Since the UK now extradits its citizens for things that are not even criminal in the UK, I'm waiting for the Bishop of Canterbury being extradited to Iran, on grounds of maintaining a website http://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/mission/world-mission.aspx promoting Christianity. Promoting Christianity is punishable by death in Iran.
Given Thomas Jefferson stance on many subjects, I can clearly see that his contemporaries might absolutely have very decent ideas about things like censorship or artificial monopolies.
Today, he probably would be member of the Pirate Party.
Oh yes, patents themselves need to stop. All of them.
We've got only one segment where patents even work as envisioned by the patent-system itself, and that is pharmaceuticals. Even so, exactly those pharmaceutical patents cause myriads of problems with healthcare (they're a big factor in the cost of healthcare-systems) and in third-world countries, they kill.
So there is really no macro-economic reason for patents to exist. They're just a rent for lawyers and patent offices, and a tool for corporate warfare for everyone else.
- Range. Your bullets will travel forever on their trajectory, until they hit something. Which leads to very bad "friendly fire".
Missiles have a similar problem; you do not want anything to explode, since this will send debris in all directions, which most probably will hit friendly objects as well.
The source is out there, so what? It's still protected by copyright, and most people won't be able to compile it.
It's not like anyone can use it, apart from doing security-analysis and either sending symantec patches, or hacking their customers. And in that respect, it's not different than any open source software.
(Well, of course, if you got a 10 year open source history, chances are your code is much better than if it gets accidentally released after years of bad practice. So this will hurt in the beginning; but pretty soon the quality will increase, either way...).
Copyright violation isn't free speech, no matter how you want to dress it up as such.
You want to tell me linking to a document which might have been uploaded illegally ISN'T free speech? It certainly is NOT copyright infringement.
And if you're not understanding why this MUST BE free speech, think of a document uploaded illegally (and in violation of copyright) which documents systematic abuse of people within a company. Also as a journalist or scientist you need to be able to document, cite and link to your sources. A ban on linking would be equivalent of banning scientific research in that field (and even if that field itself is only research about copyright infringement itself).
Under the terms of the license, all of the core rules can be re-packaged and sold in your own game How nice. It grants me things the copyright-law already allows me? Because rules for games are not copyrightable anyway.
> In the song Yankee Doodle, Macaroni does not refer to pasta, but to an expensive Italian hat with a > signature feather on it. Hence the line "...stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni"
And besides of all that babbling how slick and consistent this D20-Legend is, RuneQuest (1977) will most probably still beat this hands down in terms of consistency and balance.
There should be a warning Label: "WARNING excessive consumption of dihydrogen-monoxide can cause severe injuries and death, especially when consumend trough the respiratory tract".
Every year, thousands of people world-wide die of dihydrogen-monoxide (ah well, a lot less than those that die of the lack of it, actually).
The trouble is that the U.S. Congress uses EU insanity as an excuse to "harmonize" its copyright legislation to match what foreign countries offer in a game of copyright leapfrog
Well, it was U.S. interests in the first place which lobbied this into the EU.
"Europe could adopt laws under which 2D reproductions of 2D originals do not acquire a separate copyright."
Sorry, but this is already impossible. You do not get a copyright for a 2D reproduction of a (public domain) 2D original. Not in the USA, not in Europe. So google can't have any copyright on scans of public domain material. In fact, claiming otherwise would be fraud. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud
Stop confusing technical problems (dependancy on electricity and electronics) with poilitical problems (DRM).
There is NOTHING (technical) that says millions of people may not have tens of thousands of electronic books on their computers, thus creating a world-wide distributed backup of knowledge, which may very well survive local (or even continental) disasters.
Of course, corrupt politicians buying into the copyright-lobby and creating the totally fucked-up copyright as we can witness now is somewhat of a legal problem.
If your chances to get sued when actually *creating* something are so much higher than when just redistributing wealth (or even better: sueing someone else), you get what you asked for: A nation of bankers and lawyers.
It's no coincidence that most famous engineers of the 19th century (like Brunell) were opposed to patents; so start by abolishing those.
Now "piss poor fishing men who had their fishing grounds ravaged by international fishing-fleets and turned pirates because of that" have become "terrorists".
Slashdot Mirror
Since the UK now extradits its citizens for things that are not even criminal in the UK, I'm waiting for the Bishop of Canterbury being extradited to Iran, on grounds of maintaining a website http://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/mission/world-mission.aspx promoting Christianity. Promoting Christianity is punishable by death in Iran.
Given Thomas Jefferson stance on many subjects, I can clearly see that his contemporaries might absolutely have very decent ideas about things like censorship or artificial monopolies.
Today, he probably would be member of the Pirate Party.
Oh yes, patents themselves need to stop. All of them.
We've got only one segment where patents even work as envisioned by the patent-system itself, and that is pharmaceuticals. Even so, exactly those pharmaceutical patents cause myriads of problems with healthcare (they're a big factor in the cost of healthcare-systems) and in third-world countries, they kill.
