"I mean, if I build a chair and sell it, my family gets the money I made from selling the chair. Similarly, my family gets any money I made off of a copyright. However, when I die, they get nothing more from the chair but they get to ride my copyright until it expires or, more realistically, they die?"
Look, I believe in copyright on the scale suggested in the Constitution. Nevertheless...
If you build a chair and die before you sell it, the chair passes to your family, which they may then sell. Allowing copyrights to pass to heirs serves exactly the same purpose as allowing material items to pass to heirs; it allows the full value of the thing inherited to be realized by the family, whether the creator is dead or alive. The crucial difference between the chair and the copyright is that the full value of a copyright is not realized in a single transaction.
"I really wish Google News had an NNTP feed, even if it charged a low fee."
What they do have are RSS feeds and a way to access the original NNTP form of a post, which, with wget, a little bit of programming and a newsreader that can use a local spool, amounts to the same thing.
If Kentucky wants to ban gambling within its border, its certainly within its right to do so, just the same as Spain can ban gambling insides its border.
Well, actually it's not gambling per se that the current administration wants to ban here; after all, Kentucky is one of the (if not just THE) world's premier Thoroughbred breeding centers, and we have always had racetracks that have always made the bulk of their revenue off the wagering of their patrons. We also have a state lottery. Indeed, the current administration wants to actually have casino-style gambling (which is banned here) *made legal*, both for government revenue and to prop up the racetracks.
What the government of Kentucky does want banned is Kentuckians gambling at out-of-state internet sites, because we can't make a buck off that. So they told those sites to take steps to prevent Kentuckians from using them, or they'd take action; the seizing of the domain names constituted that action. Presumably what will happen eventually is that the administration will realize what they can and cannot do, and another category will show up on our state income tax forms requiring us to pay tax on money wagered out of state, in addition to that we already have to pay on untaxed out-of-state purchases.
As for whether Kentucky has a Constitutional right to prevent out-of-state entities without a Kentucky presence from selling services to Kentuckians, that is a matter for the courts to decide. As to whether it's unthinkable, it's not that different from France's case against eBay over the sale of Nazi memorabilia a few years back.
I don't think the copyright provisions of the Constitution mean what he thinks they mean. They were an attempt to make us a nation of creators. But the laws that have been passed in supposed implementation of those provisions are attempts to turn us into a nation of consumers, served by a few purveyors.
The Constitution is supposed to empower the common man (for varying values of "common"), but this legislation, like that that precedes it, empowers just a few.
I haven't a clue how to convince even the honest members of Congress of the fact, though.
"Snakes don't bite to hurt you all the time. Some snakes can't talk. So that's why they bite you -- they give you a soft bite, like a hello bite, 'Hello'. Really! You look at a snake some time and say 'Hello' and he will bite you on the leg. 'Hello.'"
vought wrote: > Freedom of the press relies on the principle that what the > press is reporting is in the public interest.
I think it's more like "Freedom of the press relies on the principle that what the press is reporting *might* be in the public interest, and it's not wise to let the government (which might be corrupt) decide whether it is or not."
The laws that are the basis for this are evident in the article. It's an issue of public record. In the interests of the people, many government documents are public record. Mailing addresses are protected to prevent abuse, but e-mail addresses are not. More than likely, they should be, just like mailing addresses. However, it's not really the place of the courts to say, "Well, this *should* be protected, but it isn't, so we'll rule as if it is."
I think I understand.
You mean it's like the way the First Amendment, which protects "free speech" and "freedom of the press", would be the basis for a court ruling that Congress can, in fact, pass a law prohibiting us from freely expressing ourselves online, because that expression is neither spoken nor printed on paper.
"P.S.: To bring this home, check on the copyrights in a "Joan Baez Songbook". Every one of those songs was a folk song before she (Vanguard records) copyrighted it."
A published edition of public domain material does not carry the same copyright restrictions that pertain to original material. Copying an original arrangement is indeed a violation, as is copying the information from the book directly. Performing the traditional lyrics to the traditional tune is not, nor is selling a recording of my performance, nor is selling my own original transcription.
Or do you believe that the fact that "Tom Sawyer" is still in print means that Project Gutenberg (and, for that matter, all but one of the for-profit publishers) is in violation of the copyright of an in-print edition? There's no difference.
There is a scheme that involves the voter pledging his vote and being handed a ballot already filled out. The voter then places this ballot in the box and turns over the blank ballot he received at the voting station to the vote-buyer as proof that he used the prepared ballot.
