Yet corporations don't really pay that high tax because there are ways of reducing the visible net profit. In reality the high tax is really applied to a very small portion of the actual profit (if it is applied to any profit at all).
I am actually against taxes in principle, but it is silly to say that US corporations pay more than others in the world. Everyone who can hides as much profit as possible, so it would be more interesting to see how much absolute dollars are paid per gross income rather than looking at just the official tax rate.
My condition is rare: I don't listen to music by choice, pretty much ever. But I love talk shows on our radio in Toronto, the AM 1010, 640 and half useful news only 680.
These are the stations that I listen to, they are not on FM radio, unfortunately, so the quality is not the same as what the music stations get, but whatever. I like these stations because they are not politically correct, even though some hosts are (and of-course there is gov't regulation about cleanliness of speech, but it's OK, though some swearing doesn't hurt anyone and you can hear it after 9PM on the same stations). These stations have show hosts who actually do discussions, not preaching like the US Clearchannel, there is difference of opinion between hosts, and people can truly participate in discussions that are meaningful. Stuff about local, regional and global politics, economy and sometimes just discussing stupid things that happen every day.
That's my radio, and I actually would pay a few bucks a month for it if it wasn't available for free (ad supported) on AM anyway.
the jury found defendant Lori Drew guilty of three counts of the lesser offense of accessing a computer without authorization
- now can you explain to everyone, how is this related to this:
psychological stalking and trauma
?
You are the one, who has to pull your head out of your ass, it must have stuck really hard in there.
She is not convicted on anything related to the suicide of the girl, she is convicted on accessing a computer without authorization. Where is the real conviction for the suffering she caused? There is none, because there is no law that says a person cannot pretend to be someone else to gather some information, specifically when it is a situation between two private individuals. Maybe there should be a law that says a grown up cannot pretend to be someone else to manipulate a child, ok fine, but a law like this does not exist.
So what has happened here is that a case was created in criminal court that eventually will be used to convict an otherwise honest person of something, anything in fact, by using this case.
Exactly who is innocent now? Basically everyone with a computer has created an account, an email account, a forum account, whatever account where they did not provide their own name (and/or address). So now almost EVERYONE can be convicted based on this if the government just wants to convict a person because the person has something that the government wants or has done something that is not actually illegal, but the government objects to it.
What if the girl was not contacted via MySpace account? What if she had received a real piece of snail mail with a fake photo in it from this woman? What if the woman hired an actor-boy to do the same thing?
The woman's actions are bad not because she 'accessed a computer without authorization', but because she didn't care for the feelings of the girl she was manipulating. Do not allow the government to make every single person into a criminal on a whim.
You are in a trap, you believe in short term gain for individuals who will not have to pay for some specific content without having to wait for prices to drop, while sacrificing the long term gain of having content generated at all. Monopoly granted by copyright law is definitely not the only way to generate content, you can have beneficiaries, but it is a very powerful way to do so. You may shun people like me, who will only provide content under copyright law and licenses like GPL OR will provide proprietary content for sale only, but it doesn't diminish the fact that my software and content is found in about half a million installations.
I am not a big player at all in this game, so this is not really my battle, you know, the TV shows, the movies, the books, I pay for content I care to have through whatever legal channels that are available. You will be hard pressed to find anything that I use that is not actually legally acquired. However from where I am, copyright makes perfect sense, regardless of what you may think.
I believe we can agree to disagree on this completely.
I "may believe" wtf kind of bs is that? I know exactly what I am saying AND HAVE PROVIDED EXAMPLES TO BACK UP MY CLAIMS. You are the one who doesn't understand the terms.
- Whatever you said can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, if you cannot appreciate this fact, you will be stuck yelling 'WRONG'. My interpretation maybe different from what yours is, however in either case you believe something is 'better' based on your definition of better.
For the end user it is better to pay less. However from point of view of society it is better if new content is produced rather than not produced at all. Here is what I am going to tell you, wrap your head around it, myself and some other people who I communicate with, will stop distributing any new software that we develop for our own needs if copyright and GPL are unavailable as tools.
YOU are simply unavailable when it is required to understand that what I am saying is based on this fact: monopolies are inherently inefficient. THIS INEFFICIENCY MAKES SOCIETY POORER BECAUSE THE PRICE TO SOCIETY IS NOW HIGHER THAN IT WAS BEFORE THE INTERNET AND THERE ARE NEW NON-MONOPOLY BUSINESS MODELS THAT WERE NOT FEASIBLE BEFORE THE INTERNET.
- you are arguing that monopoly is inefficient, but you are conveniently forgetting that the monopoly wouldn't even exist if no content was available. Copyright (at least the copyright that I am for) does not provide a creator with perpetual monopoly on distribution. Perpetual credit: yes, perpetual monopoly on distribution channels: no.
And there goes the dissonance ringing around in your head. You just said that if it is profitable to distribute something then distribution provides no value. Think about how just utterly ridiculous that claim is.
- you are ridiculous. Redistribution for profit by illegal providers (not the copyright holder and not by someone who has not bought a legal license), provides no value to the original copyright holder, in fact it generates a loss when we are talking about profit.
More concretely: if a book can be sold on the internet and if the copyright holder is selling it, then anyone else who is selling it on the internet violates the copyright, and this law allows the original holder to take the illegal distributor to court, because it can be shown that number of sales by the illegal distributor, times the price, minus the distribution costs equals profit that the original holder lost.
This is simple math, not that hard, I think even you can understand.
I have to leave now, but I am sure we'll continue on later.
You do? Do you see me sitting at another computer that didn't have my login credentials stored in a cookie?
- you should be able to log back into your account, no?
Well keep on standing then because: (A) they were my words and I am straight out telling you that you were WRONG - get it? YOU. ARE. WRONG.
- you may believe that this is what you are saying, it doesn't actually make me wrong.
(B) I gave explanatory examples of exactly how "better spent" means less government interference, not more.
- in this case government interference is good for society, you see, without copyright laws lots of content wouldn't exist. Case in point: plenty of GPLed software including some of mine.
I think the reason you refuse to even acknowledge my argument is because you are suffering from the cognitive dissonance of being wrong, but mostly ignorant, about the economics of copyright.
Here's a chance to redeem yourself: Is copyright a monopoly or not? Yes or no please, no long-winded BS
- you just don't read what I am saying I guess. Of-course copyright provides a temporary monopoly, that is why society came up with this law. Of-course it creates artificial scarcity, I mentioned it in this thread already. That is why this law exists. For credit and for limiting redistribution channels to allow maximization of profit by the original content creator.
If anyone has cognitive dissonance, that would be you, you are simply unavailable when it is required to understand that what I am saying is based on this fact: artificial scarcity and temporary monopoly. This does not make the society poorer, it makes it richer by allowing more content to be produced. That's the reason for existence of this law. Should I reiterate this again and again? (I mention artificial scarcity as intended consequence of the copyright law here, I specify that Rowling has monopoly on redistribution here and here). I don't know if it is reading incomprehension on your part or deliberate attempt at circular arguments but it is obvious that you are not really interested in a dialog, only in a diatribe.
