The proof of that is that the cops where forced to give him back his pictures and couldn't press charge of anything against him.
The "couldn't press charges" statement is an assumption. It is quite possible that they decided not to press charges. Not every offense goes to court. How many people who are guilty of public drunkenness just sleep it off in a cell over night with no charges filed?
He was already handcuffed and dominated you idiot. He represent zero threat. How can you be this stupid? Do you even know how to read?
The issues you seem to have are that he was physically assaulted and had his backpack cut off. Take a look at the sequence. He was restrained because he was seen to be resisting as "protecting the backpack" can not be differentiated from getting a weapon from the backpack. He was then handcuffed. At this point he was in custody of the RCMP and being arrested. At this point he needed to be properly searched which could not be done with the backpack on. Due to his behavior and policy it was unsafe to uncuff a suspect who has resisted arrest and a proper search can not be done with a backpack on so it was cut off.
Sorry, but The opinion of one lawyer is considerably more valuable than yours in this, especially considering you have talked nothing but ignorant nonsense from the beginning.
Sure the opinion of one lawyer is more valuable than mine but it does not make it fact.
There is a clear distinction of many laws regarding public and private spaces that have nothing to do with property. For example it is illegal in most countries to take pictures in private spaces (like bathrooms or inside the house of someone else) without permission,
You really need to get your terms straight. By you definition a public space is"any space open to the public". Is a bathroom in a mall "open to the public"? Yes, then why is it a private space? It goes back to your spurious idea of public vs private space. The reason that one can not take pictures of someone in a batroom is the "expectation of privacy" not "private space".
He didn't do even that. He refused to erase the pictures (which was within his rights) and was leaving as requested and snapped a picture of the COPs in his way out (which is still within his rights), when they pinned him down.
This is even more laughable. The photographer turned around and took another picture after being told not to. The security guards had no idea he was going to leave; they are not mind readers. All they saw was him continuing the activity that he was lawfully told to cease. You are also mixing up two concepts; where it is unlawful to take pictures and where property owners can restrict the activities of people on their promises. Property owners can place any restriction they want for activity on their property as long as it is not considered discriminatory. Theaters restrict filming and photography on site. They also restrict bringing in food and beverages. That is all completely legal as it is private property.
He didn't resist.
How does one "use his body to protect two cameras he carried in his bag" without resisting? To protect something would require moving in ways that other than directed. Again, security guards are not psychic. The act of protecting a bag can look very much like the act of getting a weapon out of a bag.
Next time try reading TFA before arguing about it.
The quote is the opinion of one lawyer. Have lawyers always been right about the law? If so, then why do we have courts? If the lawyer could cite cases to support his claim I might be less suspicious.
According to this test a panel that would produce 4W on a sunny day produces.75W on a cloudy day. That is only 19% of the sunny day wattage. A decrease of 80% seems like a pretty big hit to me.
Another issue is that to directly charge a 50kWh battery in 4 hours from solar panels the panels would have to produce 12.5kW. At.75A 20 V that panel, which looks to be about 2'x4' is producing 1.9W/sqft. To charge the car would require 12500/1.9= over 6500 square feet of panel. That is a lot of solar panel. Sure the charge could be stored up in a better but then that requires more hardware and more cost.
The bottom line is that solar power is not "free".
Just a note; a statement by a lawyer may or man not be factual. Lawyers are not perfect and have made mistakes in the past. Note that there is no citation to support the claim.
What if I import from a company in a country that has no IP protection
That would be handled under existing import laws as the items would not have been manufactured under a license and therefore not able to be imported.
Perhaps the American product is known and recognized for its quality and the European one isn't. A purchases buys the imported one thinking it has the same high quality standards that he expects, and it falls to pieces after a few days.
If that is true the they are two different products and it is up to the copyright holder to require labeling to differentiate them.
That is exactly the point as "public space" is not a legal term. If you can show a law defining it I would love to see it. Show me a law that states anything about "public space". All the laws I have seen deal with public and private "property" and not "space". In this cased the property is private.
When someone is arrested as part of any arrest the suspect is searched. It is not about having something illegal but possibly having a weapon of some sort. When an arrest occurs it is standard procedure to assume the suspect is armed until proven otherwise and the only way to do that is to search.
Even more, they had no excuse at all to damage his property, as they did by cutting his backpack.