I suppose that the electronic scan of the deposited ballot could be checked to ensure that it matched the original selection, or that the actual card is the same, though.
In the second instance, there's also no money to be made from me as I won't be able to find the song by using its lyrics. Lose-lose for the music industry, it seems.
I'm not so sure. Maybe they're thinking that they can create their own look-up facility: you provide the sample of the lyrics, and they provide you with a list of songs that it might belong to. That way, they hope to convert some lyric downloading into sheet music sales, and still not lose those recording sales that lyric downloading now promotes.
Because a newspaper has advertisers and subscribers, it has to protect its reputation as being truthful. A blogger has nothing at stake. A newspaper also expects to get sued and tries to have a "truth defense" ready - to cover their butts by being accurate. They might not always succeed, but they have reason to try.
This seems to be saying that any two newspapers expending the resources necessary to adequately research a given issue or event will produce the same story; that is, except for the Op/Ed pages, I should expect the same content from the Washington Times as from the New York Times.
A school I used to go to would suspend you if you were in a fight, even if you didn't defend yourself etc. If someone jumps/mugs/etc you, you'll likely be suspended even though you yourself didn't do anything wrong.
If this is a sign of national decline, it's been going on for a long time, then -- I ran afoul of that rule at my high school in 1976.
As the article pointed out, this has greater ramifications than in paternity cases, though perhaps even they didn't carry it far enough.
"Police could perform similar searches [using crime scene evidence]to identify a criminal's surname, giving vital leads in a case."
Or someone who cared enough could do so with, say, a hair found in a library book (or in any number of other places where anonymity might ordinarily have been presumed).
Did you know that the United States sends back a higher percentage of it's Congressional incumbents than most countries? In fact, and I have heard this from many places, we send back a bigger percentage of than the old Soviet Politburo did in it's heyday.
Well, let's suppose Joe Congressman won his seat by 5% over his opponent. For Joe to lose his re-election bid, about 18000 people have to change their minds.
For Josef Politburomember to have lost his seat, perhaps a dozen people would have had to have changed their minds.
The fact it was a fantasy is clear from the fact that 100-odd years passed between the declaration that "All men are created equal" and the realisation that that could possibly apply to Negroes, too.
Not so.
The Constitution was written in 1787.
The original text of the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776, accused King George III of having "waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."
You can see that Africans, the "distant people" referred to here, are recognized as having the same "sacred rights" that the Constitution was later written to protect.
Slashdot Mirror
"Pi is defined by no law except in Kentucky."
s/Kentucky/Indiana/
(And it only made it through one house of the state legislature there.)
"I mean, if I build a chair and sell it, my family gets the money I made from selling the chair. Similarly, my family gets any money I made off of a copyright. However, when I die, they get nothing more from the chair but they get to ride my copyright until it expires or, more realistically, they die?"
Look, I believe in copyright on the scale suggested in the Constitution. Nevertheless...
If you build a chair and die before you sell it, the chair passes to your family, which they may then sell. Allowing copyrights to pass to heirs serves exactly the same purpose as allowing material items to pass to heirs; it allows the full value of the thing inherited to be realized by the family, whether the creator is dead or alive. The crucial difference between the chair and the copyright is that the full value of a copyright is not realized in a single transaction.
"I really wish Google News had an NNTP feed, even if it charged a low fee."
What they do have are RSS feeds and a way to access the original NNTP form of a post, which, with wget, a little bit of programming and a newsreader that can use a local spool, amounts to the same thing.
That would be the Marmite made in New Zealand, which actually has sugar added.
Vegemite has a milder flavor than British Marmite, which is not at all sweet.
Well, actually it's not gambling per se that the current administration wants to ban here; after all, Kentucky is one of the (if not just THE) world's premier Thoroughbred breeding centers, and we have always had racetracks that have always made the bulk of their revenue off the wagering of their patrons. We also have a state lottery. Indeed, the current administration wants to actually have casino-style gambling (which is banned here) *made legal*, both for government revenue and to prop up the racetracks.
What the government of Kentucky does want banned is Kentuckians gambling at out-of-state internet sites, because we can't make a buck off that. So they told those sites to take steps to prevent Kentuckians from using them, or they'd take action; the seizing of the domain names constituted that action. Presumably what will happen eventually is that the administration will realize what they can and cannot do, and another category will show up on our state income tax forms requiring us to pay tax on money wagered out of state, in addition to that we already have to pay on untaxed out-of-state purchases.