More failure of vocabulary from you: cost != value. ANSWER the question.
- 0. The answer is 0 when there is profit that is made on top of the redistribution. The original content creator does not care what it costs to redistribute the material, only what the losses are from illegally derived profits.
So I answered, yet another of your diatribes can be safely discarded, namely this one:
Actually, I know you will never answer the question because to do so would make you face the fact that distributors provide value and thus paying a distributor for the value they provide in distribution is not necessarily the same as paying for the content.
--
Go ahead, run away, your understanding of economic implications of copyright is as infantile as you are verbose and unfocused.
- no, don't hang this on me. You are not playing by the rules by logging out of your account, no matter what your circumstances are. You have an account, you can continue the dialog from there if interested. If not then it's not my problem. All it takes for you to continue is to enter that user name / password and push that sign in button, that's not too much to ask from you to continue a conversation, or is it? If you are not interested, then you don't have to log in, but don't hang your problems on me.
Quit being such a palaverous prig. Your lack of a topical vocabulary lead you to believe that when I said "spent" I meant government redistribution. You were utterly wrong.
- I see why you logged out of your account now. However I stand by my words, when you said 'better spent', you meant your definition of 'better', which must include enforcement by means that are only available to governments.
Quit your senseless meandering and ANSWER the question. How do you measure the value of service of distribution. Not how does it happen "on the internet or by supplying physical book copies." How do you MEASURE it?
- I see, so I was wrong and you can't add, this is not surprising. Distribution for profit includes making profit, any profit is the loss that must be returned (probably with other fines) to the lawful copyright holder. Whether there is any cost associated with distribution of the material is irrelevant, since profit was generated. If there is profit, it means that costs are already covered, thus your question is not simply irrelevant, it's meaningless.
I think you need to log back into your account, otherwise I cannot be certain that this is not a simple attempt at trolling. I don't maintain dialogs with trolls. Be a good boy, log back into your account next time.
Irrelevant. Are you forced to buy electricity? Are you forced to buy telephone service? Internet access? No, and yet the prices are all of those services are artificially inflated by virtue of being government granted monopolies. JUST LIKE COPYRIGHT.
- nah, not irrelevant. You are welcome not to buy any content. Books are not electricity, you can get books for free from a library as well, you can get other material to read that is basically free.
However society decided that copyright is a useful construct, and I have shown that it is in fact useful, otherwise some works would never be available under such licenses as GPL (one example). Society has agreed that paying the cost of distribution to the original content creator (or to a legal licensee) is worth it for the duration of the copyright.
Really? How much value do you assign to the service of distribution? How do you measure it?
- if money is exchanged (as it would be in cases where redistribution is for profit) that is all that is needed to calculate exactly what is lost. Redistribution can happen either on the Internet or by supplying physical book copies, one way or another any amount of money that is made as profit is the obvious loss. You can add, can't you?
On the flip side, Rowling definitely didn't need even 0.01% of that money in order to keep writing more books. From a society's point of view, all the money in excess of what was required for her to continue writing was wasted and could have been spent better elsewhere on hundreds of other promising writers that have now been crowded out of the marketplace by the harry potter monster.
- unless you can prove that anyone was forced to give away their money to pay for the books, then you cannot say 'spent' without implying something else: redistributed by government or some such. How can you argue against people spending their money in which ever way they like, based on your notion of what 'better spent' is and not imply some sort of enforcement by 'society' or a some sort of dictatorship?
NO. Business models are based on the INTERSECTION of law and the real world. The real world changed with the creation of the internet, the law is no longer effective. Smart businesses will adapt to the new conditions and find new models that work given the new constraints.
- copyright is effective, otherwise GPL would be ineffective and it is, it's even court proven.
Here is something that will blow your mind - there is no fundamental difference between redistribution for profit and not for profit. Or rather, all redistribution is for profit, just not always directly tangible profit. Thus making the distinction, as you do, is counterproductive. Unless, of course, you are copyright solipsist like yourself.
- no, you won't 'blow my mind' in any manner. There is a huge difference for and not for profit.
The difference is extremely visible and tangible: in one case it is impossible to say whether any money is lost by the copyright holder, in the other case it is very easy to show precisely how much is lost, not only the fact that it is lost.
Well I had a point, you don't. My point was that you would like to see profit, that was generated by the content + the copyright law by Rowling to be distributed among those, who did nothing. You, on the other hand, believe that I propose some sort of communism based on the fact that I am pro-copyright?! You turn and twist the words but you only confuse yourself, not me.
Good for you, keep on repeating just how irrelevant your points are to the business model of copyright.
- again, you are confused. Business model is based on a law that from point of view of society is useful, as I have shown by explaining how work that otherwise would not be released or would only be available for sale is in fact released under the GPL. You may disagree with the GPL (and it looks like you do) but it does not diminish the fact that it works. My second point was that copyright is in fact enforceable when it concerns specifically redistribution for profit. It is a normal SOP to take to court those, who try and go around the copyright law while making a profit without proper licensing.
Again, I am not talking about usage of material, only redistribution for profit and credit. You have long ago lost the point that you were trying to make, the one where you suggested that money that Rowling made should have been distributed among some 'starving authors'.
So, as it turns out, you are the radical communist.
- interesting and pointless comment, I don't see the government as anything else but an enforcer of laws that are created for the benefit of the people and the interface to the outside world (presentation of the country).
And yes, your participation in this thread has been 100% pointless. Why? Because you have been the only one talking about rights of attribution. Everyone else, including yourself at the start, have been talking about the economics of copyright. Droits d'auteur are almost completely irrelevant to the economics of copyright.
- I am talking about credit and redistribution for profit. I hope you can appreciate the difference between what I am saying and what you are hearing.
So, in summary you don't give a damn about people who freely redistribute information regardless of the creator's desire.
- it's not pointless even if it just helps me to solidify my position by discussing it further.
However you are mistaken in a huge way, I really don't care when copyrighted materials are distributed except for the case when they are distributed for profit. There you go, a huge distinction there. The credit portion is also not mentioned in your brief reply. Copyright is instrumental in creating such licenses as the GPL and this license defines how software and content that is distributed as Free cannot be made Non-Free by distributing changes to the software/content in binary/signed formats only.
Explain. No really, I mean it. Explain how copyright "makes perfect sense" in the light of it now being effectively unenforceable.
- you are mistaken. When you are talking about copyright in general, you are probably thinking about the 'anti-circumvention' and the 'safe-harbor' portions of the DMCA. This has nothing to do with what I am talking about and probably thus there is a disconnect.
Copyright in itself is an idea that the content creator has the credit for that particular implementation and that for the duration of copyright the copyright holder has control over distribution of the material. GPL (which I use for my Free source work) builds upon this notion.
