Depart of Commerce is a better fit
Since it's a legal thing, Department of Justice might fit better
Also, the Statute of Anne, on which US copyright is largely based, was an "Act for the encouragement of learning", so even the Departmet of Education would fit
If nobody is going to be blown up, shot, or poisoned, DHS probably shouldn't be involved
Which is just as morally poisonous, and for all the same reasons.
I agree that it's not desirable. And yet, it's happened.
"Accurate?" What does that even mean? I only care about one form of accuracy. If I don't want to buy a book, I want that to cost me $0. Stallman, on the other hand, is talking about charging me money anyway, and then laundering it through a gigantic new government bureaucracy that cannot help but involve untold thousands of new government workers, overhead costs, and the involvement of that government in choosing which writers get rewarded how, with other people's money. And in the current state of affairs, that would be with money borrowed from already bankrupted future generations.
I mean that the money you don't want to spend but are forced to anyway goes to those you would wish to spend it on. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect the money in the US, and their methods are horribly distorted
Which makes it less morally repugnant... how?
Because he isn't insisting on it, but is rather throwing it out there as an option.
This involves more than just DRM. However, just the ant-circumvention clause of the DMCA itself represents significant affronts to freedom, and undermines my ownership of items I physically possess, such as DVDs. If I wish to watch a certain movie, there's a good chance there is not a DRM-free version, so I am technically breaking the law if I rip it. Elsewhere, I noted that levies already exist on much blank media anyway, and that many venues pay money to ASCAP. Unless some skulls are cracked by angry mobs, they are going to vacuum your wallet in a similar manner anyway.
A rather large amount of blank media is taxed already. Also, various establishments that you go to probably have to pay money to ASCAP and other such thugs, and those costs are passed on to the customers.
As for the methods, he proposed that payment be based on a cube root of popularity. Accurately tracking popularity would be difficult, but even with attempts at distortion, it'd probably end up being more accurate than our current system, which is ridden with payola by proxy.
Also, you should probably note that it's just a suggestion (and not only his only suggestion), and the suggestion is as a replacement for the current regime, which is already more oppressive than what Stallman proposes. Besides, they'll lobby for such rights anyway.
He's suggesting replacing the government giving away our liberties with the government giving away our money, and only giving our money away if we need to and only to the extent that we need to to support authors. It's a compromise, but it's in the direction of more freedom and less forcing.
I'm not saying it worked, and it appears that it never has, but the way the modern incarnation (the previous incarnation being pretty much just about censorship to benefit the church and crown) was sold was on the premise that granting limited monopolies to authors would benefit society. In the case of the US, the clause in the constitution that allows copyright is limited to the purpose of 'promoting the progress.'
Exceptions to copyright are not inherently about business, and at least nominally, copyright is about enriching society. One of the four factors in fair use is nature of use, which favors non-profit purposes somewhat.
Being priced out of range doesn't necessarily mean idiocy. What matters to publishers is the money they make, not how many copies they sell. If they sell 1/5 as many copies as 10 times the price, they have doubled their profit relative to reasonable pricing.
But you can't have more of an incentive to create a work after the fact, and the works in question under the URAA were foreign works that were created without any promise of US legal protection at the time of their creation.
That argument might hold for the obscenely long duration of copyright on new works (although we ought to insist that changes to policy be evidence based) , but it doesn't hold for retroactive extensions (among the competent, anyway), and certainly doesn't hold for moving works out of the public domain.
But it does conflict with the Constitution, and is thus not 'properly created legislation.' Moving works from the public domain can't conceivably 'promote the progress', and it arguably limits the free speech of others.
Even if we assume that SOME degree of protection is ideal, I still think abolitionists can still be useful. The abolition option can help keep things in perspective and acts as a good reference point, and can smack the copyright lobby with a dose of reality in regards to what we can choose to do.
It's like a subsidy because you get more money than you would get in a purely competitive market. Because you are protected from certain kinds of competition, you can collect additional money. The difference is that the subsidy is in the public's liberties instead of the public's cash.
I read CNN, BBC, AP, catch some NPR from time to time, and get news from specialized sources such as Slashdot. IMO, AP is better than the BBC, at least from the content from the respective RSS feeds of their websites, and BBC is about on par with CNN, maybe a smidge better on average.
Yes, Fox News is garbage. CNN is horrible to watch for extended periods of time, but that's probably mostly because it's not meant to be watched continually.
