationalization than a reason. If I park my car in my drive-way for many years, and do not drive it, does it then become part of the public trust?
Of course not; it remains my car. That I once drove it around is moot. It remains my property until the law intercedes. In the case of copyright, this (ideally) happens after a set time or certain conditions are met. It is not reasonable to assume that failure to produce or distribute is one of these conditions.
Whoa, there -- "copyprivilege" isn't necessarily so wrong a term. All "true" human rights have been recognized a long, long time.
The right of the creator to the created is long-established and clear. The modern concept and, hence, privilege, is the access of others to this work beyond the author's control.
This does not mean that I consider these modern privileges wrong. This is clearly not a binary issue and the vast middleground is a quagmire of partial solutions and bigger problems.
The fact remains that "copyprivilege" demeans all copyright holders, including those who have legitimate claims to works.
As I said before, there are clearly problems with the copyright system as it stands. My pet solution--which undoubtedly creates as many or more problems that it solves--is to simply disallow corporations from holding copyrights at all, as they are
feasibly eternal and often end up with rights that you could barely make a case for them owning even in the system as it stands. The issue I had was clearly not with whether there are copyright abuses or problems with the system or
if some things that have been done are downright un-Constitutional.
I admit all of these things and will disagree with anyone that tauts the system as flawless just as strongly as I have disagreed on this matter. But I will continue to hold
those who begrudge all creators their rights in scorn because I cannot see the logic, the truth, or the value in claiming it is the right of the vultures to scavenge the kill of the lion, whilst the lion goes hungry.
This is a limitation on copyright and your privilege, not the other way around. The nonce "copyprivilege" is a slap in the face of every legitimate author and creator.
To imply that it is not their right, but somehow a privilege afforded them and stomached by the unwashed masses is a ridiculous and offensive notion.
You're right. There are serious abuses of the copyright system in existence. This does not justify positing that control of a creation is a privilege of the creator, and that you are, by logical extension, more entitled to the work than the author.
No, I'm upset at Disney for taking and not giving back. Disney released movies such as Pinnochio and The Jungle Book...
Disney, as the creator of these works, gave us them to begin with. They gave that much back. By the then-rules, you're absolutely correct: the movies should have become public domain. The rules changed. This does not make it your right to receive their work or a privilege that they retain ownership.
It's a problem, yes. It runs counter to the idea of copyright in the United States, even. None of this changes the simple fact that Disney did give something back to the system and continues to put out work. The corporate greed creates issues and Congress's buyability compounds them.
I do submit meaningful bug reports,...
Err, I must not have made my point clear, since you missed it. I was merely attempting to ground the discussion in more familiar territory. I was saying that, IMO, your attitude re copyright (or what I could get of it from your message)
was analogous to the attitude of those people that take open source software and disparage the hobbyists that maintain it, without ever providing constructive input into the system, or seeing what it's like to be a creator of work when some guy comes up and claims that he has more right to your creation than you do.
I believe the word you were looking for is "pederast."
And I somehow doubt you're selling your opinion of Jon Katz by illustrating your own homoerotic tendencies and shallow vocabulary.
...for such a counterproductively long copyprivilege term.
Copyprivilege? Fuck that. You're going to claim that it's somehow your right to take someone else's work? You're going to claim that
it's all in the name of fighting corporate greed, when it's pretty damn certain that
your motive is personal greed. You want to take without giving anything back. And then you'll complain about the quality of the system.
How does this make you different from the plethora of twinks that complain about some hobbyist's open sourced software without ever contributing back so much as a meaningful bug report?
And then you have the audacity to come out and claim it's somehow not the right of those who create to hold some sliver of protection over their creations?
We'll both agree: there are some huge problems with the copyright system. Frankly, I don't believe that corporations should be able to hold copyrights at all.
But when you start to make the case that you somehow have the right to indiscriminately take
and benefit from another man's work, you lose me and, I hope, the vast majority of other people on/. and in the world, at large.
You're absolutely right. Pastry masturbation is a very serious matter. With the reduced sex drives of pastries in captivity,
the call of reproduction and propagation of these important sources of food must be met by the men and women of the zoological community.