If GPL did not exist as a concept, I would not be distributing any Free software at all, because unlike some other people, I create this software for my own use first. Without working GPL, I would either not distribute any software that I distribute as Free at all, or I would distribute only proprietary software for pay.
This is not only my stance on the issue, I don't have to distribute software if I cannot maintain either credit and/or money for distribution. I would still build this software for my own use (as normally happens), but I would not chose to distribute it if there was no copyright law in existence.
So the above explains how society basically benefits from copyright laws when it concerns people like me.
--
The second part of your question, whether the copyright laws are enforceable, is also easy for me to explain. I don't particularly care how the copyrighted material is being distributed except when it concerns making profit.
If there was no copyright law, there would be no legal toolkit in existence to go after people, who are redistributing copyrighted material for profit. I do have a few problems with others making profit and not just redistributing materials for free, when we are talking about stuff that is not licensed under GPL or similar license.
Now, if you start selling software that I wrote and distributed under GPL, I have no problems with it. However if you start selling software that was not licensed Freely, then I would in fact have legal means based on the copyright law to stop you. The fact that copyright is a criminal law is excellent, however I would also take you to court for the damages, requiring you to return the profit to me.
This second point is definitely useful when it concerns the original content producers.
Again, I am not pro-DMCA, however I am pro-copyright.
I never said it was. Let me try for a third and final time. Copyright issues are one of the most, if not the most, frequently discussed topic on slashdot. For you to have missed these kinds of details despite being a reader for what, 8 years at least?, is exceptional.
- pfft, you are being ridiculous, I probably haven't missed a single discussion on copyright. My stance never changes, copyright is a useful construct.
Nothing more than your writing in this thread and your participation in this community. But, it is becoming apparent by that writing that the benefit of the doubt is not merited on this topic.
- I am not moved by this thinly veiled attempt at an insult.
Clearly you do believe in copyright, almost unconditionally it seems. Almost like an article of faith I would say.
- I create plenty of code and content, for me not to adhere to copyright would be detrimental. It's not faith, for me it is common sense. It's just it seems that common sense is not that common.
It's comments like that, which I have to agree, mean the benefit of the doubt is wasted on you. Real property is both scarce and rivalrous. Anything that can be digitized is both abundant and nonrival. Copyright laws are an attempt to create artificial scarcity and thus enable rent seeking which is clearly not an efficient use of resources. Comparisons between the economics of real property and the economics of ideas are extremely tenuous and need to be evaluated with a highly critical eye. One I daresay you have not applied and seem content not to.
- au contrair, it is exactly because anything that can be digitized can be easily redistributed by the non-creator at no cost within hours if not minutes and seconds after release of the original, that copyright makes perfect sense as a law.
You are missing a lot of this critical thinking you seem to be boasting about, when you refuse to understand that it is society that decided that copyright is a valuable tool, just like patent can be a valuable tool for certain situations. As far as I am concerned, copyright should not be assigned, this is a misuse of the law. Copyright belongs to the creator based on the fact that he produced the original. Whether copyright is actually used to assign credit or limit redistribution channels (both are it's intended main uses anyway) is really irrelevant. I subscribe to the theory that copyright allows maintaining credit first and then limiting redistribution second. As the second use, copyright creates an artificial scarcity, it's the intended consequence. You think I am equating property rights and copyrights and are trying to ridicule me, but what I am actually saying is that both constructs are human and are not based on any reality.
Either property or copyright can be taken away by force and that is the way that the Universe works. People change this artificially every day, we create this idea of so called 'rights' and we attempt to maintain our ideas because without ideas we are just animals like the rest of the bio-sphere on this planet.
I like that sentence, I think it perfectly sums up your position. Yah like it, but that's as far as you go. All this foofaw about monopolies and inefficiencies and rivalrousness be damned. Never mind that the internet changed the rules of the game long ago, same as it ever was.
- well, Internet cannot change what is unchangeable: if you create some work, the credit is still yours. No matter who tries to attempt and take it away. Internet changed the way that data can be copied, certainly, but it cannot change another thing: anyone who creates for profit redistribution channels can still be taken to court. Thus the idea of equalization of laws between different countries on various issues, including the copyright.
Yes, I never stop saying: I am pro-copyright because it is a meaningful tool for 2 r
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Facebook has won a $873 million judgment against a Canadian man who bombarded users with millions of unsolicited messages about drugs and sex.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel signed the default judgment Friday, resolving a lawsuit that Facebook filed in August against Adam Guerbuez of Montreal and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital.
Facebook alleged that Guerbuez had fooled users into revealing their passwords so he could send out more than 4 million messages that included promotions for marijuana. Guerbuez could not be located for comment.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company predicted the judgment will be difficult to collect, but is hoping that its size discourages future abuses at its site.
- that fine is impossible to collect, forget about 'difficult', the schmuck certainly doesn't have money like that, or he wouldn't be in this busines. Still, it is nice to see that American corporation can win something like that against a Canadian citizen. Now how about the rest of the spammers? Can you please PLEASE win a lawsuit against those Nigerians! AND THEY CAN PAY!!! They have so many billions it's not funny.
My point was simply that your arguments are old ground on slashdot, it is odd that someone with a low uid has not heard them before and heard them be discredited.
- whatever you want to mean by that,/. is not uniform. I don't subscribe to a believe that copyright is somehow detrimental to the society as a whole, I believe that copyright is a good thing, that does not mean that it should last too long though. 20 years on a copyright is sufficient in my book, YMMV. You are making assumptions about me based on nothing.
Well, as best as I can tell you've changed your entire tact. You've gone from arguing that copyright is essentially the way things ought to be, to belaboring the obvious and stating things like "copyright is an active law" and that Rowling has used the current system to her benefit.
- I never changed my 'tact' or whatever. I believe in copyright. The thing I disagree with is how it is used by corporations to infringe on user rights, that's a different story.
I see no point in arguing the obvious with you. If you would like to come back to MY original point that copyright is inefficient and thus not the best bargain for society, please do.
- well, I disagree with you that copyright is inefficient. My view is that copyright should exist and that society does gain from it and that this is the reason why copyright exists as a law at all. Just like property right, copyright is a human construct. Without such laws we can all go back bashing each other on the head with stones and sticks and those with the biggest sticks will win.
Copyright as it is currently standing in the US has certain problems, I don't see those exact same problems in Canada.
For someone with such a low uid, it seems you haven't been paying any attention to the technical discussions of the economics of copyright that have occurred here over the years. This is all old ground. Very old ground.
- I don't base my dialogs on UIDs but on the merits of an argument.
Yes and much more, not just distribution but everything copyright restricts.
- copyright restricts distribution channels. Usage is a different matter.
I can tell from the way you write that you have a fundamental error as a basis for all of your arguments. You believe that copyright - as in controlling distribution - is the only business model for creative work. In fact, it is a business model that became obsolete the day a few engineers at BBN built four imps back in 1969, today it functions mainly on inertia.