I take it you have never searched someone who is not cooperating and wearing a backpack. It is impossible to do a thorough search in that situation.
So, what if another company buys from London Fashions and they import them to the US? Can New York Designs sue them for violating their exclusive rights?
No
If no, what if this intermediate company is a subsidiary of London Fashions? What if they then hire a third company?
This can be easily covered in the licensing contract with a clause like "London fashions, it subsidiaries and agents may not sell the licensed product outside Europe."
If yes, then can a private individual buy a hat in Europe and resell it in the US?
Yes he should be able to.
What if he buys lots of hats and makes a considerable profit from doing so?
That is called the free market. London Fashions is restrained by contract as to where they, their subsidiaries or agents can sell the item. A person who buys from London Fashions is not a party to that contract as they never signed it. Therefore they can do anything they want with the item purchased.
I never said it was OK but security guards are not lawyers and are not well versed in the law. They have to rely on the policy manual that should have been vetted by a lawyer. If the policy manual is wrong and the guards follow it there is a problem. The problem is with the manual and not the guard following the manual.
The picture in the article was the incident that was photographed not the photographer being held down. It the guard's policy manual states tom confiscate or destroy all photographs taken in the mall the policy is wrong. A security guard is not a lawyer and must rely on what he is told to do by management.
By law public space is any space open to the public regardless of it is public or private property (as a bar, restaurant or a mall for example).
I guess you didn't read the whole article. The article defines it as "private-but-open-to-the-public property" and not "public space". Again you have no reference for your contention.
The security guards were wrong about confiscating the pictures. The police officers can, and in most cases must, search a suspect when arresting them. The security guards placed a complaint of causing a disturbance and resisting detention and the police arrested the suspect based on that.
Here is part of section 494 of the Criminal Code of Canada, dealing with citizen’s arrest;
Arrest by owner, etc., of property
(2) Any one who is
(a) the owner or a person in lawful possession of property, or
(b) a person authorized by the owner or by a person in lawful possession of property, may arrest without warrant a person whom he finds committing a criminal offence on or in relation to that property.
It would seem that the security guards are performing a citizen's arrest as a "person authorized" by the owner of the property. So yes during an arrest they can touch you and search you.
I think you may need to look up the laws around assault. When security personnel detain someone due to them failing to comply with a lawful order it is not assault. Just because someone puts their hand on someone else does not make it assault. If someone fails to copmply and resists they will be physically detained. That is not assault.
Your opinion about what is public space is irrelevant. Legally a private property can be public space as it is the case here.
It is not opinion; it is the law. Privat space os own by private individuals while public space is owned by the public. Care to quote a law supporting your position.? Here is an article that supports mine.
They cannot confiscate your property or the pictures you took and much less assault you.
It is true they can not confiscate the pictures but they can call the police who can search you and your property during an arrest. They can detain you if you refuse to leave. If you resist they can us force.
So RCMP officers arrive on the scene to find a resisting suspect being held by mall security. They handcuff him and arrest him for causing a disturbance. During the search they realize that it can not be done with the backpack on so they cut it off. Considering the suspect is going to jail he has to be properly searched and it is probably against policy to remove handcuffs from a resisting suspect. What did the RCMP officers actually do wrong here? They controlled a situation and searched a suspect.
Had the suspect just put down his backpack and not resisted there would not have been such a big issue. When he started fighting and swearing things got hairy and force was used. To a security officer a persons fighting to protect a backpack looks very much like a person fighting to get to a weapon inside a backpack. What ever they are yelling at the time is irrelevant because it could be a lie to aid in the attempt to get a weapon. Part of the blame is on the mall security for not handling the situation calmly. Part of the blame is on the management for not having a clear policy about deleting pictures. Part of the blame is on the suspect for not handling the situation well.
Where does one draw the line between allegations and actual wrongdoing? By denying legal support to police officers one is already convicting them of the allegation. The penalty being the cost of defending themselves.
Doug MacDougall needs to have it explained that someone does not have to do everything that their staff demand, their staff have limits on what they can ask someone to do.
Stopping taking pictures on private property is one of the things the someone can be told to do.
The guard does not make the policy; management does. If the guard does not enforce the management policy they will be fired for cause. The guards were probably just doing as they were told and any blame should be put on the policy makers. Would you risk your job or follow policy? This is not an "I was just following orders" as used in the Munich trials; no one was killed.