So there is really no macro-economic reason for patents to exist. They're just a rent for lawyers and patent offices, and a tool for corporate warfare for everyone else.
Agree. That's absolutely not insightful, that's bogus speculations on a premise which most certainly is false.
Sorry, this is bogus. Mod Anonymous Coward down for repeating propaganda.
There's a decisive decline in Marijuna use in the Netherlands, where it's basically decriminalized.
You missed two things:
- Recoil. You'll propel your own spacecraft back
- Range. Your bullets will travel forever on their trajectory, until they hit something. Which leads to very bad "friendly fire".
Missiles have a similar problem; you do not want anything to explode, since this will send debris in all directions, which most probably will hit friendly objects as well.
I'd go for lasers.
The source is out there, so what? It's still protected by copyright, and most people won't be able to compile it.
It's not like anyone can use it, apart from doing security-analysis and either sending symantec patches, or hacking their customers. And in that respect, it's not different than any open source software.
(Well, of course, if you got a 10 year open source history, chances are your code is much better than if it gets accidentally released after years of bad practice. So this will hurt in the beginning; but pretty soon the quality will increase, either way...).
You're absolutely right. This isn't so much about making illegal copies invisible, this is about making only THEIR content visible.
Very blatantly so, I might add.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Copyright violation isn't free speech, no matter how you want to dress it up as such.
You want to tell me linking to a document which might have been uploaded illegally ISN'T free speech?
It certainly is NOT copyright infringement.
And if you're not understanding why this MUST BE free speech, think of a document uploaded illegally (and in violation of copyright) which documents systematic abuse of people within a company. Also as a journalist or scientist you need to be able to document, cite and link to your sources. A ban on linking would be equivalent of banning scientific research in that field (and even if that field itself is only research about copyright infringement itself).
Under the terms of the license, all of the core rules can be re-packaged and sold in your own game
How nice. It grants me things the copyright-law already allows me? Because rules for games are not copyrightable anyway.
The OGL is a trademark-license. It basically allows you to place "D20-comaptible" to your material.
Since game rules are NOT COPYRIGHTABLE it does not grant you anything new -- you already had the right to release add-ons without any OGL whatsoever.
Apart from the trademark-grant, the OGL is a sham.
> In the song Yankee Doodle, Macaroni does not refer to pasta, but to an expensive Italian hat with a
> signature feather on it. Hence the line "...stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni"
No, it refers to someone who did "the great tour", which means visited europe and its most important cities and imported "italian" style. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_(fashion)
And of course, Yankee Doodle is a _british_ song making fun of Yankees -- who promptly took it and made it their own ;)
And besides of all that babbling how slick and consistent this D20-Legend is, RuneQuest (1977) will most probably still beat this hands down in terms of consistency and balance.
So I'd be going with that Legend
There should be a warning Label: "WARNING excessive consumption of dihydrogen-monoxide can cause severe injuries and death, especially when consumend trough the respiratory tract".
Every year, thousands of people world-wide die of dihydrogen-monoxide (ah well, a lot less than those that die of the lack of it, actually).
The trouble is that the U.S. Congress uses EU insanity as an excuse to "harmonize" its copyright legislation to match what foreign countries offer in a game of copyright leapfrog
Well, it was U.S. interests in the first place which lobbied this into the EU.
http://falkvinge.net/2011/09/05/cable-reveals-extent-of-lapdoggery-from-swedish-govt-on-copyright-monopoly/
The 1950'ies called, they want their teleprinter network back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex
Because in contrast to ICQ, you can run your own Jabber-Servers.
Because you misnamed them "Liberals". There's nothing "liberal" in "more taxation". It's actually more of a socialist idea.
"Europe could adopt laws under which 2D reproductions of 2D originals do not acquire a separate copyright."
Sorry, but this is already impossible. You do not get a copyright for a 2D reproduction of a (public domain) 2D original. Not in the USA, not in Europe. So google can't have any copyright on scans of public domain material. In fact, claiming otherwise would be fraud. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud
No. A recent study has shown these numbers are inflated by factor 18. http://www.palgrave-journals.com/biosoc/journal/v6/n1/abs/biosoc201040a.html
Obviously, stupidly copying a french invention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety
Stop confusing technical problems (dependancy on electricity and electronics) with poilitical problems (DRM).
There is NOTHING (technical) that says millions of people may not have tens of thousands of electronic books on their computers, thus creating a world-wide distributed backup of knowledge, which may very well survive local (or even continental) disasters.
Of course, corrupt politicians buying into the copyright-lobby and creating the totally fucked-up copyright as we can witness now is somewhat of a legal problem.
If your chances to get sued when actually *creating* something are so much higher than when just redistributing wealth (or even better: sueing someone else), you get what you asked for: A nation of bankers and lawyers.
It's no coincidence that most famous engineers of the 19th century (like Brunell) were opposed to patents; so start by abolishing those.
Now "piss poor fishing men who had their fishing grounds ravaged by international fishing-fleets and turned pirates because of that" have become "terrorists".