Sure, it sounds funny and maybe even looks funny, but masturbating a pastry is serious work that, if not done,
would have serious consequences.
(...and the great thing is, I know it's stupid...)
Two, yes, I agree, it's far more humane to burden the rest of society with the
cost of maintaining those unreformable few whose actions are so blatant, terrible abuses that one has to question
their humanity, at all. I, like you, would rather an innocent mother and her child--displaced and homeless--go hungry, than a miserable mass murderer be given his fair end.
Now, if you want to approach the topic from the standpoint of whether the justice system works well enough to support the
inclusion of such severe penalties, we'll have more to discuss.
Well said! I've been lobbying Congress for years to ban all forms of person-to-person interpersonal communication, including encrypted forms.
Most Congressmen, are blissfully unaware of the inherent danger in whispering and face-to-face communication in secluded areas,
and refuse to place the proper restrictions upon its use until we can more thoroughly investigate the ethical (read: political) ramifications!
I hope, anyway, that it's just naïveté. One Senator, who shall remain nameless, seemed to agree with my viewpoint, but
wanted to meet in private to discuss it! If that's not proof of the anti-American corruption that plagues our government, nothing is! Needless to say, I turned down his offer, but I won't judge him for his evil actions. Everyone knows the government rules by divine right, and God works in mysterious ways.
Now just imagine the ramifications of allowing secure encryption! What if Osama bin Laden had one of these terminals hooked up in his cave?
Instead of using letters and his international installation of terrorists to securely transmit instructions face-to-face, he could have IM'd them!
We MUST stop this trend towards privacy and technological innovation if we are going to continue to lead the world in
human rights and technological innovations into the future!
Since 11 Sep 2001, there's been a lot of jibber-jabber by supposedly
socially conscious Americans and pundits that we foolishly display our weaknesses to anyone and everyone that's
listening. A well-meaning, but misguided, person finds it easy to reason that our greatest
problem is the media's willingness to exploit our (greatest) problems. "Why, I can't even tune in to the nightly news
without hearing about yet another security breach/scare at an airport and someone telling us that airport security still
sucks."... Doesn't this smack a little of blaming the messenger? Someone who exploits the message to do wrong is clearly to blame, but aren't those that are
regularly told of the security holes also responsible when other people get hurt? I call it negligence.
But here we are and the bipartisan, belligerent cries have struck a chord with our less-is-more (when it comes to individual rights) Administration. Suddenly, the information is to blame, and not the
people that neglect to fix the problems that have been exposed. Does this sound like Security by Obscurity to anyone?
The American people have a right to know our inadequacies. It's just too damn bad that we didn't give a damn before 11 Sep 2001 -- and we don't really give a damn after it. Instead, we've given Bush carte blanche and he's telling us to put our heads in the sand... Well, here we go.
That much we can agree with. This movie is a rip-off and a half. I'm willing to bet that some of the fight scenes
have been directly ripped from older HK films (sometimes they rehash their own stuff, c.f., Xin Xin Xiong and the ladder fights in The Musketeer); the special effects are ripped from The Matrix; the
plot is like Highlander meets Sliders.
Now it wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't a good movie./P.
And maybe you aren't geeky enough? A simple comparison of the meanings is conclusive, here.
The Matrix: Morpheus refers to Neo as "the One" in the sense that he is the Chosen One.
Highlander: There can be only one. If you win the game, you are the One. What's the game? Killing the others of your sort.
Uhm, what's that about a perfect parallel? The only thing The Matrix's "the One" has in common with
The One's use of the same phrase is that... they're the same phrase. Not a thing else in common. OTOH, the premise and the phraseology are entirely
like Highlander's.
"The One" borrows everything from everywhere. It looks like a high school student saw Highlander 2 and The Matrix relatively close together.
Aside from the fact that most of the crucial elements of this movie are knocked-off from elsewhere, the adaptation doesn't make any
sense whatsoever. So if whenever one of your other selves dies, all the rest get stronger, we should all fear the elderly because, logically,
the chances are greater that their other selves have perished.
Still, that explains much: Strom Thurmond is a supervillian.
I especially like how the last few have read more like book reports than books.
Who needs to be bothered with good reading? I can get a sense of what happened in the book with
just the summaries that Robert Jordan is providing.