Does the policy need to be changed? Probably but thet is not the guard's call.
Sorry but the fact that a mall is on private property makes it private space that the private owner allows the public to use under certain conditions. One of the conditions in this mall is no photography. Public spaces are things like parks, community recreation centers as they are owned by the public.
In my opinion the guards did overreact and probably need more training in the proper procedures of dealing with photographers.
Timing; According to the article the paint would have to be applied 20 years before the asteroid approach. Add to that the time to get the craft to space, load up with paint and get out to the asteroid. That may take another 20 years. That may mean a 40 year lead time at launch to be remotely viable. Control Paint is not a guidance system. Sure it may be able to move the rock around but it will just be in an indefinite direction. It is just as possible to move the rock closer to earth as away. Sure it moves the rock away from earth but into a trajectory that interacts with a planet that pulls the rock back toward earth. Other celestial bodies. As other asteroids impact or come close to the "rock on question" they will alter the path. As the rock enters the Sol system planets will exert gravitational pull on the rock. The part or all 20 years of movement may be wiped out by interaction with another object.
To me the only viable option would be to land thrusters on the rock. Use them to stop the rotation (if any), re-position to one side of the rock and apply constant thrust to alter the course. The thrusters would have to be ion based (low fuel, long duration) and probably powered by solar satellites. A solar sail could be added for additional thrust once the rotation has stopped. The issue with icy asteroids can be dealt with by limiting the thrust of the engines so as not to break the asteroid.
If the rotation was not stopped it would require many more thrusters as they could only fire part of the time.
Copyright is not a black and white issue. There is a need for copyright to protect intellectual property just like there is a need for patent protection. The issue comes in when the rules surrounding copyright and patents become ludicrous.
some of the biggest names in history produced all their work without any form of copyright
There are very few "patrons of the arts" these days. Today writers and publishers have to sell their books to make a living. No copyright laws, fewer writers, fewer publishers, fewer books.
It's time to abolish copyright completely. We did fine without it before, we'll do fine without it again.
Times are very different. Books used to have to be printed on expensive presses that were owned by a few people. Now anyone with an all-in-one printer has the tools to put a copy of a book on the web. Add a little OCR software and it is up on Kindle too. Do you really believe that the writer and publisher of a book should only get revenue from the few people who insist on buying from a book store. They won't even get that as someone will download the book, get a few copies printed, and sell them.
Then comes the definition of "sold". Do the manufacturers "sell" the product to the distributors? Is that "sale" outside the US? It is about multinational companies creating local monopolies through licensing.
Another point to ponder is the question of legality. Is contravening a license breaking the law? I seem to remember a EULA case where breaking a license was a tort offence not a criminal one. They are two different things. It would seem that by law the books could be sold in the US but by contract they could not. Which leads to another point. Is a "no export" contract valid when there is a monopoly on the sale of an item required by the course of study? There is little choice involved; if one wants the credit one must buy the book therefore one is forced into the contract. That could be viewed as being under duress and contracts signed under duress are null and void.
The whole idea of the copyright laws is to provide people with an incentive to create books, movies, or other works of art. If you take away that incentive, you're not going to have creators out there doing things that give us pleasure or educate us.
There is always an issue with absolutes like "take away". There is still incentive but perhaps less. Maybe there will be less incentive to make new editions that consist of a few page changes and different examples.
It would seem that the publisher is quite happy with the cut they get from foreign distribution at lower prices and seem to be making a profit or they would not be doing it. The re-sale restriction just gives local monopolies to licensed publishers so they can demand the maximum possible price. It has nothing to do with supplying lower cost books where needed but maximizing profit where possible. Profit is not bad but gouging on required text books is.
The geologists got into trouble for making false statements. Here is a quote from the article;
De Bernardinis said in a TV interview (recorded shortly before the meeting) “the scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy,” a statement that most seismologists consider to be scientifically incorrect.
Notice that they didn't say something like "the scientific community tells me there is less danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy," which would be scientifically supportable. By stating "no danger" they made an absolute statement that was scientifically unsupportable. They did not have to predict the earthquake; they just should not have ruled one out. There is an issue that the politician may have misinterpreted geologists but the geologists did nothing to correct the misunderstanding leaving the impression that there was zero probability of a major quake..
So yeah, make scientifically unsupportable life and death statements and there are consequences. Perhaps more scientists need to be held accountable for the statements they make.
