This article is being widely panned as lacking controls, published without any critical review, and driven by self-interest from a traditional publisher with the most to lose from Open Access taking off (as it is). Some have gone so far to assert it's an over-reach for how badly it was done, and will make Science as a journal look partisan.
For example, quick scan brought up these three scathing responses:
I'm sure this will heat up some much needed debate about poor quality journals and the failings of peer review, but with the lack of any controls at all, it says basically nothing about open access as a model for publishing.
I know it's trite, but violence really isn't the answer. It has dramatic effects, and short terms it gets one ahead, but more often then not it causes more violence and hate back on the initiator.
While in a dangerous world, with dangerous people all around, having a military is essential, we also need to be spending much more on making the world a safer place with diplomacy and solutions, not with better and bigger weapons and endless wars.
as much as people would like to believe they are entitled to a given business, they are not. making a business work and making money are hard.
breaking the law is a crime, and if one proves that another has broken the law, there are extremely stiff penalties, especially for breaking the laws around copyright.
the law does not entitle the owners of copyright to a fine. that's just threats, and threatening your customers and the consumers of your product is bad business.
I am in exactly this situation, and I'm NOT happy. I bought the G2 and the lockdowns are multiple and very annoying. I cannot delete any pre-loaded apps, including Amazon MP3, FaceBook, web2GO, and like 20 other branded apps, all sitting on there with the "uninstall" button grayed out. WTF? I was told point blank at time of sale: "This is stock Android 2.2". Totally not true.
I went back to the TMO store today to return it, only to find one rep at the store tell me flat out: just wait, and root it. This person said, "I can't wait until I can root mine. What we did is so annoying. They will figure it out, and it will be rooted." If not, I was told I have 30 days to send it back without penalty. If I can't control a computer I bought for $500, I most certainly will return it with a little fuck you to TMO going to everyone I know telling them of my experience. I got her card, and I'll be back in there on day 25 talking about rooting options or returns.
I hope TMO execs read this. I've been a loyal customer for 8 years.
Breaking: In an astounding fit of partial international cooperation and scientific rationality, the US adopts a mostly metric measure of resource use: the milliliter per mile, or the mlpm
The unit is linear, easy to understand, with numbers everyone can grasp (40-400 ish), and most important, it slowly creeps the US mind toward the metric system, one small step at a time! What a breakthrough! When the cars fly, we can try for using km, not miles.
Also, mlpm helps put the idea that gasoline is a great resource, to be used sparingly, by the milliliter, as opposed to "by the gallon" like 7eleven slurpies.
Sadly, in all seriousness, from TFA "Consumption instead of mileage? Nah. Dumb idea. Never work. [sigh]" Probably have to agree with this. Not because it's a dumb idea, but because Americans with the social and business systems in place have shown repeatedly that they will hold onto current ideas so strongly even in the face of overwhelming and obvious evidence showing them to be wrong. Only the real American idol will effect real change in the US system, the dollar.
It seems to me there is an accountability gap for ISPs. Those providing network connections are not held accountable for machines on their network. Yet another example of prices and business practices not matching the real costs of activities.
To me, I would think the real solution, long term, to fixing botnets is creating a tight loop with internal scanning, reporting, warnings, verification, and then turning off Internet connection to machines that are infected. ISPs will need to be "motivated" to take responsibility for actions taken on their network, and they will have to have fully automated systems that take infected machines offline.
It doesn't seem like this is a priority for ISPs yet. Its easier and cheaper to simply ignore the problem.
After reading over the pdf, "Witness Katerine Martinson" seems like a complete and total douchbag / asshole.
Repeatedly calling police to tattle on her roommate, actively trying to "catch them" in the act of "removing evidence" (which wasn't evidence at the time)... taking pictures and sending them to the police! - all total BS behavior. Then letting police officers into their home to search their place, again trying actively to fuck over her roommate. Then providing license and vehicle information to the police about the roommates, so the police can hunt them down. With enemies like that living with you, you're totally screwed.
Then HIS OWN FATHER let the police into his home. Are these people totally and completely insane? Stupid? Brainwashed? I can't understand it.
Immediately after all that, the police office starts seizing his property.
The position based exchange, of individual qubits, as describing in TFA is for key exchange, leading to a one-time pad. The interesting thing is that once the one time pad is securely created and delivered, the locality is then longer restricted, the " can then be used to send a perfectly secure message" from TFA can then be anywhere.
