I wouldn't say it's laughable. Consider the alternative for a momment. Which is better? Having a copyright which expires in 14-28 years, or one which expires in life + 70+ years? (Say, approx. 100 years on average)
Anything related to the date of the author's death is a potential nightmare for finding out when copyright expires. Are all copyright libraries ment to get a copy of every death certificate as well as every book published?
In the tech industry, the significant majority of books published have a shelf life of a few years at most. After that, they're practically worthless. Once taken out of print, the chance of them ever being republished is almost nil.
This is hardly likely to apply to just tech books.
Now, this doesn't hold for all publishers. Outside the tech sector, some books pay off in the long run. The Lord of the Rings saga is a perfect example. In those cases, from a business perspective, it's worthwhile for a publisher to hold on to his copyrights as long as possible because you never know which book in your catalogue is going to be "The Next Big Thing", and pay off big time.
You don't know if there will ever be a "big thing". Even if there is if it will pay for the upkeep of everything else of your catalogue.
But by that token, the retroactive extension of copyright to already-existing works, beyond the copyright terms they were created under, is just as much a breach of agreement with society.
Anyway since the purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation and publication of new works a retroactive extension is at best redundent. At worst it acts against such encouragement, since a copyright holder might be thinking "xyz is about to expire, best be thinking about creating something new" then when they find out that a copyright extension has happened they just don't bother with any new creation.
From your comment, it appears that you are a writer. Are you saying that all the ideas you use in your works are original-never-before-thought-of? If so, then Congratulations! Good for you! Pretty much all of the books I read contain ideas that the authors have drawn from elsewhere, either from other novels or other's experiences etc.
Assuming you had a time machine and some sort of "universal translator" you could probably bring someone from the Neolithic into the present time and have he or she recognise quite a few of the plots in modern fiction and drama.
Copyright law exists specifically because the printed word is reproducable in mass quantities in ways nothing else was before the gutenberg press was invented, and so it needed different laws applied to it.
One property the Gutenberg Press had was it was only cheap per copy if a large number of copies were produced. Much the same applies to later technologies which used a similar business model to that already established by book publishers. We now have a situation where it is possible to copy something on a one off basis at very low cost. A bit more expensive with books, since you need something to turn the pages.
Copyright is about granting temporary monopoly over all copies of your work - long enough to make money off it but not long enough to keep it out of the public domain forever.
Also not long enough to set someone (and their grandchildren) up for life on the basis of a "one hit wonder". So that they could squander their talent. The idea of copyright, at least in the US, is to encourage the creation of new works.
Ideas are not property. Inventions are not property. Copyright laws weren't invented to protect 'property' (there are other laws for this, dealing with 'larceny') but to allow creative sorts some measure of time to profit from their work before said work was turned over to the commons.
N.B. Nowhere in this is there a guarentee that a specific work will produce profits.
The problem with long copyrights is relatively straight-forward: what you invent is by necessity based upon all relevant inventions, research, and science that's gone before you. Your invention would not have been possible if these things had not been available to you. Overly long copyrights make it possible to stifle or even bring creation to a screeching halt because they profit only those invested in the status quo.
They can also stifle creation of new material because someone is still making money off something they did a long time ago or they are waiting for something old to start making money.
Remember, we live in a society where copyright extends to 1-click shopping and naturally occurring phenomena, like genes.
The latter is more a patent issue. But neither copyright or patents were ever intended to address where something can self replicate.
If the Iraqis were to wait 5 years, gather various arms through the US (the companies are FAR too greedy to keep THAT from happening), and then to take out a group of US armed troops, the US public might get a fucking clue.
Or would they demand an Iraqi "Rolling Thunder"?
The public today is far more apathetic. Don't expect a Vietnam situation, where they, as a whole, actually care about people like the Iraqis
Especially given that Arabs have already been built up in the US public's perception as being "bad people".
There are three (3) countries in the world that still uses the imperial system: Liberia, Burma and the US.
Actually the US uses the "English" system. Which differs from the Imperial system, especially when it comes to units of volume. Both the English and Imperial inch ended up being made the same in WWII. Now the Inch is "soft metric" of 25.4mm
Every other contry implements the metric system..
Sort of the UK is still doing odd things like selling most liquids in metric but others in multiples of 568ml (which happens to be the Imperial pint).
Yes, because people can't do simple conversions in their head. One kilometer is approximately 1.6 miles. Round off to 1.5 times and you have a good generalization.
Poster manages to prove their own point since 1 mile is approx 1.6 km, 1 km being approx 0.625 miles.