Now if only he could shrink them down from book-size to book-sleeve size, I'd be able to keep up.
You apparently believe that humor and absurdity are inseparable. This is no more true than stating that smug pseudo-intellectualism and
Americans who use British spelling are inseparable. Perhaps it's even less true.
This is [ridiculous|stupid|ludicrous|lame]! How can Macromedia patent ______? I was doing _____ on my [Z80|8086|Altair] in the [1970s|1980s].
It's really [easy|trivial|fast] to implement. I could write it right now in [Perl|C|Python|Java|INTERCAL]! The USPTO needs to gain some [sense|accountability|knowledgeable employees (like me)].
Still, Adobe [deserves|asked for|needs] a taste of their own medicine! I can't be too upset about them getting sued. It's [kharma|fate|divine intervention].
Why in the hell would Blizzard think that?! More people are buying Blizzard's product, which means that Blizzard is making money off of TransGaming's product.
All that without having to do anything! This doesn't encourage them to move into the Linux space on their own or through legitimate ports. It keeps them where
they are because they get some extra profit without spending any more cash on development.
Slashdot Mirror
So if my plans don't materialize because I'm cheap, broke, and hate to drive (especially on New Years Eve), I'll dig up every episode of MST3K I have, and ring in the New Year with a John Carradine movie and a Jam Handy short.
Has there ever been proof that spam isn't already a money-losing proposition in nearly all cases? I can't imagine many people are netted by it, since it is so arbitrary and comes in such volume.
...tell that to Hammurabi.
All of that said, I'm aware my pet solution is as full of holes as the many others strewn about the IP wasteland...
Now you've confused me even more. Neither Disney work is in the public domain, nor would it be under old copyright duration (contrary to what I previously said, oops). The source material whence the Disney productions came is under public domain; the full text of both Kipling's The Jungle Book and Lorenzini's Pinocchio can be obtained online with a minimum of fuss. Disney's Pinocchio, being published in 1940, prior to the copyright extension, would have become public domain in 2015. Disney's The Jungle Book, being published some two decades later, would not appear until at least 2035. Under the newer rules, these dates are pushed back 20 years. Which, like I said, I don't agree with any more than I agree with your egregious claim that it is a privilege of the author to control his work. However, all this has little to do with Abandonware.
Forget it. I'm either failing to make the analogy clear or analogues are lost on you. Either way, I meant to draw a parallel, and you're envisioning a substantial intersection.
No, I said the problems with the copyright system are compounded by Congress's buyability, not caused by it. I made no mention of patents, which are a separate issue.
The United States supports Israel because it is a democracy with similar values. Note, however, that the US, despite its clear loyalties, is not above official rebuke of Israel's actions, e.g., the reoccupation. I am amazed that you can distort truth so readily while turning a blind-eye to cold facts. It is a fact that Palestine houses many terrorist groups--Hamas, for instance--that have gone unmolested by the Palestinian government. Arafat has, many times, excused this fact by saying he is not in control of the terrorists and cannot exert control of the terrorists. It is a fact that only this past week Arafat made a symbolic, and mostly meaningless move, to shut down a small fraction of Hamas and only then under threat. It is highly likely that, as before, those arrested will be released. Yet you ignore this. More, you ignore the fact that the US, under the Clinton administration, endlessly negotiated with Israel and Palestine and put forward a truce, accepted by Israel, that gave Palestine 95% of its demands. Arafat refused, clearly demonstrating his unwillingness to compromise and the lie that is his pledge for peace. If Arafat cannot accept 95% of the Palestinian demands handed to him on a platter, and cannot stop the terrorist groups, then what is his purpose? If he is so stubborn and inept, he should step down. Yet he will not, and you will support him, all the while ignoring the cold, hard facts that Palestine sponsors the murder of Israeli children, supports the murder of Israeli children, and--by refusing a compromise slanted heavily in their favor--causes the murder of Palestinian children.