But from a security point of view, this is nice, but a major part of security holes don't come from technology, they come from personnel and the ability to trick people. Unless you completely restrict the physical location of the people, information encrypted this "perfect" technology still falls prey to human foibles. As stated in TFA " theoretical security is not the same as practical security"
So let's make sure we're all clear: The FBI, the federal US law enforcement, is cracking down on financial fraud. Great.
They are going after dumb people who set up a bank account to launder a couple thousand dollars?
But they're not going after institutional traders who now offer co-location services with enhanced market data feeds, fueling high frequency trading? They are not going after the banking cartels who manipulate the whole economy? They are not going after Paypal for (among numerous things) blatantly lying about international exchange rates? or on and on and on from examples of large, institutionalized financial fraud?
Would it be better to find new and amazing ways to create energy from resources now, or would it be better for humanity to first learn to live within our means as oil runs out?
Humans have shown over and over that in large groups we use all the resources available, don't slow or restrain ourselves in time to save ourselves, and unless there are consistent, strict rules and provisioning in place, we exhaust available resources.
I think it would be better for the long term survival of the species if we ran out of cheap, easy energy sources for several generations, and we designed new culture based on long term sustainability instead of constant growth. If discover or invent an even cheaper, easier way to get energy out of water now, we'll have another "industrial revolution" type of growth, and come to an even worse dead-end when that runs out too.
I think we should mandate legislatively that all video created should use this technology from now on. TV shows, documentaries, big hit movies, home movies, birthday parties, independent films, security cameras, everything. This way, we can clearly establish ownership of video content in all cases. Anyone who has digital video not maked per frame with ownership should be prosecuted immediately.
Furthermore, we should mandate that all hardware created in the future, including TVs and cable boxes, computers and everything capable of reading video - all of it should only be able to play video with the new "who owns this frame" technology - otherwise, people might play video that doesn't belong to them.
And we should include vetting of licensing terms into the hardware system; so that only with the correct license can the hardware play back the video in question.
And we should impose fully automated reporting systems in hardware that detects and reports tampering to the local authorities. Open up that computer case and put in a non-approved, black market video driver: the machine sends and email to law enforcement. Connect a pirate cable box to your TV, and then your TV immediately stops working, and broadcasts a wireless signal that only law enforcement can detect.
I think this technology for copyright enforcement should be placed into prosthetics that sits inside the eyeballs of everyone who wants permission to view video. These prosthetic devices could similarly verify the authenticity of videos frame by frame, check for an approved license, and send out signals to law enforcement if pirated video is detected. Approved prosthetics should be compulsory to obtaining permission to view all videos.
Finally, we should up the penalties for copyright infringement, to instant death - basically we should have our eyeball prosthetics simply explode when unverified video is detected./s
This comes from a scarcity, closed-system mentality: log and track access. Mostly people who still think this way have not been shown better ways.
They could have done it open: used the resources to video record the classes, and broadcast them on campus (They did this at Stanford when I was there). Students, if they find value in being in the classroom would go, otherwise they could watch the recorded version. Benefits for the students are time shifting, taking breaks as needed, and 1.5x speed playback are obvious examples. For the university, recordings create tools for distance learning, and open education initiatives. For everyone, building a more open approach builds goodwill, and can be used for dramatic marketing and PR advantage.
The whole essence of education works better when the student originates the driving motivation to learn. Putting in place systems that force learning on someone (for example, tracking attendance) while may seem to improve results short term, actually reduce success long term for the person.
I have yet to see anyone present objective evidence that the existence of copyright, either in its current term/form the US/WIPO/ACTA is pushing, (or at all) helps the economy in the countries in question compared to other systems or models.
Obviously there are significant businesses that thrive now and could only exist with strong copyright protections. Entertainment, media creation, information aggregators and sellers - all require strong copyright to exist. Without these protections they would be hurt, somewhat, and some would go away.
There is incredible interest and energy in people to consume, remix, and to create, even with the existing, extremely long copyright term, and the vast majority of media under strict copyright protections. Would we see dramatic new businesses and opportunities arise if copyright were less stringent or not? Would these new markets and activities be better for economies than the loss of existing industries or not?