- well actually if we talk about facts, then in fact copyright law is well and alive today. So lets get the facts straight: copyright is an active law, it differs somewhat from country to country but it exists. That's a fact.
Secondly you should stop trying to infer my believe systems 'from way I write'. I don't believe that copyright is the only model, I believe that copyright helps author to take that extra risk. Rowling is not a giant corporation, she also started as an individual writing a book. Her business model is using the current existing laws, she is correct to use the laws the way they are setup and are supposed to work. Copyright is hers and it allows her to dictate distribution channels as long as copyright is valid, that's what it is for in its primary function.
(a) You seem to think that "should have gone to" means government redistribution. The irony in your assumption is that the government is the one affecting the market to effect redistribution to Rowling, et al.
- again, gov't is the people, as such it means that it is the people who allow authors like Rowling maintain a monopoly on redistribution of her original material for the duration of copyright. This especially concerns her rights for paid channels of distribution.
(b) You say "clearly did not produce anything of the same value" - your assumption is a poor one because you assume that the market is not skewed by the government mandated monopoly of copyright.
- this doesn't even make sense. I did not assume anything other than what you have said: you said that other authors could have received the money that Rowling was making on distribution of her books. So the question is this: what would give those other people right to share in on the money? Government is one logical choice, what are your other suggestions? Those supposed authors, who you are worried about, are you implying that they should be able to take the money away from Rowling or not? If someone starts redistributing work of another for profit, does it make this person 'an author' or just a distributor? Copyright restrictions make sense specifically to protect rights of the original author and not of other self-proclaimed distributors. Distributors don't add new content, they by definition redistribute other people's content. This does not make them authors.
In effect you are making a circular argument - copyright is good because the those who benefit the most from the copyright system benefit the most from the copyright system.
- again, this doesn't make sense. My argument is very simple: Rowling is an author, who created a piece of work that people are willing to pay for. She has invested time and money to create this work, which apparently is worth something of value, otherwise there would be no money made. However the money that is made can be either going to Rowling for producing the original content
OR
it can go to distributors who want a cut on content they did not produce, they don't take as much risk
It does not need to do so directly. You need to understand that copyright is a government enforced monopoly. Monopolies distort markets and lead to inefficiencies.
- again I don't understand. You are saying that once even one book is published by Rowling through her affiliated publisher anyone should be able to copy it and republish for profit at a lesser cost or something?
So taking it to the extreme, once Rowling sold 1 book, she now can take a hike and others, who have not spent risk and years writing the book must be able to profit from her and the society would be better of for it? What would be the incentive for Rowling to write the second book if she could only sell 1 and then see other people republishing the book at 1/10 or 1/100 of her cost?
The 'government' has really done its job in her case. The 'government', which really means 'the people' allowed this author to have copyright on the book she wrote, which means she did have the incentive to write another book.
You can argue about the length of the copyright, but the idea makes sense if only to feed the starving Rowling while she wrote the first book, that millions of people bought and then the second, which more millions bought etc.
Please, explain, how this temporary copyright monopoly, (which really only amounts to Rowling being able to distribute the book for profit for an amount of time), creates inefficiencies? Is the government supposed to regulate who writes what book?
Far from it, if anything, I am a radical free-marketer. The copyright monopoly is clearly welfare for some creators and most distributors.
- this contradicts your previous statements, where you suggest that money that Rowling made should have gone to some other 'starving authors', who clearly did not produce anything of the same value to the society (value in this case defined by the amount of cash that this product generated).
You are clearly not a free marketer, you want wealth redistribution in ways, that only you agree with. You are against copyrights as I understand and you are for moving money from people who created the product to people who did not. You are just confused.
On the flip side, Rowling definitely didn't need even 0.01% of that money in order to keep writing more books. From a society's point of view, all the money in excess of what was required for her to continue writing was wasted and could have been spent better elsewhere on hundreds of other promising writers that have now been crowded out of the marketplace by the harry potter monster.
- I don't get it, it's not the government that paid Rowling the money, is it? From point of view of society her books have definitely resonated enough, so that people continued buying them and wanting more, I don't understand your argument on utility of her product. Whether she needed the money or not is really not the question. She became successful and she has money now to show for it. In fact the success in her case is measured in the amount of cash she made. I watched the movies on TV and have never read the books, so I didn't contribute to her wealth, but many people did. Are you implying that the government should have stepped in and taken the money away to feed some starving authors? Because that is terrible. If those authors are any good, they'll make the money themselves. This is competition. You produce something that makes you money because people want it. Government cannot really regulate what people like. Taste cannot be regulated, nor should it be.
Similarly look at how Lucas has squandered his royalties. Sure he made a handful of good films, but all he really makes now are "just" films. How much more utility would society get for its money if it weren't squandered on things like 'The Clone Wars' and the Ewok Christmas Special that coast on the good name of his earlier works?
- but it's his money! He didn't steal the money to make those silly movies! What is your point? That the government should have taken the money away from him?
Are you some sort of a radical communist or something?
it is those who benefit directly from the system who should have the least say in how the system is run.
- who doesn't benefit from the system? How about welfare recipients, they benefit from the system a lot, but they still have a vote. Maybe you are talking about lobbyists who have more access to the politicians due to their greater funding? Well, that is your political problem isn't it? In any case, you can't outlaw lobbying (which is a kind of advertising) maybe it is your politicians who should be 'reeducated'? Maybe you just want less government corruption? This I can understand. Socialism and communism I don't want, less corruption I do.
I was approached by some women soliciting people to become something called Big Brother or Big Sister. Whatever, it's when you help kids out by becoming their friend or simply by doing things for groups of kids, like driving them to a show or something like that.
I smiled, nodded and went on with my life. It's a terrible idea today for a man to be associated with kids, especially that are not his. It could be a disaster for life. It's sad of-course, but lives of some kids are not that important to me to risk being accused of some crime, be it sexual or anything else. I forgot to ask those women something that I thought of later: where the hell are the parents of these kids, that need Big Brothers? Are they sitting there, waiting for some poor schmuck to take interest in their kids life and then sue the shit out of them?
- I don't understand why you call it 'negligence'? In this case it looks more like some sort of criminal vendetta, blackmail, extortion, criminal persecution.
It's not negligent, it seems to be intentional. I wonder why? Is it just to cover their tracks (maybe it was criminal negligence, but it quickly became something else).
This entire operation is criminal, the judge and the cops all of them should be thrown to jail.
Slashdot Mirror
so, what is happening? How about those new covers on the TPS reports? I'll just go ahead, and send you another memo...
Yet corporations don't really pay that high tax because there are ways of reducing the visible net profit. In reality the high tax is really applied to a very small portion of the actual profit (if it is applied to any profit at all).