In summary, the notion than European news networks content is 'head and shoulders above Americans' suggests that you probably aren't really familiar with American news networks. The mention of Fox News and the lack of mention of CNN seems to back that up. Furthermore, you seemed to miss the important underlying point, which is that people need to learn to see through bias, and hopefully seek out sources from different sides of an issue. We need news from extremists and moderates on different sides of an issue to get the best picture.
If you treat the public like they are idiots, they will be idiots. As long as newscasts are written by humans using human language, there will be bias in newscasts. I'm more concerned with the public recognizing bias and responding appropriately than trying to shield them from it. Perhaps it was justified decades ago, but there's no reasonable way you're going to prevent people with the internet from being exposed to lots and lots of bias.
The Kinks were free to release the song, but they just couldn't play it on the BBC because it had a similar anti-advertising clause. The concepts are at least similar in justification. Perhaps France is less stupid about it, but it does not make it not stupid. I get the underlying concept, but I don't think bright line rules don't work well. Also, it doesn't make sense for anything but state-owned stations, crown corporations, and the like. A little bit of research shows that there are private stations, and as far as I can tell, they are affected as well.
FCC censorship is absolute bullshit, and I readily admit that. Our tyranny doesn't excuse others being idiots, though. I welcome a campaign from you or any other to liberate us from that particular element of our regime. I will salute you while you drop those F-bombs on us.
Is there going to be a huge difference if when you go to CNN.com, you get big "follow us on twitter" links that 'advertise' twitter?
Also, the laws about actually naming other products are pretty stupid IMO. I think the BBC has/had a similar stance, which led to the Kinks having to rerecord a part of the song 'Lola' for the single so it would say 'cherry cola' instead of 'Coca Cola.'
In software there is a Jazillion ways to solve a problem and it's doubtful the incumbent solution is the very best, why do you need to copy or reverse engineer anything in the software world except for lack of creativity, inspiration and originality?
Reverse engineering is an absolute necessity for compatibility, and compatibility is often an absolute necessity for success. Being the best product often isn't enough.
You're not really making a coherent argument. First of all, he's more focused on the personal liberty aspect than the government regulation part. When he thinks he's doing good on that ground, he really is. I also don't think I've seen him support the kind of regulation that protects incumbent businesses from competition, which is something that the big companies are pushing for, and is IMO the greatest danger.
Look, I consider myself a libertarian/anarchist myself, but I try to understand the viewpoints of others and why they have them instead of pigeonholing anyone who isn't completely in line with me. Stallman loudly echoes the sentiments you have about this situation, but you feel compelled to pick a fight because you disagree with him on other matters.
Slashdot Mirror
Depart of Commerce is a better fit Since it's a legal thing, Department of Justice might fit better Also, the Statute of Anne, on which US copyright is largely based, was an "Act for the encouragement of learning", so even the Departmet of Education would fit If nobody is going to be blown up, shot, or poisoned, DHS probably shouldn't be involved
Perhaps the best solution is not to have DHS/ICE bother with this in the first place
He hasn't made a suggestion of superiority here, nor has he even mentioned more direct sales.
I agree with ditching the DMCA. I'm a copyright abolitionist myself.
I agree that it's not desirable. And yet, it's happened.
I mean that the money you don't want to spend but are forced to anyway goes to those you would wish to spend it on. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect the money in the US, and their methods are horribly distorted
Because he isn't insisting on it, but is rather throwing it out there as an option.
Copyright itself is a massively inefficient bureaucracy heavily driven by politics that reduces author payment.
This involves more than just DRM. However, just the ant-circumvention clause of the DMCA itself represents significant affronts to freedom, and undermines my ownership of items I physically possess, such as DVDs. If I wish to watch a certain movie, there's a good chance there is not a DRM-free version, so I am technically breaking the law if I rip it. Elsewhere, I noted that levies already exist on much blank media anyway, and that many venues pay money to ASCAP. Unless some skulls are cracked by angry mobs, they are going to vacuum your wallet in a similar manner anyway.
A rather large amount of blank media is taxed already. Also, various establishments that you go to probably have to pay money to ASCAP and other such thugs, and those costs are passed on to the customers.
As for the methods, he proposed that payment be based on a cube root of popularity. Accurately tracking popularity would be difficult, but even with attempts at distortion, it'd probably end up being more accurate than our current system, which is ridden with payola by proxy.
Also, you should probably note that it's just a suggestion (and not only his only suggestion), and the suggestion is as a replacement for the current regime, which is already more oppressive than what Stallman proposes. Besides, they'll lobby for such rights anyway.
He's suggesting replacing the government giving away our liberties with the government giving away our money, and only giving our money away if we need to and only to the extent that we need to to support authors. It's a compromise, but it's in the direction of more freedom and less forcing.