What evidence supports the belief that having these companies and these particular industries are what is best for a countries' economy, and for the people whose lives and livelihoods these laws effect? If copyright protections were opt-in for example, but the default were similar to a CC/BY for created content, what new industries would rise up and create value? Would they create more value than would be lost? I don't know of any evidence that can address that question. What if copyright protections were 14 years again, with the ability for owners to pay or re-apply for extensions? That would clear create value in new areas, but would it be better than the current system?
If anyone has pointers to evidence either way, I'd love to see it.
Saying you "can spy on what everyone is downloading on BitTorrent" and TFA stating "major privacy threat" are over-the-top and fear-mongering exaggerations.
A more accurate way to state this is: Using BitTorrent will make our IP address public regarding what content is downloaded and shared online from that IP address. When someone monitors the same content, then they can log your IP address. This is obvious from how the protocol works to anyone who looks into privacy questions seriously. Yes, there is less privacy with what you download with BitTorrent compared to a direct download, as other people also sharing the same content can see your IP address.
But remember, with every download method online someone else knows you have downloaded it, with direct downloads and with all the different peer-to-peer distribution options. If you go to Adobe and download the latest Photoshop demo, they know, they log your IP, and usually even ask for even more information about you.
The only a real privacy problem (a "major threat") is for people using BitTorrent for illegal redistribution of content; it is not a major problem for distribution of open licensed or public domain content, businesses or organizations using BitTorrent for distribution to lower costs, or to distribute free content for viral or marketing purposes.
(Disclaimer: our company, ClearBits, does exactly this, offers distribution as a service to others, and we use BitTorrent extensively)
I would much rather see twitter remain ad free, and charge a fair monthly fee based on number of followers and following; they could charge dynamically: more for companies than individuals, and reduce fees if your tweets are retweeted beyond your local follower network.
Using a revenue model like this would allow Twitter to tweak user behaviors and increase the value of the discussion. It would reduce spam, encouraging insightful and fast information, and remove the incentive for zombie robot following collectives.
Lots of times "spam" represents an attack, DDS, harassment, unsolicited advertising etc. These are a problem, and people rightly want this controlled.
But if I ask all my friends to send emails, and thousands of individuals all reply, I would think that is more like speech, a la "free speech". Nothing in TFA says the emails were threatening or trying to harm the judge.
I want the cell companies to drop this absurd notion of selling minutes, and provide high quality data service only - and a "DNS"-like service and effective filtering so people can find me and the programs (including VIOP) that I choose to run on my mobile device.
We're *almost* there, but not yet. Accessing your mobile device via a phone number still works much, much better than just data plans, and SIP sorcery (to get a number for voip) isn't simple at all.
If the only way to keep a business model working is to "open up the floodgates to massive litigation" then we should take a close look at why our society keeps those businesses afloat.
Personally, I think the basic reason we built the amazing companies in the "entertainment industry" is that distribution used to be difficult, and it required a lot of capital to set up channels to get media to consumers. This is no longer true; & the other reason - funding the creation of great media - obviously does not create enough value to justify the business that many of these companies continue to sue to protect.
Almost every single thing creative that someone creates today will *never* enter the public domain within our lifetime. Nothing. The owner of the copyright must explicitly grant it to the public domain, or license it for other's use, distribution, sharing, mashing, basically anything more than fair use... Copyright is no longer about promotion of creativity, its a legal exclusivity and an effectively permanent lock on all creative output by business interests. Add WIPO and ACTA and soon within 10 years or so, it will be a global exclusive lock, again driven by business interests.
The current copyright laws are simply a denial of any sense of balance or social good in intellectual property.
Slashdot Mirror
and two more
"Bohannon’s article is hostile. He submitted articles only to OA journals and by omission thereby erroneously links the failure of peer review to a single business model"
https://www.martineve.com/2013/10/03/whats-open-got-to-do-with-it/
"worthless travesty"
http://gavialib.com/2013/10/which-is-it/
This article is being widely panned as lacking controls, published without any critical review, and driven by self-interest from a traditional publisher with the most to lose from Open Access taking off (as it is). Some have gone so far to assert it's an over-reach for how badly it was done, and will make Science as a journal look partisan.
For example, quick scan brought up these three scathing responses:
Mike Eisen (HHMI Berkeley Professor)
http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1439
Peter Suber (Author of the book "Open Access", Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/109377556796183035206/posts/CRHeCAtQqGq
Mike Taylor (programmer with Index Data and a research associate at the department of earth sciences, University of Bristol)
http://svpow.com/2013/10/03/john-bohannons-peer-review-sting-against-science/
I'm sure this will heat up some much needed debate about poor quality journals and the failings of peer review, but with the lack of any controls at all, it says basically nothing about open access as a model for publishing.