As for whether Kentucky has a Constitutional right to prevent out-of-state entities without a Kentucky presence from selling services to Kentuckians, that is a matter for the courts to decide. As to whether it's unthinkable, it's not that different from France's case against eBay over the sale of Nazi memorabilia a few years back.
I don't think the copyright provisions of the Constitution mean what he thinks they mean. They were an attempt to make us a nation of creators. But the laws that have been passed in supposed implementation of those provisions are attempts to turn us into a nation of consumers, served by a few purveyors.
The Constitution is supposed to empower the common man (for varying values of "common"), but this legislation, like that that precedes it, empowers just a few.
I haven't a clue how to convince even the honest members of Congress of the fact, though.
"You mean like a frog in a pot of water. Bring up to boil slowly, the from won't even notice he is boiling until he is dead..."
Except that it's just not so:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
Air and Space Smithsonian has a rather different take on who deserves the credit for Sputnik's success in the current issue.
Air and Space Smithsonian had a "22-page salute" to the Tomcat in its August-September issue, some of which is available online.
Words of wisdom from Bill Cosby:
"Snakes don't bite to hurt you all the time. Some snakes can't talk. So that's why they bite you -- they give you a soft bite, like a hello bite, 'Hello'. Really! You look at a snake some time and say 'Hello' and he will bite you on the leg. 'Hello.'"
vought wrote:
> Freedom of the press relies on the principle that what the
> press is reporting is in the public interest.
I think it's more like
"Freedom of the press relies on the principle that what the press
is reporting *might* be in the public interest, and it's not wise
to let the government (which might be corrupt) decide whether it
is or not."
I think I understand.
You mean it's like the way the First Amendment, which protects "free speech" and "freedom of the press", would be the basis for a court ruling that Congress can, in fact, pass a law prohibiting us from freely expressing ourselves online, because that expression is neither spoken nor printed on paper.
"P.S.: To bring this home, check on the copyrights in a "Joan Baez Songbook". Every one of those songs was a folk song before she (Vanguard records) copyrighted it."
A published edition of public domain material does not carry the same copyright restrictions that pertain to original material. Copying an original arrangement is indeed a violation, as is copying the information from the book directly. Performing the traditional lyrics to the traditional tune is not, nor is selling a recording of my performance, nor is selling my own original transcription.
Or do you believe that the fact that "Tom Sawyer" is still in print means that Project Gutenberg (and, for that matter, all but one of the for-profit publishers) is in violation of the copyright of an in-print edition? There's no difference.
There is a scheme that involves the voter pledging his vote and being handed a ballot already filled out. The voter then places this ballot in the box and turns over the blank ballot he received at the voting station to the vote-buyer as proof that he used the prepared ballot.
I suppose that the electronic scan of the deposited ballot could be checked to ensure that it matched the original selection, or that the actual card is the same, though.
...and
Anyone who's told you that you really need to vote for a particular candidate can ask you to prove that you did so.
Nah, they're not real.
Now, Benedict of Amber, on the other (ahem) hand...
This seems to be saying that any two newspapers expending the resources necessary to adequately research a given issue or event will produce the same story; that is, except for the Op/Ed pages, I should expect the same content from the Washington Times as from the New York Times.
Somehow, I'm not entirely sure I agree.
If this is a sign of national decline, it's been going on for a long time, then -- I ran afoul of that rule at my high school in 1976.
As the article pointed out, this has greater ramifications than in paternity cases, though perhaps even they didn't carry it far enough.
"Police could perform similar searches [using crime scene evidence]to identify a criminal's surname, giving vital leads in a case."
Or someone who cared enough could do so with, say, a hair found in a library book (or in any number of other places where anonymity might ordinarily have been presumed).
What about them? Based on the last five or so presidential election campaigns, I think we can safely say they don't apply to politicians.
Well, let's suppose Joe Congressman won his seat by 5% over his opponent. For Joe to lose his re-election bid, about 18000 people have to change their minds.
For Josef Politburomember to have lost his seat, perhaps a dozen people would have had to have changed their minds.
Maybe it's not that odd, after all.
Not so.
The Constitution was written in 1787.
The original text of the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776, accused King George III of having "waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."
You can see that Africans, the "distant people" referred to here, are recognized as having the same "sacred rights" that the Constitution was later written to protect.
The Go Digital program that this appeared in is still available on the BBC's servers. The endoscope bit starts at 17 minutes into the stream.