I am actually against taxes in principle, but it is silly to say that US corporations pay more than others in the world. Everyone who can hides as much profit as possible, so it would be more interesting to see how much absolute dollars are paid per gross income rather than looking at just the official tax rate.
My condition is rare: I don't listen to music by choice, pretty much ever. But I love talk shows on our radio in Toronto, the AM 1010, 640 and half useful news only 680.
These are the stations that I listen to, they are not on FM radio, unfortunately, so the quality is not the same as what the music stations get, but whatever. I like these stations because they are not politically correct, even though some hosts are (and of-course there is gov't regulation about cleanliness of speech, but it's OK, though some swearing doesn't hurt anyone and you can hear it after 9PM on the same stations). These stations have show hosts who actually do discussions, not preaching like the US Clearchannel, there is difference of opinion between hosts, and people can truly participate in discussions that are meaningful. Stuff about local, regional and global politics, economy and sometimes just discussing stupid things that happen every day.
That's my radio, and I actually would pay a few bucks a month for it if it wasn't available for free (ad supported) on AM anyway.
the jury found defendant Lori Drew guilty of three counts of the lesser offense of accessing a computer without authorization
- now can you explain to everyone, how is this related to this:
psychological stalking and trauma
?
You are the one, who has to pull your head out of your ass, it must have stuck really hard in there.
She is not convicted on anything related to the suicide of the girl, she is convicted on accessing a computer without authorization. Where is the real conviction for the suffering she caused? There is none, because there is no law that says a person cannot pretend to be someone else to gather some information, specifically when it is a situation between two private individuals. Maybe there should be a law that says a grown up cannot pretend to be someone else to manipulate a child, ok fine, but a law like this does not exist.
So what has happened here is that a case was created in criminal court that eventually will be used to convict an otherwise honest person of something, anything in fact, by using this case.
Exactly who is innocent now? Basically everyone with a computer has created an account, an email account, a forum account, whatever account where they did not provide their own name (and/or address). So now almost EVERYONE can be convicted based on this if the government just wants to convict a person because the person has something that the government wants or has done something that is not actually illegal, but the government objects to it.
What if the girl was not contacted via MySpace account? What if she had received a real piece of snail mail with a fake photo in it from this woman? What if the woman hired an actor-boy to do the same thing?
The woman's actions are bad not because she 'accessed a computer without authorization', but because she didn't care for the feelings of the girl she was manipulating. Do not allow the government to make every single person into a criminal on a whim.
there are no user preferences to get rid of firehose BS. I used to be able to see comments by going to http://slashdot.org/~roman_mir now I see firehose there and instead I have to go to http://slashdot.org/~roman_mir/comments and this is really annoying.
You are in a trap, you believe in short term gain for individuals who will not have to pay for some specific content without having to wait for prices to drop, while sacrificing the long term gain of having content generated at all. Monopoly granted by copyright law is definitely not the only way to generate content, you can have beneficiaries, but it is a very powerful way to do so. You may shun people like me, who will only provide content under copyright law and licenses like GPL OR will provide proprietary content for sale only, but it doesn't diminish the fact that my software and content is found in about half a million installations.
I am not a big player at all in this game, so this is not really my battle, you know, the TV shows, the movies, the books, I pay for content I care to have through whatever legal channels that are available. You will be hard pressed to find anything that I use that is not actually legally acquired. However from where I am, copyright makes perfect sense, regardless of what you may think.
I believe we can agree to disagree on this completely.
I "may believe" wtf kind of bs is that? I know exactly what I am saying AND HAVE PROVIDED EXAMPLES TO BACK UP MY CLAIMS. You are the one who doesn't understand the terms.
- Whatever you said can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, if you cannot appreciate this fact, you will be stuck yelling 'WRONG'. My interpretation maybe different from what yours is, however in either case you believe something is 'better' based on your definition of better.
For the end user it is better to pay less. However from point of view of society it is better if new content is produced rather than not produced at all. Here is what I am going to tell you, wrap your head around it, myself and some other people who I communicate with, will stop distributing any new software that we develop for our own needs if copyright and GPL are unavailable as tools.
YOU are simply unavailable when it is required to understand that what I am saying is based on this fact: monopolies are inherently inefficient. THIS INEFFICIENCY MAKES SOCIETY POORER BECAUSE THE PRICE TO SOCIETY IS NOW HIGHER THAN IT WAS BEFORE THE INTERNET AND THERE ARE NEW NON-MONOPOLY BUSINESS MODELS THAT WERE NOT FEASIBLE BEFORE THE INTERNET.
- you are arguing that monopoly is inefficient, but you are conveniently forgetting that the monopoly wouldn't even exist if no content was available. Copyright (at least the copyright that I am for) does not provide a creator with perpetual monopoly on distribution. Perpetual credit: yes, perpetual monopoly on distribution channels: no.
And there goes the dissonance ringing around in your head. You just said that if it is profitable to distribute something then distribution provides no value. Think about how just utterly ridiculous that claim is.
- you are ridiculous. Redistribution for profit by illegal providers (not the copyright holder and not by someone who has not bought a legal license), provides no value to the original copyright holder, in fact it generates a loss when we are talking about profit.
More concretely: if a book can be sold on the internet and if the copyright holder is selling it, then anyone else who is selling it on the internet violates the copyright, and this law allows the original holder to take the illegal distributor to court, because it can be shown that number of sales by the illegal distributor, times the price, minus the distribution costs equals profit that the original holder lost.
This is simple math, not that hard, I think even you can understand.
I have to leave now, but I am sure we'll continue on later.
You do? Do you see me sitting at another computer that didn't have my login credentials stored in a cookie?
- you should be able to log back into your account, no?
Well keep on standing then because:
(A) they were my words and I am straight out telling you that you were WRONG - get it? YOU. ARE. WRONG.
- you may believe that this is what you are saying, it doesn't actually make me wrong.
(B) I gave explanatory examples of exactly how "better spent" means less government interference, not more.
- in this case government interference is good for society, you see, without copyright laws lots of content wouldn't exist. Case in point: plenty of GPLed software including some of mine.
I think the reason you refuse to even acknowledge my argument is because you are suffering from the cognitive dissonance of being wrong, but mostly ignorant, about the economics of copyright.
Here's a chance to redeem yourself:
Is copyright a monopoly or not?
Yes or no please, no long-winded BS
- you just don't read what I am saying I guess. Of-course copyright provides a temporary monopoly, that is why society came up with this law. Of-course it creates artificial scarcity, I mentioned it in this thread already. That is why this law exists. For credit and for limiting redistribution channels to allow maximization of profit by the original content creator.
If anyone has cognitive dissonance, that would be you, you are simply unavailable when it is required to understand that what I am saying is based on this fact: artificial scarcity and temporary monopoly. This does not make the society poorer, it makes it richer by allowing more content to be produced. That's the reason for existence of this law. Should I reiterate this again and again? (I mention artificial scarcity as intended consequence of the copyright law here, I specify that Rowling has monopoly on redistribution here and here). I don't know if it is reading incomprehension on your part or deliberate attempt at circular arguments but it is obvious that you are not really interested in a dialog, only in a diatribe.