I know it's trite, but violence really isn't the answer. It has dramatic effects, and short terms it gets one ahead, but more often then not it causes more violence and hate back on the initiator.
While in a dangerous world, with dangerous people all around, having a military is essential, we also need to be spending much more on making the world a safer place with diplomacy and solutions, not with better and bigger weapons and endless wars.
as much as people would like to believe they are entitled to a given business, they are not. making a business work and making money are hard.
breaking the law is a crime, and if one proves that another has broken the law, there are extremely stiff penalties, especially for breaking the laws around copyright.
the law does not entitle the owners of copyright to a fine. that's just threats, and threatening your customers and the consumers of your product is bad business.
touche (well, or *not* in the cyber version)
the whole cyber- prefix is getting old and useless.
cyber-crime (it's crime)
cyber-war (it's war)
cyber-stalking (it's stalking)
cyber-bullying (it's bullying)
you get the picture.
I am in exactly this situation, and I'm NOT happy. I bought the G2 and the lockdowns are multiple and very annoying. I cannot delete any pre-loaded apps, including Amazon MP3, FaceBook, web2GO, and like 20 other branded apps, all sitting on there with the "uninstall" button grayed out. WTF? I was told point blank at time of sale: "This is stock Android 2.2". Totally not true.
I went back to the TMO store today to return it, only to find one rep at the store tell me flat out: just wait, and root it. This person said, "I can't wait until I can root mine. What we did is so annoying. They will figure it out, and it will be rooted." If not, I was told I have 30 days to send it back without penalty. If I can't control a computer I bought for $500, I most certainly will return it with a little fuck you to TMO going to everyone I know telling them of my experience. I got her card, and I'll be back in there on day 25 talking about rooting options or returns.
I hope TMO execs read this. I've been a loyal customer for 8 years.
shameless self promotion::: (you asked)
ClearBits offers unlimited bandwidth / distribution of up to 10GB for $45/year, $0.98/GB/month additional, and less for higher usage.
http://www.clearbits.net/about/member_benefits
Breaking: In an astounding fit of partial international cooperation and scientific rationality, the US adopts a mostly metric measure of resource use: the milliliter per mile, or the mlpm
For example:
10MPG = 378 mlpm
20MPG = 189 mlpm
33MPG = 115 mlpm
50MPG = 76 mlpm
90MPG = 42 mlpm
The unit is linear, easy to understand, with numbers everyone can grasp (40-400 ish), and most important, it slowly creeps the US mind toward the metric system, one small step at a time! What a breakthrough! When the cars fly, we can try for using km, not miles.
Also, mlpm helps put the idea that gasoline is a great resource, to be used sparingly, by the milliliter, as opposed to "by the gallon" like 7eleven slurpies.
Sadly, in all seriousness, from TFA "Consumption instead of mileage? Nah. Dumb idea. Never work. [sigh]" Probably have to agree with this. Not because it's a dumb idea, but because Americans with the social and business systems in place have shown repeatedly that they will hold onto current ideas so strongly even in the face of overwhelming and obvious evidence showing them to be wrong. Only the real American idol will effect real change in the US system, the dollar.
It seems to me there is an accountability gap for ISPs. Those providing network connections are not held accountable for machines on their network. Yet another example of prices and business practices not matching the real costs of activities.
To me, I would think the real solution, long term, to fixing botnets is creating a tight loop with internal scanning, reporting, warnings, verification, and then turning off Internet connection to machines that are infected. ISPs will need to be "motivated" to take responsibility for actions taken on their network, and they will have to have fully automated systems that take infected machines offline.
It doesn't seem like this is a priority for ISPs yet. Its easier and cheaper to simply ignore the problem.
Science isn't inconclusive. There is statistically significant, or not. In this case, not.
Test another hypothesis or test again if data looks fishy.
After reading over the pdf, "Witness Katerine Martinson" seems like a complete and total douchbag / asshole.
Repeatedly calling police to tattle on her roommate, actively trying to "catch them" in the act of "removing evidence" (which wasn't evidence at the time)... taking pictures and sending them to the police! - all total BS behavior. Then letting police officers into their home to search their place, again trying actively to fuck over her roommate. Then providing license and vehicle information to the police about the roommates, so the police can hunt them down. With enemies like that living with you, you're totally screwed.