In america, they do it right. Last year, I checked out the fastest train in the US, (the acela) [acela.com]. But, due to all same kind of factors (like even though it went from washington to boston, it could only go fast in a certain section of NJ), it was generally a wash.
Most likely track and/or signaling. At above a certain speed signalling by the driver looking out of a window at a trackside light just dosn't work. IIRC track owners in the US tend to give priority to freight over passenger trains.
Apparently First Great Western trains (that's a UK train company, for those not in the know) have begun trialling this technology for their mainline service between Bristol and London.
The real irony is that some of the current trains First Great Western run actually take longer than when the service was run by GWR using steam powered trains.
While blocking outgoing 25 has benefits, the person who carries around a work laptop that relies on authenticated SMTP will be calling you when it won't work.
As well as anything which actually follows the RFCs and uses MX records to decide where to try and send mail. Transparent proxying won't break this, however it will break anything which expects to be able to talk to a specific third party relay. Which includes an authenticated relay.
The point being that the US has overthrown Saddam for their own reasons, will install a puppet government for the same, and history will repeat ad nauseum until a bureaucrat in the white house acheives some level of common sense.
What is the chance of that actually happening? The only thing likely to change this is if the US public a) realises that US goverments have been messing with other countries to try and ensure they have a "US friendly" (read "US corporate friendly") regime for a long time and b) they do something to stop it. The "checks and balances" on the US government are either the US residents or the US citizenship (depending exactly how you want to interpret the US consitution).
In which case the Geneva conventions say that people should be treated as POWs until it's established that they are not.
When you are dealing with a country as poor as Afganistan, having every soldier well dressed with insignia and ID would be very difficult and costly. Also, the country was being attacked/invaded by a much larger, better trained and equipped force. Guerilla warfare would be a key defence strategy. So proper military dress would not be worn (so as to blend into the civilian population).
The trick to Iraq's new government is going to be keeping the country whole and allowing distinct cultures and peoples (with considerable historical baggage towards each other) to all have a say in that unified government.
Explain to me how copyright extensions are preventing the creation of new works... I would agree they might stem the creation of derivative works, but not new works
Just about every "new" work is likely to be (or can be seen to be) built upon pre existing works.
If existing copyrights were really for a fixed, non-negotiable time period, ANY fixed time period, the result would be that the money spent on extending copyrights on existing works would instead be spent on creating new works, to replace those that are falling into the public domain.
Also extending the copyright on an already existing work cannot possibly have anything to do with the motivation for its original creation. What ever motivation might have been needed existed whenever it was created.
Luckily, lower production costs would mean higher quality. The focus will be on the script rather than the special effects and paying movie actors a fair wage would get rid of some of the dead wood.
The "big names" arn't just actors anyway. Most likely you'd see fewer "names" with those which did exist being only the genuinly highly talented, but not irreplacable.
Copyright is supposed to benefit the whole of society by making sure that creative people get some recompense for being creative.
Not quite it's more that copyright can give the creator "first bite of the cherry". But it dosn't guarentee how big and juicy that "cherry" might be or even that it will exist at all.
Furthermore, the copyright laws of the US include a provision for fair use (like burning a disc for your friend); however, we currently have a copyright system that exists soley for the profit of CEO's.
Also these people tend to be "middlemen" rather than those who actually produce anything at all. The only other notable group who appear to have something to gain from very long term copyright are those who have a talented ancestor. Regardless of how much this ancestor might be spinning in his or her grave hoping for their children/grandchildren to make something of their own abilities.
If copyright really were a temporary thing, lasting, at most, 28 years, like it is supposed to, we would be able to freely trade almost everything ever recorded by The Beatles, The Doors, Buddy Holly, Elvis, etc. A great many novels would enter the public domain. Many films would be free to distribute. There would be a plentiful, rich, and significant public domain.
Which would also help stimulate new works and new versions of classic works.
As it is, books written by men long dead at the beginning of last century are still under copyright, a short cartoon of a rat is still locked up, and Michael Jackson owns the rights to Jahn Lennon's music.
There is a very real issue of the copyright on outlasting any actual copy of a work. Even that in the future "pirates" may be considered heroic for saving something which would otherwise be lost.
Right now, Japan is especially happy to have US military presence because of the N. Korea situation. If you read any Japanese news sites, you'll find a lot of concern about N. Korea right now.
Yet South Korea dosn't appear that happy with the US soliders being there...
Consider this: If free elections in Iraq *were* to take place this would inevitably result in a Shia-dominated government. Which would necessarily be aligned with neighbouring Iran which is also Shia.