The commerce clause isn't involved with this at all, so an expansive view of it isn't relevant.
I'm not saying it worked, and it appears that it never has, but the way the modern incarnation (the previous incarnation being pretty much just about censorship to benefit the church and crown) was sold was on the premise that granting limited monopolies to authors would benefit society. In the case of the US, the clause in the constitution that allows copyright is limited to the purpose of 'promoting the progress.'
Exceptions to copyright are not inherently about business, and at least nominally, copyright is about enriching society. One of the four factors in fair use is nature of use, which favors non-profit purposes somewhat.
Being priced out of range doesn't necessarily mean idiocy. What matters to publishers is the money they make, not how many copies they sell. If they sell 1/5 as many copies as 10 times the price, they have doubled their profit relative to reasonable pricing.
But you can't have more of an incentive to create a work after the fact, and the works in question under the URAA were foreign works that were created without any promise of US legal protection at the time of their creation. That argument might hold for the obscenely long duration of copyright on new works (although we ought to insist that changes to policy be evidence based) , but it doesn't hold for retroactive extensions (among the competent, anyway), and certainly doesn't hold for moving works out of the public domain.
But it does conflict with the Constitution, and is thus not 'properly created legislation.' Moving works from the public domain can't conceivably 'promote the progress', and it arguably limits the free speech of others.
Even if we assume that SOME degree of protection is ideal, I still think abolitionists can still be useful. The abolition option can help keep things in perspective and acts as a good reference point, and can smack the copyright lobby with a dose of reality in regards to what we can choose to do.
It's like a subsidy because you get more money than you would get in a purely competitive market. Because you are protected from certain kinds of competition, you can collect additional money. The difference is that the subsidy is in the public's liberties instead of the public's cash.
I read CNN, BBC, AP, catch some NPR from time to time, and get news from specialized sources such as Slashdot. IMO, AP is better than the BBC, at least from the content from the respective RSS feeds of their websites, and BBC is about on par with CNN, maybe a smidge better on average.
Yes, Fox News is garbage. CNN is horrible to watch for extended periods of time, but that's probably mostly because it's not meant to be watched continually.
In summary, the notion than European news networks content is 'head and shoulders above Americans' suggests that you probably aren't really familiar with American news networks. The mention of Fox News and the lack of mention of CNN seems to back that up. Furthermore, you seemed to miss the important underlying point, which is that people need to learn to see through bias, and hopefully seek out sources from different sides of an issue. We need news from extremists and moderates on different sides of an issue to get the best picture.
If you treat the public like they are idiots, they will be idiots. As long as newscasts are written by humans using human language, there will be bias in newscasts. I'm more concerned with the public recognizing bias and responding appropriately than trying to shield them from it. Perhaps it was justified decades ago, but there's no reasonable way you're going to prevent people with the internet from being exposed to lots and lots of bias.
The Kinks were free to release the song, but they just couldn't play it on the BBC because it had a similar anti-advertising clause. The concepts are at least similar in justification. Perhaps France is less stupid about it, but it does not make it not stupid. I get the underlying concept, but I don't think bright line rules don't work well. Also, it doesn't make sense for anything but state-owned stations, crown corporations, and the like. A little bit of research shows that there are private stations, and as far as I can tell, they are affected as well.
FCC censorship is absolute bullshit, and I readily admit that. Our tyranny doesn't excuse others being idiots, though. I welcome a campaign from you or any other to liberate us from that particular element of our regime. I will salute you while you drop those F-bombs on us.
Is there going to be a huge difference if when you go to CNN.com, you get big "follow us on twitter" links that 'advertise' twitter?
Also, the laws about actually naming other products are pretty stupid IMO. I think the BBC has/had a similar stance, which led to the Kinks having to rerecord a part of the song 'Lola' for the single so it would say 'cherry cola' instead of 'Coca Cola.'
Skype is owned by MS now
Reverse engineering is an absolute necessity for compatibility, and compatibility is often an absolute necessity for success. Being the best product often isn't enough.
you don't have those magnets at home and at work?
You're not really making a coherent argument. First of all, he's more focused on the personal liberty aspect than the government regulation part. When he thinks he's doing good on that ground, he really is. I also don't think I've seen him support the kind of regulation that protects incumbent businesses from competition, which is something that the big companies are pushing for, and is IMO the greatest danger. Look, I consider myself a libertarian/anarchist myself, but I try to understand the viewpoints of others and why they have them instead of pigeonholing anyone who isn't completely in line with me. Stallman loudly echoes the sentiments you have about this situation, but you feel compelled to pick a fight because you disagree with him on other matters.