So Google males money by selling advertising on a site that provides links to other sites that can then gain revenue by selling advertising on their site. Now they want to charge Google for listing their site? What's next? Charging to link sites? Not a far step considering that a search result is just a list of links.
Chemistry, Math and Physics is not just about learning the subject matter. It has to do with several other things;
1. Critical thinking. How to break concepts down into manageable pieces and examine how they fit together. How to look at each part and see where the flaws are. 2. Cause and effect. How simple steps can lead to something completely different that started with. 3. Unexpected consequences. How a small error in steps can lead to something completely different. 4. Curiosity. How understanding how thing works can be fun. How more knowledge can role around in your head and become very interesting ideas. It show the importance of asking "how" and "why". 5.Doing the hard things. Life is not easy and sometimes one has to do hard things to reach a goal. I doubt there is anyone who has made it through life doing only the things they are good at. 6. The ability to learn in a structured way about physical things.
Maybe he will learn something in chemistry somewhere along the way. But he will lose out on so many other more important opportunities, and so will our society, which will have deprived itself of his full contribution.
He may forget the facts and figures but the underlying aspects will stay with him forever.
"Terrorism is not just people who kill human bodies, but who kill human feelings as well. The makers of this film have terrorised 1.6 billion people."
If one's feelings are so delicate and fragile as to be killed by an impersonal video then the feelings need to be strengthened. Is the Muslim religion so weak that simply ridiculing it will ram it? I don't think so. Radical Muslims that riot and kill people over a video do no service to their religion. It only shows how intolerant man can be toward their fellow man. It shows how some Muslims are easily swayed by imams who are more interested in their own power than the good of their religion.
I am not usually one to use the word "terrorism" but lets apply "killing feelings" level to some aspects of radical terrorism. "Women shall not go to schools on pain of death or disfigurement" Terrorizing half the population "Convert or die". Terrorizing all non-Muslims. "Leave Islam and Die" Terrorizing all Muslims.
By their standards they are terrorizing everyone in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
The proof of that is that the cops where forced to give him back his pictures and couldn't press charge of anything against him.
The "couldn't press charges" statement is an assumption. It is quite possible that they decided not to press charges. Not every offense goes to court. How many people who are guilty of public drunkenness just sleep it off in a cell over night with no charges filed?
He was already handcuffed and dominated you idiot. He represent zero threat. How can you be this stupid? Do you even know how to read?
The issues you seem to have are that he was physically assaulted and had his backpack cut off. Take a look at the sequence. He was restrained because he was seen to be resisting as "protecting the backpack" can not be differentiated from getting a weapon from the backpack. He was then handcuffed. At this point he was in custody of the RCMP and being arrested. At this point he needed to be properly searched which could not be done with the backpack on. Due to his behavior and policy it was unsafe to uncuff a suspect who has resisted arrest and a proper search can not be done with a backpack on so it was cut off.
Sorry, but The opinion of one lawyer is considerably more valuable than yours in this, especially considering you have talked nothing but ignorant nonsense from the beginning.
Sure the opinion of one lawyer is more valuable than mine but it does not make it fact.
There is a clear distinction of many laws regarding public and private spaces that have nothing to do with property. For example it is illegal in most countries to take pictures in private spaces (like bathrooms or inside the house of someone else) without permission,
You really need to get your terms straight. By you definition a public space is"any space open to the public". Is a bathroom in a mall "open to the public"? Yes, then why is it a private space? It goes back to your spurious idea of public vs private space. The reason that one can not take pictures of someone in a batroom is the "expectation of privacy" not "private space".
He didn't do even that. He refused to erase the pictures (which was within his rights) and was leaving as requested and snapped a picture of the COPs in his way out (which is still within his rights), when they pinned him down.
This is even more laughable. The photographer turned around and took another picture after being told not to. The security guards had no idea he was going to leave; they are not mind readers. All they saw was him continuing the activity that he was lawfully told to cease. You are also mixing up two concepts; where it is unlawful to take pictures and where property owners can restrict the activities of people on their promises. Property owners can place any restriction they want for activity on their property as long as it is not considered discriminatory. Theaters restrict filming and photography on site. They also restrict bringing in food and beverages. That is all completely legal as it is private property.
He didn't resist.