It would be aligned, but not the same thing. Since Iraqi Shias are Arabs who feel kinship with other Iraqi Arabs. Whereas the Iranians are Persians.
So now there would be a basically fundamentalist power bloc the size of Iraq PLUS Iran - both quite large countries by themselves, awash in oil money
Iran has a much bigger population than Iraq.
and therefore good-bye to all US interests in the region,
The US might get offered some free jet fuel to make sure they leave quickly.
and rather a lot of pressure on Israel.
Only if it results in either Iran/Iraq having nuclear weapons or interrupts the US's ability to prop up the Israeli economy. Either senario being likely to lead to a big mess and lots of dead people.
Its a pity, Sadam didnt invite her to a meeting in one of his palaces when he was still on power...
Maybe someone can scribble something down in Arabic saying she was invited then get some Western jornalist to find it in a bombed out building somewhere...
In Iran, they wanted the Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic state. The Shah had serious military backing, however, from the United States (It was Rummsfeld et all who did this, btw, along with war criminal Harry Kissenger).
Go back a little further and you discover that the Shah was a tyrant installed by the US and Britain. Who overthrew a democratic government which wanted to nationalise the oil industry in Iran.
If by "we" you mean the US government, then no that exactly what they don't want. What they want is a weak democracy that takes its orders from the likes of Hillary Rosen.
Or even a dictatorship or oligarchy which pretends to be a democracy.
True democratic elections in almost all ME countries would lead to the current governments being toppled because of their pro-US policies.
About the only interesting question would be which ones would be left standing.
Bush's idea of free elections is for people to decide which of his friends to vote for.
Typically people who, whilst nominally Iraqis, havn't set foot in Iraq for decades. With their choice for "leader" being someone who Jordainan authorities are likely to consider an escaped prisoner.
More seriously, WTF is up with worrying about IP laws in a country that collectively doesn't have running water?
The last thing needed would be for water purification techniques to be patented and the pipe layout to be copyright... The more this kind of thing goes on the more the US looks like an Imperial power. Is Ms Rosen an Iraqi, an Arab, ever been to Iraq, able to find it on the map?
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I wouldn't say it's laughable. Consider the alternative for a momment. Which is better? Having a copyright which expires in 14-28 years, or one which expires in life + 70+ years? (Say, approx. 100 years on average)
Anything related to the date of the author's death is a potential nightmare for finding out when copyright expires. Are all copyright libraries ment to get a copy of every death certificate as well as every book published?
In the tech industry, the significant majority of books published have a shelf life of a few years at most. After that, they're practically worthless. Once taken out of print, the chance of them ever being republished is almost nil.
This is hardly likely to apply to just tech books.
Now, this doesn't hold for all publishers. Outside the tech sector, some books pay off in the long run. The Lord of the Rings saga is a perfect example. In those cases, from a business perspective, it's worthwhile for a publisher to hold on to his copyrights as long as possible because you never know which book in your catalogue is going to be "The Next Big Thing", and pay off big time.
You don't know if there will ever be a "big thing". Even if there is if it will pay for the upkeep of everything else of your catalogue.
But by that token, the retroactive extension of copyright to already-existing works, beyond the copyright terms they were created under, is just as much a breach of agreement with society.
Anyway since the purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation and publication of new works a retroactive extension is at best redundent. At worst it acts against such encouragement, since a copyright holder might be thinking "xyz is about to expire, best be thinking about creating something new" then when they find out that a copyright extension has happened they just don't bother with any new creation.
From your comment, it appears that you are a writer. Are you saying that all the ideas you use in your works are original-never-before-thought-of? If so, then Congratulations! Good for you! Pretty much all of the books I read contain ideas that the authors have drawn from elsewhere, either from other novels or other's experiences etc.
Assuming you had a time machine and some sort of "universal translator" you could probably bring someone from the Neolithic into the present time and have he or she recognise quite a few of the plots in modern fiction and drama.
Copyright law exists specifically because the printed word is reproducable in mass quantities in ways nothing else was before the gutenberg press was invented, and so it needed different laws applied to it.
One property the Gutenberg Press had was it was only cheap per copy if a large number of copies were produced. Much the same applies to later technologies which used a similar business model to that already established by book publishers.
We now have a situation where it is possible to copy something on a one off basis at very low cost. A bit more expensive with books, since you need something to turn the pages.
Copyright is about granting temporary monopoly over all copies of your work - long enough to make money off it but not long enough to keep it out of the public domain forever.