More failure of vocabulary from you: cost != value. ANSWER the question.
- 0. The answer is 0 when there is profit that is made on top of the redistribution. The original content creator does not care what it costs to redistribute the material, only what the losses are from illegally derived profits.
So I answered, yet another of your diatribes can be safely discarded, namely this one:
Actually, I know you will never answer the question because to do so would make you face the fact that distributors provide value and thus paying a distributor for the value they provide in distribution is not necessarily the same as paying for the content.
--
Go ahead, run away, your understanding of economic implications of copyright is as infantile as you are verbose and unfocused.
- no, don't hang this on me. You are not playing by the rules by logging out of your account, no matter what your circumstances are. You have an account, you can continue the dialog from there if interested. If not then it's not my problem. All it takes for you to continue is to enter that user name / password and push that sign in button, that's not too much to ask from you to continue a conversation, or is it? If you are not interested, then you don't have to log in, but don't hang your problems on me.
Quit being such a palaverous prig. Your lack of a topical vocabulary lead you to believe that when I said "spent" I meant government redistribution. You were utterly wrong.
- I see why you logged out of your account now. However I stand by my words, when you said 'better spent', you meant your definition of 'better', which must include enforcement by means that are only available to governments.
Quit your senseless meandering and ANSWER the question. How do you measure the value of service of distribution. Not how does it happen "on the internet or by supplying physical book copies." How do you MEASURE it?
- I see, so I was wrong and you can't add, this is not surprising. Distribution for profit includes making profit, any profit is the loss that must be returned (probably with other fines) to the lawful copyright holder. Whether there is any cost associated with distribution of the material is irrelevant, since profit was generated. If there is profit, it means that costs are already covered, thus your question is not simply irrelevant, it's meaningless.
I think you need to log back into your account, otherwise I cannot be certain that this is not a simple attempt at trolling. I don't maintain dialogs with trolls. Be a good boy, log back into your account next time.
Not exactly, there is the 'safe-harbor' provision of the DMCA that may matter in this case.
Irrelevant. Are you forced to buy electricity? Are you forced to buy telephone service? Internet access? No, and yet the prices are all of those services are artificially inflated by virtue of being government granted monopolies. JUST LIKE COPYRIGHT.
- nah, not irrelevant. You are welcome not to buy any content. Books are not electricity, you can get books for free from a library as well, you can get other material to read that is basically free.
However society decided that copyright is a useful construct, and I have shown that it is in fact useful, otherwise some works would never be available under such licenses as GPL (one example). Society has agreed that paying the cost of distribution to the original content creator (or to a legal licensee) is worth it for the duration of the copyright.
There is competition between different works from different authors, that's the competition that matters. That is why some people provide their work free of charge but the copyright gives them the ability to require that they are credited for their work and this is one of the reasons for this law.
Really? How much value do you assign to the service of distribution? How do you measure it?
- if money is exchanged (as it would be in cases where redistribution is for profit) that is all that is needed to calculate exactly what is lost. Redistribution can happen either on the Internet or by supplying physical book copies, one way or another any amount of money that is made as profit is the obvious loss. You can add, can't you?
Seems that you logged out of your account.
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Prove it, Don Quixote.
ok, what do we have here?
On the flip side, Rowling definitely didn't need even 0.01% of that money in order to keep writing more books. From a society's point of view, all the money in excess of what was required for her to continue writing was wasted and could have been spent better elsewhere on hundreds of other promising writers that have now been crowded out of the marketplace by the harry potter monster.
- unless you can prove that anyone was forced to give away their money to pay for the books, then you cannot say 'spent' without implying something else: redistributed by government or some such. How can you argue against people spending their money in which ever way they like, based on your notion of what 'better spent' is and not imply some sort of enforcement by 'society' or a some sort of dictatorship?
NO. Business models are based on the INTERSECTION of law and the real world. The real world changed with the creation of the internet, the law is no longer effective. Smart businesses will adapt to the new conditions and find new models that work given the new constraints.
- copyright is effective, otherwise GPL would be ineffective and it is, it's even court proven.
Here is something that will blow your mind - there is no fundamental difference between redistribution for profit and not for profit. Or rather, all redistribution is for profit, just not always directly tangible profit. Thus making the distinction, as you do, is counterproductive. Unless, of course, you are copyright solipsist like yourself.
- no, you won't 'blow my mind' in any manner. There is a huge difference for and not for profit.
The difference is extremely visible and tangible: in one case it is impossible to say whether any money is lost by the copyright holder, in the other case it is very easy to show precisely how much is lost, not only the fact that it is lost.
Well I had a point, you don't. My point was that you would like to see profit, that was generated by the content + the copyright law by Rowling to be distributed among those, who did nothing. You, on the other hand, believe that I propose some sort of communism based on the fact that I am pro-copyright?! You turn and twist the words but you only confuse yourself, not me.
Good for you, keep on repeating just how irrelevant your points are to the business model of copyright.
- again, you are confused. Business model is based on a law that from point of view of society is useful, as I have shown by explaining how work that otherwise would not be released or would only be available for sale is in fact released under the GPL. You may disagree with the GPL (and it looks like you do) but it does not diminish the fact that it works. My second point was that copyright is in fact enforceable when it concerns specifically redistribution for profit. It is a normal SOP to take to court those, who try and go around the copyright law while making a profit without proper licensing.
Again, I am not talking about usage of material, only redistribution for profit and credit. You have long ago lost the point that you were trying to make, the one where you suggested that money that Rowling made should have been distributed among some 'starving authors'.
So, as it turns out, you are the radical communist.
- interesting and pointless comment, I don't see the government as anything else but an enforcer of laws that are created for the benefit of the people and the interface to the outside world (presentation of the country).
And yes, your participation in this thread has been 100% pointless. Why? Because you have been the only one talking about rights of attribution. Everyone else, including yourself at the start, have been talking about the economics of copyright. Droits d'auteur are almost completely irrelevant to the economics of copyright.
- I am talking about credit and redistribution for profit. I hope you can appreciate the difference between what I am saying and what you are hearing.
So, in summary you don't give a damn about people who freely redistribute information regardless of the creator's desire.
- it's not pointless even if it just helps me to solidify my position by discussing it further.
However you are mistaken in a huge way, I really don't care when copyrighted materials are distributed except for the case when they are distributed for profit. There you go, a huge distinction there. The credit portion is also not mentioned in your brief reply. Copyright is instrumental in creating such licenses as the GPL and this license defines how software and content that is distributed as Free cannot be made Non-Free by distributing changes to the software/content in binary/signed formats only.
Explain. No really, I mean it. Explain how copyright "makes perfect sense" in the light of it now being effectively unenforceable.