This comment would be offensive if it weren't so blatantly moronic and baseless. Lest you forget, it is the US that has pioneered the use of stem cells and biotechnology. The transistor? The television? The phonograph? Maybe the telephone (although there's at least a dozen claims to creation, 2 from Italy)? Stephen Hawking's voice (but not Stephen Hawking)? The Internet? The list of US technical innovations goes on and on and on. To claim that the US is a ludite nation is nearly as much a flight of fancy as your claim that Israel is the worst terrorist state to exist in history. Israel's not even the worst terrorist state to be on the Gaza strip. And to claim that the US wishes to halt the progress of technology is silly while you support Palestine and other nations with a strong fundmentalist movement that would have these countries ban television, the Internet, music, etc.
That said, I don't agree with Bush's stem cell research decision on any level. It was a political cop-out which showed neither the strength of Christian morality his supporters claim or the secular stance that I would prefer. You paradoxically excuse his decision, however, by saying that non-scientists should serve as the conscience of society. Isn't this what Bush was (expected to be) doing?
As with the example of the car, there is a predefined timelimit for when the property moves into the public trust. It is quite often, in this digital age, too long. That is an issue that begs a special case for resolution and not a general denigration of copyright or devaluation of creators.
I think that very many people assume a work is abandoned merely because it's no longer marketed or mass produced. I cannot find any legal or moral support for this view. It seems more a rationalization than a reason. If I park my car in my drive-way for many years, and do not drive it, does it then become part of the public trust? Of course not; it remains my car. That I once drove it around is moot. It remains my property until the law intercedes. In the case of copyright, this (ideally) happens after a set time or certain conditions are met. It is not reasonable to assume that failure to produce or distribute is one of these conditions.
The right of the creator to the created is long-established and clear. The modern concept and, hence, privilege, is the access of others to this work beyond the author's control. This does not mean that I consider these modern privileges wrong. This is clearly not a binary issue and the vast middleground is a quagmire of partial solutions and bigger problems. The fact remains that "copyprivilege" demeans all copyright holders, including those who have legitimate claims to works.
As I said before, there are clearly problems with the copyright system as it stands. My pet solution--which undoubtedly creates as many or more problems that it solves--is to simply disallow corporations from holding copyrights at all, as they are feasibly eternal and often end up with rights that you could barely make a case for them owning even in the system as it stands. The issue I had was clearly not with whether there are copyright abuses or problems with the system or if some things that have been done are downright un-Constitutional. I admit all of these things and will disagree with anyone that tauts the system as flawless just as strongly as I have disagreed on this matter. But I will continue to hold those who begrudge all creators their rights in scorn because I cannot see the logic, the truth, or the value in claiming it is the right of the vultures to scavenge the kill of the lion, whilst the lion goes hungry.
This is a limitation on copyright and your privilege, not the other way around. The nonce "copyprivilege" is a slap in the face of every legitimate author and creator. To imply that it is not their right, but somehow a privilege afforded them and stomached by the unwashed masses is a ridiculous and offensive notion. You're right. There are serious abuses of the copyright system in existence. This does not justify positing that control of a creation is a privilege of the creator, and that you are, by logical extension, more entitled to the work than the author.
Disney, as the creator of these works, gave us them to begin with. They gave that much back. By the then-rules, you're absolutely correct: the movies should have become public domain. The rules changed. This does not make it your right to receive their work or a privilege that they retain ownership. It's a problem, yes. It runs counter to the idea of copyright in the United States, even. None of this changes the simple fact that Disney did give something back to the system and continues to put out work. The corporate greed creates issues and Congress's buyability compounds them.
Err, I must not have made my point clear, since you missed it. I was merely attempting to ground the discussion in more familiar territory. I was saying that, IMO, your attitude re copyright (or what I could get of it from your message) was analogous to the attitude of those people that take open source software and disparage the hobbyists that maintain it, without ever providing constructive input into the system, or seeing what it's like to be a creator of work when some guy comes up and claims that he has more right to your creation than you do.
I believe the word you were looking for is "pederast." And I somehow doubt you're selling your opinion of Jon Katz by illustrating your own homoerotic tendencies and shallow vocabulary.
Copyprivilege? Fuck that. You're going to claim that it's somehow your right to take someone else's work? You're going to claim that it's all in the name of fighting corporate greed, when it's pretty damn certain that your motive is personal greed. You want to take without giving anything back. And then you'll complain about the quality of the system. How does this make you different from the plethora of twinks that complain about some hobbyist's open sourced software without ever contributing back so much as a meaningful bug report? And then you have the audacity to come out and claim it's somehow not the right of those who create to hold some sliver of protection over their creations?