Then HIS OWN FATHER let the police into his home. Are these people totally and completely insane? Stupid? Brainwashed? I can't understand it.
Immediately after all that, the police office starts seizing his property.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE
The position based exchange, of individual qubits, as describing in TFA is for key exchange, leading to a one-time pad . The interesting thing is that once the one time pad is securely created and delivered, the locality is then longer restricted, the " can then be used to send a perfectly secure message" from TFA can then be anywhere.
But from a security point of view, this is nice, but a major part of security holes don't come from technology, they come from personnel and the ability to trick people. Unless you completely restrict the physical location of the people, information encrypted this "perfect" technology still falls prey to human foibles. As stated in TFA " theoretical security is not the same as practical security"
So let's make sure we're all clear: The FBI, the federal US law enforcement, is cracking down on financial fraud. Great.
They are going after dumb people who set up a bank account to launder a couple thousand dollars?
But they're not going after institutional traders who now offer co-location services with enhanced market data feeds, fueling high frequency trading? They are not going after the banking cartels who manipulate the whole economy? They are not going after Paypal for (among numerous things) blatantly lying about international exchange rates? or on and on and on from examples of large, institutionalized financial fraud?
Would it be better to find new and amazing ways to create energy from resources now, or would it be better for humanity to first learn to live within our means as oil runs out?
Humans have shown over and over that in large groups we use all the resources available, don't slow or restrain ourselves in time to save ourselves, and unless there are consistent, strict rules and provisioning in place, we exhaust available resources.
I think it would be better for the long term survival of the species if we ran out of cheap, easy energy sources for several generations, and we designed new culture based on long term sustainability instead of constant growth. If discover or invent an even cheaper, easier way to get energy out of water now, we'll have another "industrial revolution" type of growth, and come to an even worse dead-end when that runs out too.
I think we should mandate legislatively that all video created should use this technology from now on. TV shows, documentaries, big hit movies, home movies, birthday parties, independent films, security cameras, everything. This way, we can clearly establish ownership of video content in all cases. Anyone who has digital video not maked per frame with ownership should be prosecuted immediately.
Furthermore, we should mandate that all hardware created in the future, including TVs and cable boxes, computers and everything capable of reading video - all of it should only be able to play video with the new "who owns this frame" technology - otherwise, people might play video that doesn't belong to them.
And we should include vetting of licensing terms into the hardware system; so that only with the correct license can the hardware play back the video in question.
And we should impose fully automated reporting systems in hardware that detects and reports tampering to the local authorities. Open up that computer case and put in a non-approved, black market video driver: the machine sends and email to law enforcement. Connect a pirate cable box to your TV, and then your TV immediately stops working, and broadcasts a wireless signal that only law enforcement can detect.
I think this technology for copyright enforcement should be placed into prosthetics that sits inside the eyeballs of everyone who wants permission to view video. These prosthetic devices could similarly verify the authenticity of videos frame by frame, check for an approved license, and send out signals to law enforcement if pirated video is detected. Approved prosthetics should be compulsory to obtaining permission to view all videos.
Finally, we should up the penalties for copyright infringement, to instant death - basically we should have our eyeball prosthetics simply explode when unverified video is detected. /s
This comes from a scarcity, closed-system mentality: log and track access. Mostly people who still think this way have not been shown better ways.
They could have done it open: used the resources to video record the classes, and broadcast them on campus (They did this at Stanford when I was there). Students, if they find value in being in the classroom would go, otherwise they could watch the recorded version. Benefits for the students are time shifting, taking breaks as needed, and 1.5x speed playback are obvious examples. For the university, recordings create tools for distance learning, and open education initiatives. For everyone, building a more open approach builds goodwill, and can be used for dramatic marketing and PR advantage.
The whole essence of education works better when the student originates the driving motivation to learn. Putting in place systems that force learning on someone (for example, tracking attendance) while may seem to improve results short term, actually reduce success long term for the person.
I have yet to see anyone present objective evidence that the existence of copyright, either in its current term/form the US/WIPO/ACTA is pushing, (or at all) helps the economy in the countries in question compared to other systems or models.
Obviously there are significant businesses that thrive now and could only exist with strong copyright protections. Entertainment, media creation, information aggregators and sellers - all require strong copyright to exist. Without these protections they would be hurt, somewhat, and some would go away.