Also not long enough to set someone (and their grandchildren) up for life on the basis of a "one hit wonder". So that they could squander their talent. The idea of copyright, at least in the US, is to encourage the creation of new works.
Ideas are not property. Inventions are not property. Copyright laws weren't invented to protect 'property' (there are other laws for this, dealing with 'larceny') but to allow creative sorts some measure of time to profit from their work before said work was turned over to the commons.
N.B. Nowhere in this is there a guarentee that a specific work will produce profits.
The problem with long copyrights is relatively straight-forward: what you invent is by necessity based upon all relevant inventions, research, and science that's gone before you. Your invention would not have been possible if these things had not been available to you. Overly long copyrights make it possible to stifle or even bring creation to a screeching halt because they profit only those invested in the status quo.
They can also stifle creation of new material because someone is still making money off something they did a long time ago or they are waiting for something old to start making money.
Remember, we live in a society where copyright extends to 1-click shopping and naturally occurring phenomena, like genes.
The latter is more a patent issue. But neither copyright or patents were ever intended to address where something can self replicate.
If the Iraqis were to wait 5 years, gather various arms through the US (the companies are FAR too greedy to keep THAT from happening), and then to take out a group of US armed troops, the US public might get a fucking clue.
Or would they demand an Iraqi "Rolling Thunder"?
The public today is far more apathetic. Don't expect a Vietnam situation, where they, as a whole, actually care about people like the Iraqis
Especially given that Arabs have already been built up in the US public's perception as being "bad people".
There are three (3) countries in the world that still uses the imperial system: Liberia, Burma and the US.
Actually the US uses the "English" system. Which differs from the Imperial system, especially when it comes to units of volume.
Both the English and Imperial inch ended up being made the same in WWII. Now the Inch is "soft metric" of 25.4mm
Every other contry implements the metric system..
Sort of the UK is still doing odd things like selling most liquids in metric but others in multiples of 568ml (which happens to be the Imperial pint).
Yes, because people can't do simple conversions in their head. One kilometer is approximately 1.6 miles. Round off to 1.5 times and you have a good generalization.
Poster manages to prove their own point since 1 mile is approx 1.6 km, 1 km being approx 0.625 miles.
In america, they do it right. Last year, I checked out the fastest train in the US, (the acela) [acela.com]. But, due to all same kind of factors (like even though it went from washington to boston, it could only go fast in a certain section of NJ), it was generally a wash.
Most likely track and/or signaling. At above a certain speed signalling by the driver looking out of a window at a trackside light just dosn't work.
IIRC track owners in the US tend to give priority to freight over passenger trains.
Apparently First Great Western trains (that's a UK train company, for those not in the know) have begun trialling this technology for their mainline service between Bristol and London.
The real irony is that some of the current trains First Great Western run actually take longer than when the service was run by GWR using steam powered trains.
While blocking outgoing 25 has benefits, the person who carries around a work laptop that relies on authenticated SMTP will be calling you when it won't work.
As well as anything which actually follows the RFCs and uses MX records to decide where to try and send mail. Transparent proxying won't break this, however it will break anything which expects to be able to talk to a specific third party relay. Which includes an authenticated relay.
The point being that the US has overthrown Saddam for their own reasons, will install a puppet government for the same, and history will repeat ad nauseum until a bureaucrat in the white house acheives some level of common sense.
What is the chance of that actually happening? The only thing likely to change this is if the US public a) realises that US goverments have been messing with other countries to try and ensure they have a "US friendly" (read "US corporate friendly") regime for a long time and b) they do something to stop it.
The "checks and balances" on the US government are either the US residents or the US citizenship (depending exactly how you want to interpret the US consitution).
Actually, they may well be POWs.
In which case the Geneva conventions say that people should be treated as POWs until it's established that they are not.
When you are dealing with a country as poor as Afganistan, having every soldier well dressed with insignia and ID would be very difficult and costly. Also, the country was being attacked/invaded by a much larger, better trained and equipped force. Guerilla warfare would be a key defence strategy. So proper military dress would not be worn (so as to blend into the civilian population).
Do "militiamen" always have a military uniform?
The trick to Iraq's new government is going to be keeping the country whole and allowing distinct cultures and peoples (with considerable historical baggage towards each other) to all have a say in that unified government.
Assuming that's what the Iraqis actually want.
Explain to me how copyright extensions are preventing the creation of new works...
I would agree they might stem the creation of derivative works, but not new works
Just about every "new" work is likely to be (or can be seen to be) built upon pre existing works.
If existing copyrights were really for a fixed, non-negotiable time period, ANY fixed time period, the result would be that the money spent on extending copyrights on existing works would instead be spent on creating new works, to replace those that are falling into the public domain.