We'll both agree: there are some huge problems with the copyright system. Frankly, I don't believe that corporations should be able to hold copyrights at all. But when you start to make the case that you somehow have the right to indiscriminately take and benefit from another man's work, you lose me and, I hope, the vast majority of other people on /. and in the world, at large.
(...and the great thing is, I know it's stupid...)
One, I was--of course--joking.
Two, yes, I agree, it's far more humane to burden the rest of society with the cost of maintaining those unreformable few whose actions are so blatant, terrible abuses that one has to question their humanity, at all. I, like you, would rather an innocent mother and her child--displaced and homeless--go hungry, than a miserable mass murderer be given his fair end.
Now, if you want to approach the topic from the standpoint of whether the justice system works well enough to support the inclusion of such severe penalties, we'll have more to discuss.
Now just imagine the ramifications of allowing secure encryption! What if Osama bin Laden had one of these terminals hooked up in his cave? Instead of using letters and his international installation of terrorists to securely transmit instructions face-to-face, he could have IM'd them! We MUST stop this trend towards privacy and technological innovation if we are going to continue to lead the world in human rights and technological innovations into the future!
Blasphemy!
Since 11 Sep 2001, there's been a lot of jibber-jabber by supposedly socially conscious Americans and pundits that we foolishly display our weaknesses to anyone and everyone that's listening. A well-meaning, but misguided, person finds it easy to reason that our greatest problem is the media's willingness to exploit our (greatest) problems. "Why, I can't even tune in to the nightly news without hearing about yet another security breach/scare at an airport and someone telling us that airport security still sucks." ... Doesn't this smack a little of blaming the messenger? Someone who exploits the message to do wrong is clearly to blame, but aren't those that are
regularly told of the security holes also responsible when other people get hurt? I call it negligence.
But here we are and the bipartisan, belligerent cries have struck a chord with our less-is-more (when it comes to individual rights) Administration. Suddenly, the information is to blame, and not the people that neglect to fix the problems that have been exposed. Does this sound like Security by Obscurity to anyone? The American people have a right to know our inadequacies. It's just too damn bad that we didn't give a damn before 11 Sep 2001 -- and we don't really give a damn after it. Instead, we've given Bush carte blanche and he's telling us to put our heads in the sand... Well, here we go.
Now it wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't a good movie./P.
The Matrix: Morpheus refers to Neo as "the One" in the sense that he is the Chosen One.
Highlander: There can be only one. If you win the game, you are the One. What's the game? Killing the others of your sort.
Uhm, what's that about a perfect parallel? The only thing The Matrix's "the One" has in common with The One's use of the same phrase is that... they're the same phrase. Not a thing else in common. OTOH, the premise and the phraseology are entirely like Highlander's.
Still, that explains much: Strom Thurmond is a supervillian.
Now if only he could shrink them down from book-size to book-sleeve size, I'd be able to keep up.
You apparently believe that humor and absurdity are inseparable. This is no more true than stating that smug pseudo-intellectualism and Americans who use British spelling are inseparable. Perhaps it's even less true.
This is [ridiculous|stupid|ludicrous|lame]! How can Macromedia patent ______? I was doing _____ on my [Z80|8086|Altair] in the [1970s|1980s]. It's really [easy|trivial|fast] to implement. I could write it right now in [Perl|C|Python|Java|INTERCAL]! The USPTO needs to gain some [sense|accountability|knowledgeable employees (like me)]. Still, Adobe [deserves|asked for|needs] a taste of their own medicine! I can't be too upset about them getting sued. It's [kharma|fate|divine intervention].
You have a telephone in your bathroom? Why?
Why in the hell would Blizzard think that?! More people are buying Blizzard's product, which means that Blizzard is making money off of TransGaming's product. All that without having to do anything! This doesn't encourage them to move into the Linux space on their own or through legitimate ports. It keeps them where they are because they get some extra profit without spending any more cash on development.
In fact, it's no less than the fifth time it's been posted. Twice, even, by CmdrTaco.