There is incredible interest and energy in people to consume, remix, and to create, even with the existing, extremely long copyright term, and the vast majority of media under strict copyright protections. Would we see dramatic new businesses and opportunities arise if copyright were less stringent or not? Would these new markets and activities be better for economies than the loss of existing industries or not?
What evidence supports the belief that having these companies and these particular industries are what is best for a countries' economy, and for the people whose lives and livelihoods these laws effect? If copyright protections were opt-in for example, but the default were similar to a CC/BY for created content, what new industries would rise up and create value? Would they create more value than would be lost? I don't know of any evidence that can address that question. What if copyright protections were 14 years again, with the ability for owners to pay or re-apply for extensions? That would clear create value in new areas, but would it be better than the current system?
If anyone has pointers to evidence either way, I'd love to see it.
Saying you "can spy on what everyone is downloading on BitTorrent" and TFA stating "major privacy threat" are over-the-top and fear-mongering exaggerations.
A more accurate way to state this is: Using BitTorrent will make our IP address public regarding what content is downloaded and shared online from that IP address. When someone monitors the same content, then they can log your IP address. This is obvious from how the protocol works to anyone who looks into privacy questions seriously. Yes, there is less privacy with what you download with BitTorrent compared to a direct download, as other people also sharing the same content can see your IP address.
But remember, with every download method online someone else knows you have downloaded it, with direct downloads and with all the different peer-to-peer distribution options. If you go to Adobe and download the latest Photoshop demo, they know, they log your IP, and usually even ask for even more information about you.
The only a real privacy problem (a "major threat") is for people using BitTorrent for illegal redistribution of content; it is not a major problem for distribution of open licensed or public domain content, businesses or organizations using BitTorrent for distribution to lower costs, or to distribute free content for viral or marketing purposes.
(Disclaimer: our company, ClearBits, does exactly this, offers distribution as a service to others, and we use BitTorrent extensively)
I would much rather see twitter remain ad free, and charge a fair monthly fee based on number of followers and following; they could charge dynamically: more for companies than individuals, and reduce fees if your tweets are retweeted beyond your local follower network.
Using a revenue model like this would allow Twitter to tweak user behaviors and increase the value of the discussion. It would reduce spam, encouraging insightful and fast information, and remove the incentive for zombie robot following collectives.
These are " non-polluting and no-oil based ... vehicles" created as examples of "sustainable mobility ... central to the [World] Expo"
Autonomous is not really an accurate description: Humans will control the first vehicle. The second will follow the route of the first.
I expect China will disassemble, reverse engineer, and then copy these vehicles en masse. [[//satire]]
Lots of times "spam" represents an attack, DDS, harassment, unsolicited advertising etc. These are a problem, and people rightly want this controlled.
But if I ask all my friends to send emails, and thousands of individuals all reply, I would think that is more like speech, a la "free speech". Nothing in TFA says the emails were threatening or trying to harm the judge.
I want the cell companies to drop this absurd notion of selling minutes, and provide high quality data service only - and a "DNS"-like service and effective filtering so people can find me and the programs (including VIOP) that I choose to run on my mobile device.
We're *almost* there, but not yet. Accessing your mobile device via a phone number still works much, much better than just data plans, and SIP sorcery (to get a number for voip) isn't simple at all.
If the only way to keep a business model working is to "open up the floodgates to massive litigation" then we should take a close look at why our society keeps those businesses afloat.
Personally, I think the basic reason we built the amazing companies in the "entertainment industry" is that distribution used to be difficult, and it required a lot of capital to set up channels to get media to consumers. This is no longer true; & the other reason - funding the creation of great media - obviously does not create enough value to justify the business that many of these companies continue to sue to protect.
You know what's evil? Copyright term of "70 years + life of the author".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term
Almost every single thing creative that someone creates today will *never* enter the public domain within our lifetime. Nothing. The owner of the copyright must explicitly grant it to the public domain, or license it for other's use, distribution, sharing, mashing, basically anything more than fair use... Copyright is no longer about promotion of creativity, its a legal exclusivity and an effectively permanent lock on all creative output by business interests. Add WIPO and ACTA and soon within 10 years or so, it will be a global exclusive lock, again driven by business interests.
The current copyright laws are simply a denial of any sense of balance or social good in intellectual property.