How does one "use his body to protect two cameras he carried in his bag" without resisting? To protect something would require moving in ways that other than directed. Again, security guards are not psychic. The act of protecting a bag can look very much like the act of getting a weapon out of a bag.
Next time try reading TFA before arguing about it.
The quote is the opinion of one lawyer. Have lawyers always been right about the law? If so, then why do we have courts? If the lawyer could cite cases to support his claim I might be less suspicious.
According to this test a panel that would produce 4W on a sunny day produces .75W on a cloudy day. That is only 19% of the sunny day wattage. A decrease of 80% seems like a pretty big hit to me.
Another issue is that to directly charge a 50kWh battery in 4 hours from solar panels the panels would have to produce 12.5kW. At .75A 20 V that panel, which looks to be about 2'x4' is producing 1.9W/sqft. To charge the car would require 12500/1.9= over 6500 square feet of panel. That is a lot of solar panel. Sure the charge could be stored up in a better but then that requires more hardware and more cost.
The bottom line is that solar power is not "free".
Just a note; a statement by a lawyer may or man not be factual. Lawyers are not perfect and have made mistakes in the past. Note that there is no citation to support the claim.
What if I import from a company in a country that has no IP protection
That would be handled under existing import laws as the items would not have been manufactured under a license and therefore not able to be imported.
Perhaps the American product is known and recognized for its quality and the European one isn't. A purchases buys the imported one thinking it has the same high quality standards that he expects, and it falls to pieces after a few days.
If that is true the they are two different products and it is up to the copyright holder to require labeling to differentiate them.
Nowhere in your article public space is defined,
That is exactly the point as "public space" is not a legal term. If you can show a law defining it I would love to see it. Show me a law that states anything about "public space". All the laws I have seen deal with public and private "property" and not "space". In this cased the property is private.
When someone is arrested as part of any arrest the suspect is searched. It is not about having something illegal but possibly having a weapon of some sort. When an arrest occurs it is standard procedure to assume the suspect is armed until proven otherwise and the only way to do that is to search.
Even more, they had no excuse at all to damage his property, as they did by cutting his backpack.
I take it you have never searched someone who is not cooperating and wearing a backpack. It is impossible to do a thorough search in that situation.
So, what if another company buys from London Fashions and they import them to the US? Can New York Designs sue them for violating their exclusive rights?
No
If no, what if this intermediate company is a subsidiary of London Fashions? What if they then hire a third company?
This can be easily covered in the licensing contract with a clause like "London fashions, it subsidiaries and agents may not sell the licensed product outside Europe."
If yes, then can a private individual buy a hat in Europe and resell it in the US?
Yes he should be able to.
What if he buys lots of hats and makes a considerable profit from doing so?
That is called the free market.
London Fashions is restrained by contract as to where they, their subsidiaries or agents can sell the item. A person who buys from London Fashions is not a party to that contract as they never signed it. Therefore they can do anything they want with the item purchased.
Oops, at least I got the right country.
I never said it was OK but security guards are not lawyers and are not well versed in the law. They have to rely on the policy manual that should have been vetted by a lawyer. If the policy manual is wrong and the guards follow it there is a problem. The problem is with the manual and not the guard following the manual.
The picture in the article was the incident that was photographed not the photographer being held down. It the guard's policy manual states tom confiscate or destroy all photographs taken in the mall the policy is wrong. A security guard is not a lawyer and must rely on what he is told to do by management.
By law public space is any space open to the public regardless of it is public or private property (as a bar, restaurant or a mall for example).
I guess you didn't read the whole article. The article defines it as "private-but-open-to-the-public property" and not "public space". Again you have no reference for your contention.
The security guards were wrong about confiscating the pictures. The police officers can, and in most cases must, search a suspect when arresting them. The security guards placed a complaint of causing a disturbance and resisting detention and the police arrested the suspect based on that.
Here is part of section 494 of the Criminal Code of Canada, dealing with citizen’s arrest;
Arrest by owner, etc., of property
(2) Any one who is
(a) the owner or a person in lawful possession of property, or
(b) a person authorized by the owner or by a person in lawful possession of property, may arrest without warrant a person whom he finds committing a criminal offence on or in relation to that property.
It would seem that the security guards are performing a citizen's arrest as a "person authorized" by the owner of the property. So yes during an arrest they can touch you and search you.
