His article reminds me somewhat of those horror films that gain their effect purely through the use of the word evil. They say that something is evil, pure straight evil. Evil with a capital E. But, they never go much further than that. They just repeat the word evil over and over again in the hope if they use it a sufficient number of times and in the right context, they get some manner of effect on the audience. Never mind explaining WHY such-and-such is evil, but it's EVIL. The author of the aforementioned is doing a very similar thing with the word change. He is advocating change for change's sake. People must realize that sometimes things stay essentially same for a long time because they work well and there's really nothing to be gained from changing them.
It seems to me that the complete destruction of copyright is not the way to go. The individuals who make a living off of it deserve to make a living, and are doing fair work for fair pay in many cases.
I think that copyrights should have a much shorter duration, 7 years, for example. That way there isn't as much motivation for piracy. Wait a couple years, and it'll be legal anyway. CDs would also, of course, have to come down in price. That's inevitable. Now, I think that a shortened copyright duration could actually be of benefit to the music industry. They could use the old music as free publicity. If you like the older stuff, well come see what they're doing now they've had time to refine their skill as musicians.
Nowadays, in the US at least, copyright durations are on the order of 75 years after the author's death. Even with books, there are many cases where there isn't a single copy left of the book in existance by that time. In the end, humanity loses out because the knowledge contained in that book or the skill of the artwork is lost forever. In the clock repair end of things, I've seen many, many books go at auctions for incredibly high prices because they have very valuable information that's still useful. These are books that went out of print 100 years ago and to this day no one can do a reprint because the copyright hasn't expired yet. By the time it does expire, there won't be a single copy in existance to reprint.
Ham Radio is most certainly not dead - far from it. There are a number of radio amateur organizations, like ARRL(http://www.arrl.org) and RAC (Radio Amateurs of Canada - http://www.rac.ca)
Companies like Yaesu and Icom manufacture radios primarily for the hobby.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! I wouldn't work with Hungarian notation for a small country, let alone an extra $40k/year.
His article reminds me somewhat of those horror films that gain their effect purely through the use of the word evil. They say that something is evil, pure straight evil. Evil with a capital E. But, they never go much further than that. They just repeat the word evil over and over again in the hope if they use it a sufficient number of times and in the right context, they get some manner of effect on the audience. Never mind explaining WHY such-and-such is evil, but it's EVIL. The author of the aforementioned is doing a very similar thing with the word change. He is advocating change for change's sake. People must realize that sometimes things stay essentially same for a long time because they work well and there's really nothing to be gained from changing them.
It seems to me that the complete destruction of copyright is not the way to go. The individuals who make a living off of it deserve to make a living, and are doing fair work for fair pay in many cases.
I think that copyrights should have a much shorter duration, 7 years, for example. That way there isn't as much motivation for piracy. Wait a couple years, and it'll be legal anyway. CDs would also, of course, have to come down in price. That's inevitable. Now, I think that a shortened copyright duration could actually be of benefit to the music industry. They could use the old music as free publicity. If you like the older stuff, well come see what they're doing now they've had time to refine their skill as musicians.
Nowadays, in the US at least, copyright durations are on the order of 75 years after the author's death. Even with books, there are many cases where there isn't a single copy left of the book in existance by that time. In the end, humanity loses out because the knowledge contained in that book or the skill of the artwork is lost forever. In the clock repair end of things, I've seen many, many books go at auctions for incredibly high prices because they have very valuable information that's still useful. These are books that went out of print 100 years ago and to this day no one can do a reprint because the copyright hasn't expired yet. By the time it does expire, there won't be a single copy in existance to reprint.
One of my favourite gopher sites, and I'm certain it's still up, is the Internet Wiretap --
gopher://wiretap.area.com
Has some fascinating information.
Ham Radio is most certainly not dead - far from it. There are a number of radio amateur organizations, like ARRL(http://www.arrl.org) and RAC (Radio Amateurs of Canada - http://www.rac.ca)
Companies like Yaesu and Icom manufacture radios primarily for the hobby.
I would be very interested to see if, in fact, Jon Katz has actually read the book.
I would remind the author that Frankenstein was NOT the creation, but the creator. Frankenstein's monster is never named in the book.
I'm surprised lucas went with video - it still hasn't achieved nearly the resolution of good, old-fashioned film.