Also extending the copyright on an already existing work cannot possibly have anything to do with the motivation for its original creation. What ever motivation might have been needed existed whenever it was created.
Luckily, lower production costs would mean higher quality. The focus will be on the script rather than the special effects and paying movie actors a fair wage would get rid of some of the dead wood.
The "big names" arn't just actors anyway. Most likely you'd see fewer "names" with those which did exist being only the genuinly highly talented, but not irreplacable.
Copyright is supposed to benefit the whole of society by making sure that creative people get some recompense for being creative.
Not quite it's more that copyright can give the creator "first bite of the cherry". But it dosn't guarentee how big and juicy that "cherry" might be or even that it will exist at all.
Furthermore, the copyright laws of the US include a provision for fair use (like burning a disc for your friend); however, we currently have a copyright system that exists soley for the profit of CEO's.
Also these people tend to be "middlemen" rather than those who actually produce anything at all. The only other notable group who appear to have something to gain from very long term copyright are those who have a talented ancestor. Regardless of how much this ancestor might be spinning in his or her grave hoping for their children/grandchildren to make something of their own abilities.
If copyright really were a temporary thing, lasting, at most, 28 years, like it is supposed to, we would be able to freely trade almost everything ever recorded by The Beatles, The Doors, Buddy Holly, Elvis, etc. A great many novels would enter the public domain. Many films would be free to distribute. There would be a plentiful, rich, and significant public domain.
Which would also help stimulate new works and new versions of classic works.
As it is, books written by men long dead at the beginning of last century are still under copyright, a short cartoon of a rat is still locked up, and Michael Jackson owns the rights to Jahn Lennon's music.
There is a very real issue of the copyright on outlasting any actual copy of a work. Even that in the future "pirates" may be considered heroic for saving something which would otherwise be lost.
Right now, Japan is especially happy to have US military presence because of the N. Korea situation. If you read any Japanese news sites, you'll find a lot of concern about N. Korea right now.
Yet South Korea dosn't appear that happy with the US soliders being there...
Consider this: If free elections in Iraq *were* to take place this would inevitably result in a Shia-dominated government. Which would necessarily be aligned with neighbouring Iran which is also Shia.
It would be aligned, but not the same thing. Since Iraqi Shias are Arabs who feel kinship with other Iraqi Arabs. Whereas the Iranians are Persians.
So now there would be a basically fundamentalist power bloc the size of Iraq PLUS Iran - both quite large countries by themselves, awash in oil money
Iran has a much bigger population than Iraq.
and therefore good-bye to all US interests in the region,
The US might get offered some free jet fuel to make sure they leave quickly.
and rather a lot of pressure on Israel.
Only if it results in either Iran/Iraq having nuclear weapons or interrupts the US's ability to prop up the Israeli economy. Either senario being likely to lead to a big mess and lots of dead people.
Besides, as somebody else mentioned here, Iraq already has copyright laws.
They are not cavemen you know.
The exact opposite Iraq being considered to be the part of the world where many aspects of civilisation first originated.
Its a pity, Sadam didnt invite her to a meeting in one of his palaces when he was still on power...
Maybe someone can scribble something down in Arabic saying she was invited then get some Western jornalist to find it in a bombed out building somewhere...
In Iran, they wanted the Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic state. The Shah had serious military backing, however, from the United States (It was Rummsfeld et all who did this, btw, along with war criminal Harry Kissenger).
Go back a little further and you discover that the Shah was a tyrant installed by the US and Britain. Who overthrew a democratic government which wanted to nationalise the oil industry in Iran.
If by "we" you mean the US government, then no that exactly what they don't want. What they want is a weak democracy that takes its orders from the likes of Hillary Rosen.
Or even a dictatorship or oligarchy which pretends to be a democracy.
True democratic elections in almost all ME countries would lead to the current governments being toppled because of their pro-US policies.
About the only interesting question would be which ones would be left standing.
Bush's idea of free elections is for people to decide which of his friends to vote for.
Typically people who, whilst nominally Iraqis, havn't set foot in Iraq for decades. With their choice for "leader" being someone who Jordainan authorities are likely to consider an escaped prisoner.
More seriously, WTF is up with worrying about IP laws in a country that collectively doesn't have running water?
The last thing needed would be for water purification techniques to be patented and the pipe layout to be copyright...
The more this kind of thing goes on the more the US looks like an Imperial power.
Is Ms Rosen an Iraqi, an Arab, ever been to Iraq, able to find it on the map?