I think you may need to look up the laws around assault. When security personnel detain someone due to them failing to comply with a lawful order it is not assault. Just because someone puts their hand on someone else does not make it assault. If someone fails to copmply and resists they will be physically detained. That is not assault.
Your opinion about what is public space is irrelevant. Legally a private property can be public space as it is the case here.
It is not opinion; it is the law. Privat space os own by private individuals while public space is owned by the public. Care to quote a law supporting your position.? Here is an article that supports mine.
They cannot confiscate your property or the pictures you took and much less assault you.
It is true they can not confiscate the pictures but they can call the police who can search you and your property during an arrest. They can detain you if you refuse to leave. If you resist they can us force.
So RCMP officers arrive on the scene to find a resisting suspect being held by mall security. They handcuff him and arrest him for causing a disturbance. During the search they realize that it can not be done with the backpack on so they cut it off. Considering the suspect is going to jail he has to be properly searched and it is probably against policy to remove handcuffs from a resisting suspect. What did the RCMP officers actually do wrong here? They controlled a situation and searched a suspect.
Had the suspect just put down his backpack and not resisted there would not have been such a big issue. When he started fighting and swearing things got hairy and force was used. To a security officer a persons fighting to protect a backpack looks very much like a person fighting to get to a weapon inside a backpack. What ever they are yelling at the time is irrelevant because it could be a lie to aid in the attempt to get a weapon. Part of the blame is on the mall security for not handling the situation calmly. Part of the blame is on the management for not having a clear policy about deleting pictures. Part of the blame is on the suspect for not handling the situation well.
Where does one draw the line between allegations and actual wrongdoing? By denying legal support to police officers one is already convicting them of the allegation. The penalty being the cost of defending themselves.
Doug MacDougall needs to have it explained that someone does not have to do everything that their staff demand, their staff have limits on what they can ask someone to do.
Stopping taking pictures on private property is one of the things the someone can be told to do.
The guard does not make the policy; management does. If the guard does not enforce the management policy they will be fired for cause. The guards were probably just doing as they were told and any blame should be put on the policy makers. Would you risk your job or follow policy? This is not an "I was just following orders" as used in the Munich trials; no one was killed.
Does the policy need to be changed? Probably but thet is not the guard's call.
Sorry but the fact that a mall is on private property makes it private space that the private owner allows the public to use under certain conditions. One of the conditions in this mall is no photography. Public spaces are things like parks, community recreation centers as they are owned by the public.
In my opinion the guards did overreact and probably need more training in the proper procedures of dealing with photographers.
Timing;
According to the article the paint would have to be applied 20 years before the asteroid approach. Add to that the time to get the craft to space, load up with paint and get out to the asteroid. That may take another 20 years. That may mean a 40 year lead time at launch to be remotely viable.
Control
Paint is not a guidance system. Sure it may be able to move the rock around but it will just be in an indefinite direction. It is just as possible to move the rock closer to earth as away. Sure it moves the rock away from earth but into a trajectory that interacts with a planet that pulls the rock back toward earth.
Other celestial bodies.
As other asteroids impact or come close to the "rock on question" they will alter the path. As the rock enters the Sol system planets will exert gravitational pull on the rock. The part or all 20 years of movement may be wiped out by interaction with another object.
To me the only viable option would be to land thrusters on the rock. Use them to stop the rotation (if any), re-position to one side of the rock and apply constant thrust to alter the course. The thrusters would have to be ion based (low fuel, long duration) and probably powered by solar satellites. A solar sail could be added for additional thrust once the rotation has stopped. The issue with icy asteroids can be dealt with by limiting the thrust of the engines so as not to break the asteroid.
If the rotation was not stopped it would require many more thrusters as they could only fire part of the time.
This "proposal" sounds like "paint and pray".
The KE is only a small part. The paint will increase the albedo of the asteroid therefore the thrust from the sun.
Copyright is not a black and white issue. There is a need for copyright to protect intellectual property just like there is a need for patent protection. The issue comes in when the rules surrounding copyright and patents become ludicrous.
some of the biggest names in history produced all their work without any form of copyright
There are very few "patrons of the arts" these days. Today writers and publishers have to sell their books to make a living. No copyright laws, fewer writers, fewer publishers, fewer books.
It's time to abolish copyright completely. We did fine without it before, we'll do fine without it again.