- you are mistaken. When you are talking about copyright in general, you are probably thinking about the 'anti-circumvention' and the 'safe-harbor' portions of the DMCA. This has nothing to do with what I am talking about and probably thus there is a disconnect.
Copyright in itself is an idea that the content creator has the credit for that particular implementation and that for the duration of copyright the copyright holder has control over distribution of the material. GPL (which I use for my Free source work) builds upon this notion.
If GPL did not exist as a concept, I would not be distributing any Free software at all, because unlike some other people, I create this software for my own use first. Without working GPL, I would either not distribute any software that I distribute as Free at all, or I would distribute only proprietary software for pay.
This is not only my stance on the issue, I don't have to distribute software if I cannot maintain either credit and/or money for distribution. I would still build this software for my own use (as normally happens), but I would not chose to distribute it if there was no copyright law in existence.
So the above explains how society basically benefits from copyright laws when it concerns people like me.
--
The second part of your question, whether the copyright laws are enforceable, is also easy for me to explain. I don't particularly care how the copyrighted material is being distributed except when it concerns making profit.
If there was no copyright law, there would be no legal toolkit in existence to go after people, who are redistributing copyrighted material for profit. I do have a few problems with others making profit and not just redistributing materials for free, when we are talking about stuff that is not licensed under GPL or similar license.
Now, if you start selling software that I wrote and distributed under GPL, I have no problems with it. However if you start selling software that was not licensed Freely, then I would in fact have legal means based on the copyright law to stop you. The fact that copyright is a criminal law is excellent, however I would also take you to court for the damages, requiring you to return the profit to me.
This second point is definitely useful when it concerns the original content producers.
Again, I am not pro-DMCA, however I am pro-copyright.
I never said it was. Let me try for a third and final time. Copyright issues are one of the most, if not the most, frequently discussed topic on slashdot. For you to have missed these kinds of details despite being a reader for what, 8 years at least?, is exceptional.
- pfft, you are being ridiculous, I probably haven't missed a single discussion on copyright. My stance never changes, copyright is a useful construct.
Nothing more than your writing in this thread and your participation in this community. But, it is becoming apparent by that writing that the benefit of the doubt is not merited on this topic.
- I am not moved by this thinly veiled attempt at an insult.
Clearly you do believe in copyright, almost unconditionally it seems. Almost like an article of faith I would say.
- I create plenty of code and content, for me not to adhere to copyright would be detrimental. It's not faith, for me it is common sense. It's just it seems that common sense is not that common.
It's comments like that, which I have to agree, mean the benefit of the doubt is wasted on you. Real property is both scarce and rivalrous. Anything that can be digitized is both abundant and nonrival. Copyright laws are an attempt to create artificial scarcity and thus enable rent seeking which is clearly not an efficient use of resources. Comparisons between the economics of real property and the economics of ideas are extremely tenuous and need to be evaluated with a highly critical eye. One I daresay you have not applied and seem content not to.
- au contrair, it is exactly because anything that can be digitized can be easily redistributed by the non-creator at no cost within hours if not minutes and seconds after release of the original, that copyright makes perfect sense as a law.
You are missing a lot of this critical thinking you seem to be boasting about, when you refuse to understand that it is society that decided that copyright is a valuable tool, just like patent can be a valuable tool for certain situations. As far as I am concerned, copyright should not be assigned, this is a misuse of the law. Copyright belongs to the creator based on the fact that he produced the original. Whether copyright is actually used to assign credit or limit redistribution channels (both are it's intended main uses anyway) is really irrelevant. I subscribe to the theory that copyright allows maintaining credit first and then limiting redistribution second. As the second use, copyright creates an artificial scarcity, it's the intended consequence. You think I am equating property rights and copyrights and are trying to ridicule me, but what I am actually saying is that both constructs are human and are not based on any reality.
Either property or copyright can be taken away by force and that is the way that the Universe works. People change this artificially every day, we create this idea of so called 'rights' and we attempt to maintain our ideas because without ideas we are just animals like the rest of the bio-sphere on this planet.
I like that sentence, I think it perfectly sums up your position. Yah like it, but that's as far as you go. All this foofaw about monopolies and inefficiencies and rivalrousness be damned. Never mind that the internet changed the rules of the game long ago, same as it ever was.
- well, Internet cannot change what is unchangeable: if you create some work, the credit is still yours. No matter who tries to attempt and take it away. Internet changed the way that data can be copied, certainly, but it cannot change another thing: anyone who creates for profit redistribution channels can still be taken to court. Thus the idea of equalization of laws between different countries on various issues, including the copyright.
Yes, I never stop saying: I am pro-copyright because it is a meaningful tool for 2 r
you are probably right, but he better never step onto US territory.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Facebook has won a $873 million judgment against a Canadian man who bombarded users with millions of unsolicited messages about drugs and sex.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel signed the default judgment Friday, resolving a lawsuit that Facebook filed in August against Adam Guerbuez of Montreal and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital.
Facebook alleged that Guerbuez had fooled users into revealing their passwords so he could send out more than 4 million messages that included promotions for marijuana. Guerbuez could not be located for comment.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company predicted the judgment will be difficult to collect, but is hoping that its size discourages future abuses at its site.
- that fine is impossible to collect, forget about 'difficult', the schmuck certainly doesn't have money like that, or he wouldn't be in this busines. Still, it is nice to see that American corporation can win something like that against a Canadian citizen. Now how about the rest of the spammers? Can you please PLEASE win a lawsuit against those Nigerians! AND THEY CAN PAY!!! They have so many billions it's not funny.
My point was simply that your arguments are old ground on slashdot, it is odd that someone with a low uid has not heard them before and heard them be discredited.
- whatever you want to mean by that, /. is not uniform. I don't subscribe to a believe that copyright is somehow detrimental to the society as a whole, I believe that copyright is a good thing, that does not mean that it should last too long though. 20 years on a copyright is sufficient in my book, YMMV. You are making assumptions about me based on nothing.
Well, as best as I can tell you've changed your entire tact. You've gone from arguing that copyright is essentially the way things ought to be, to belaboring the obvious and stating things like "copyright is an active law" and that Rowling has used the current system to her benefit.
- I never changed my 'tact' or whatever. I believe in copyright. The thing I disagree with is how it is used by corporations to infringe on user rights, that's a different story.
I see no point in arguing the obvious with you. If you would like to come back to MY original point that copyright is inefficient and thus not the best bargain for society, please do.
- well, I disagree with you that copyright is inefficient. My view is that copyright should exist and that society does gain from it and that this is the reason why copyright exists as a law at all. Just like property right, copyright is a human construct. Without such laws we can all go back bashing each other on the head with stones and sticks and those with the biggest sticks will win.
Copyright as it is currently standing in the US has certain problems, I don't see those exact same problems in Canada.
For someone with such a low uid, it seems you haven't been paying any attention to the technical discussions of the economics of copyright that have occurred here over the years. This is all old ground. Very old ground.