Times are very different. Books used to have to be printed on expensive presses that were owned by a few people. Now anyone with an all-in-one printer has the tools to put a copy of a book on the web. Add a little OCR software and it is up on Kindle too. Do you really believe that the writer and publisher of a book should only get revenue from the few people who insist on buying from a book store. They won't even get that as someone will download the book, get a few copies printed, and sell them.
Then comes the definition of "sold". Do the manufacturers "sell" the product to the distributors? Is that "sale" outside the US? It is about multinational companies creating local monopolies through licensing.
Another point to ponder is the question of legality. Is contravening a license breaking the law? I seem to remember a EULA case where breaking a license was a tort offence not a criminal one. They are two different things. It would seem that by law the books could be sold in the US but by contract they could not. Which leads to another point. Is a "no export" contract valid when there is a monopoly on the sale of an item required by the course of study? There is little choice involved; if one wants the credit one must buy the book therefore one is forced into the contract. That could be viewed as being under duress and contracts signed under duress are null and void.
I love this quote:
The whole idea of the copyright laws is to provide people with an incentive to create books, movies, or other works of art. If you take away that incentive, you're not going to have creators out there doing things that give us pleasure or educate us.
There is always an issue with absolutes like "take away". There is still incentive but perhaps less. Maybe there will be less incentive to make new editions that consist of a few page changes and different examples.
It would seem that the publisher is quite happy with the cut they get from foreign distribution at lower prices and seem to be making a profit or they would not be doing it. The re-sale restriction just gives local monopolies to licensed publishers so they can demand the maximum possible price. It has nothing to do with supplying lower cost books where needed but maximizing profit where possible. Profit is not bad but gouging on required text books is.
The geologists got into trouble for making false statements. Here is a quote from the article;
De Bernardinis said in a TV interview (recorded shortly before the meeting) “the scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy,” a statement that most seismologists consider to be scientifically incorrect.
Notice that they didn't say something like "the scientific community tells me there is less danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy," which would be scientifically supportable. By stating "no danger" they made an absolute statement that was scientifically unsupportable. They did not have to predict the earthquake; they just should not have ruled one out. There is an issue that the politician may have misinterpreted geologists but the geologists did nothing to correct the misunderstanding leaving the impression that there was zero probability of a major quake..
So yeah, make scientifically unsupportable life and death statements and there are consequences. Perhaps more scientists need to be held accountable for the statements they make.
So Google males money by selling advertising on a site that provides links to other sites that can then gain revenue by selling advertising on their site. Now they want to charge Google for listing their site? What's next? Charging to link sites? Not a far step considering that a search result is just a list of links.
Chemistry, Math and Physics is not just about learning the subject matter. It has to do with several other things;
1. Critical thinking. How to break concepts down into manageable pieces and examine how they fit together. How to look at each part and see where the flaws are.
2. Cause and effect. How simple steps can lead to something completely different that started with.
3. Unexpected consequences. How a small error in steps can lead to something completely different.
4. Curiosity. How understanding how thing works can be fun. How more knowledge can role around in your head and become very interesting ideas. It show the importance of asking "how" and "why".
5.Doing the hard things. Life is not easy and sometimes one has to do hard things to reach a goal. I doubt there is anyone who has made it through life doing only the things they are good at.
6. The ability to learn in a structured way about physical things.
Maybe he will learn something in chemistry somewhere along the way. But he will lose out on so many other more important opportunities, and so will our society, which will have deprived itself of his full contribution.
He may forget the facts and figures but the underlying aspects will stay with him forever.
"Terrorism is not just people who kill human bodies, but who kill human feelings as well. The makers of this film have terrorised 1.6 billion people."
If one's feelings are so delicate and fragile as to be killed by an impersonal video then the feelings need to be strengthened. Is the Muslim religion so weak that simply ridiculing it will ram it? I don't think so. Radical Muslims that riot and kill people over a video do no service to their religion. It only shows how intolerant man can be toward their fellow man. It shows how some Muslims are easily swayed by imams who are more interested in their own power than the good of their religion.
I am not usually one to use the word "terrorism" but lets apply "killing feelings" level to some aspects of radical terrorism.
"Women shall not go to schools on pain of death or disfigurement" Terrorizing half the population
"Convert or die". Terrorizing all non-Muslims.
"Leave Islam and Die" Terrorizing all Muslims.
By their standards they are terrorizing everyone in the world.