- I don't base my dialogs on UIDs but on the merits of an argument.
Yes and much more, not just distribution but everything copyright restricts.
- copyright restricts distribution channels. Usage is a different matter.
I can tell from the way you write that you have a fundamental error as a basis for all of your arguments. You believe that copyright - as in controlling distribution - is the only business model for creative work. In fact, it is a business model that became obsolete the day a few engineers at BBN built four imps back in 1969, today it functions mainly on inertia.
- well actually if we talk about facts, then in fact copyright law is well and alive today. So lets get the facts straight: copyright is an active law, it differs somewhat from country to country but it exists. That's a fact.
Secondly you should stop trying to infer my believe systems 'from way I write'. I don't believe that copyright is the only model, I believe that copyright helps author to take that extra risk. Rowling is not a giant corporation, she also started as an individual writing a book. Her business model is using the current existing laws, she is correct to use the laws the way they are setup and are supposed to work. Copyright is hers and it allows her to dictate distribution channels as long as copyright is valid, that's what it is for in its primary function.
(a) You seem to think that "should have gone to" means government redistribution. The irony in your assumption is that the government is the one affecting the market to effect redistribution to Rowling, et al.
- again, gov't is the people, as such it means that it is the people who allow authors like Rowling maintain a monopoly on redistribution of her original material for the duration of copyright. This especially concerns her rights for paid channels of distribution.
(b) You say "clearly did not produce anything of the same value" - your assumption is a poor one because you assume that the market is not skewed by the government mandated monopoly of copyright.
- this doesn't even make sense. I did not assume anything other than what you have said: you said that other authors could have received the money that Rowling was making on distribution of her books. So the question is this: what would give those other people right to share in on the money? Government is one logical choice, what are your other suggestions? Those supposed authors, who you are worried about, are you implying that they should be able to take the money away from Rowling or not? If someone starts redistributing work of another for profit, does it make this person 'an author' or just a distributor? Copyright restrictions make sense specifically to protect rights of the original author and not of other self-proclaimed distributors. Distributors don't add new content, they by definition redistribute other people's content. This does not make them authors.
In effect you are making a circular argument - copyright is good because the those who benefit the most from the copyright system benefit the most from the copyright system.
- again, this doesn't make sense. My argument is very simple: Rowling is an author, who created a piece of work that people are willing to pay for. She has invested time and money to create this work, which apparently is worth something of value, otherwise there would be no money made. However the money that is made can be either going to Rowling for producing the original content
OR
it can go to distributors who want a cut on content they did not produce, they don't take as much risk
It does not need to do so directly. You need to understand that copyright is a government enforced monopoly. Monopolies distort markets and lead to inefficiencies.
- again I don't understand. You are saying that once even one book is published by Rowling through her affiliated publisher anyone should be able to copy it and republish for profit at a lesser cost or something?
So taking it to the extreme, once Rowling sold 1 book, she now can take a hike and others, who have not spent risk and years writing the book must be able to profit from her and the society would be better of for it? What would be the incentive for Rowling to write the second book if she could only sell 1 and then see other people republishing the book at 1/10 or 1/100 of her cost?
The 'government' has really done its job in her case. The 'government', which really means 'the people' allowed this author to have copyright on the book she wrote, which means she did have the incentive to write another book.
You can argue about the length of the copyright, but the idea makes sense if only to feed the starving Rowling while she wrote the first book, that millions of people bought and then the second, which more millions bought etc.
Please, explain, how this temporary copyright monopoly, (which really only amounts to Rowling being able to distribute the book for profit for an amount of time), creates inefficiencies? Is the government supposed to regulate who writes what book?
Far from it, if anything, I am a radical free-marketer. The copyright monopoly is clearly welfare for some creators and most distributors.
- this contradicts your previous statements, where you suggest that money that Rowling made should have gone to some other 'starving authors', who clearly did not produce anything of the same value to the society (value in this case defined by the amount of cash that this product generated).
You are clearly not a free marketer, you want wealth redistribution in ways, that only you agree with. You are against copyrights as I understand and you are for moving money from people who created the product to people who did not. You are just confused.
On the flip side, Rowling definitely didn't need even 0.01% of that money in order to keep writing more books. From a society's point of view, all the money in excess of what was required for her to continue writing was wasted and could have been spent better elsewhere on hundreds of other promising writers that have now been crowded out of the marketplace by the harry potter monster.
- I don't get it, it's not the government that paid Rowling the money, is it? From point of view of society her books have definitely resonated enough, so that people continued buying them and wanting more, I don't understand your argument on utility of her product. Whether she needed the money or not is really not the question. She became successful and she has money now to show for it. In fact the success in her case is measured in the amount of cash she made. I watched the movies on TV and have never read the books, so I didn't contribute to her wealth, but many people did. Are you implying that the government should have stepped in and taken the money away to feed some starving authors? Because that is terrible. If those authors are any good, they'll make the money themselves. This is competition. You produce something that makes you money because people want it. Government cannot really regulate what people like. Taste cannot be regulated, nor should it be.
Similarly look at how Lucas has squandered his royalties. Sure he made a handful of good films, but all he really makes now are "just" films. How much more utility would society get for its money if it weren't squandered on things like 'The Clone Wars' and the Ewok Christmas Special that coast on the good name of his earlier works?
- but it's his money! He didn't steal the money to make those silly movies! What is your point? That the government should have taken the money away from him?
Are you some sort of a radical communist or something?
it is those who benefit directly from the system who should have the least say in how the system is run.
- who doesn't benefit from the system? How about welfare recipients, they benefit from the system a lot, but they still have a vote. Maybe you are talking about lobbyists who have more access to the politicians due to their greater funding? Well, that is your political problem isn't it? In any case, you can't outlaw lobbying (which is a kind of advertising) maybe it is your politicians who should be 'reeducated'? Maybe you just want less government corruption? This I can understand. Socialism and communism I don't want, less corruption I do.
I was approached by some women soliciting people to become something called Big Brother or Big Sister. Whatever, it's when you help kids out by becoming their friend or simply by doing things for groups of kids, like driving them to a show or something like that.
I smiled, nodded and went on with my life. It's a terrible idea today for a man to be associated with kids, especially that are not his. It could be a disaster for life. It's sad of-course, but lives of some kids are not that important to me to risk being accused of some crime, be it sexual or anything else. I forgot to ask those women something that I thought of later: where the hell are the parents of these kids, that need Big Brothers? Are they sitting there, waiting for some poor schmuck to take interest in their kids life and then sue the shit out of them?
this is a clear case of criminal negligence
- I don't understand why you call it 'negligence'? In this case it looks more like some sort of criminal vendetta, blackmail, extortion, criminal persecution.
It's not negligent, it seems to be intentional. I wonder why? Is it just to cover their tracks (maybe it was criminal negligence, but it quickly became something else).
This entire operation is criminal, the judge and the cops all of them should be thrown to jail.