The PowerBooks first came out in 1991. There were no PowerPC Macs at that time, and the models introduced (the PB 100, 140, and 170) used the 68000 and 68030. The first PowerBooks with 68040's came out in 1994, as did the first PowerMacs. The first PPC PowerBooks came out in 1995.
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564 (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1968), Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 350 (1967), Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), see Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S., at 484-485; in the Ninth Amendment, id., at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923). These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541-542 (1942); contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S., at 453-454; id., at 460, 463-465 (WHITE, J., concurring in result); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, supra.
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation.
Generally though, no matter what source you're using for the right to privacy, the question becomes one of due process -- whether an imposition on someone's rights is allowable given some competing state interest.
They use simpler verbage like "unauthorized reproduction prohibited" and the like. It means the same thing.
That is completely false. CDs, DVDs, books, and the like are ordinarily sold. No license involving the reader exists.
The copyright holder still has their rights; the music does not pass into the public domain upon publication.
And if they said nothing (which is the case) they wouldn't lose their rights.
The fact that they don't use the word "license" should not be taken as tacit permission to put it in your Kazaa share directory, or make ten copies and give them to your friends.
Yes, because it would be illegal, not a breach.
Look, you clearly don't know anything about copyright law. So maybe you should not post about it, until you have learned something. Right now, at best, you're just being ignored. At worst, you're misleading people, and I dislike that.
As an owner of property (intellectual or otherwise) you must show a minimum of effort in protecting your asset(s), lest they be considered "free-for-all" or in the public domain.
DRM is not necessary to do this, and in any case, your statement is not true.
Either you steal content, and DRM bothers you, or you're worried about the trouble of accessing your rightfully paid for content.
Or you're worried about public domain content, which includes works which are copyrighted, to the extent that they are not protected by copyright (e.g. fair uses, section 117 backups, section 1008 copying, etc.) It also includes works which are no longer copyrighted at all; DRM doesn't expire when a copyright does, but will impede people from engaging in lawful activity.
DRM really is not tolerable. I don't think we can ban it, but I think we can strongly discourage it.
For forms created by officers or employees of the United States government (that is, the federal government), in their official capacity, and to some extent contractors if they can be construed as employees for purposes of determining the author of the work, there is no copyright. This is because such works are uncopyrightable under 17 USC 105.
Additionally, forms are generally considered uncopyrightable anyway. You cannot copyright a name, or a title, or a short clause or phrase. You cannot copyright the format or typography of a work. And you cannot copyright anything you did not create yourself. If you write down that, say, 12 inches equals 1 foot, that's not your creation and is uncopyrightable. Nor can you copyright an idea, method, or system for doing things. Where there is only one, or are only a few ways of reasonably presenting an idea, no copyright is allowed, lest the copyright effectively protect the unprotectable idea. The end result is that forms aren't copyrightable. Instructions accompanying it, if creative (and probably of substantial length) could be. And maybe even diagrams. But not the basic form itself. And again, if the author is the United States, there can't be a copyright no matter how creative the work is.
This has implications for the anticircumvention provisions in the Copyright Act. 17 USC 1201 prohibits the act of circumventing an access control applied to a copyrighted work, and trafficking in devices that can circumvent access controls and copyright controls. While circumvention itself isn't really interesting here, as circumvention on one work poses no threat to other works, the trafficking provisions are.
The sort of thing the original poster seems to want to do might involve 17 USC 1201(b):
(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or (C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.
If the tool is primarily designed or produced for circumventing protection for public domain forms, (b)(1)(A) isn't applicable. Likewise, if the tool-maker or other distributors of the tool take care to not get involved with its use in conjunction with copyrighted works, (b)(1)(C) isn't applicable. Of course, just because someone says that this is their intent doesn't mean that a court would necessarily take their word for it.
The main sticking point is (b)(1)(B). The tool could be used for either sort of work. And there is likely little use (or worse still, commercially significant use) of it in conjunction with public domain documents. Thus, it could still be prohibited to traffic in them.
Could go either way, but remember that a similar argument (for access circumvention devices) was made for DeCSS in the Reimerdes case, and was not accepted by the court.
I would rather see more original works than someone elses interpretations/rehashes of the same material
Why? They're both generally of equal artistic merit. And as often as not, the remake is better than the original. Again, see Shakespeare, who rewrote earlier plays and stories into his plays. He was not a highly original guy.
the only caveat is that to work with these materials you need to ask the copyright holder permission, possibly buy a license. So there is no real problem here.
Quite wrong. Permission is rarely forthcoming, and is costly. Do you really think that Disney will let me make and show my own Mickey Mouse movies? Only a tiny fraction of derivative works get made. By reducing or removing the restriction on this, the field can be opened up more fully.
noone is expecting a 'trillion dollars'.
I wish that were the case, but it's not. People who support expansion of copyright do so because they want more money. And worse still, they often want more money than the minimum amount that they would have still created and published a work for. That additional money is undeserved.
I'm merely pointing out we have to set a limit on copyright somewhere, and that that limit must be the point at which the public is best served, considering its equal interests in having works created, and in having works unencumbered by copyright. There will always be some number of artists that want more copyright than that, but they need to be ignored. We're better off without them, by definition.
Just because many people disagree with what the law says does not mean that the law is wrong.
Given that we're not talking about a civil rights issue, yes, the law is wrong when it does not serve the majority. Copyright is a utilitarian law; it is only tolerable when it benefits the public generally, as much as possible. We are not talking about freedom of speech, or due process, or other areas in which minorities need to be protected from majorities. Copyright has nothing to do with that.
I am only arguing that copyrights should be upheld whatever they are... I personally agree with a 20 year copyright term, plus minus 5 years.
You contradict yourself. If you think that copyrights should only last 20±5 years, then you do not think that copyrights should be upheld if they last for a different term. Instead, you must think that copyrights of terms outside of the range you prefer should be abolished and replaced with those that you do find satisfactory.
Frankly, we're a lot alike. I think that current copyright laws are completely intolerable, and must be immediately reformed. However, I do not think that merely bringing their length into the realm of reason is sufficient. The scope of copyright -- that is, what works are copyrightable, what exceptions to copyright exist, what conditions have to be met in order to get a copyright, etc. -- must also be made reasonable, and made to best serve the public interest.
A broad exception for noncommercial activity by natural persons is, I think, in the public interest. I do not think that the diminishment, if any, in creation that would result, outweighs the benefits of unencumbering works.
in the long term, the more works are created the better it is for the society in general
That is only true if the works are in the public domain. More restricted works are not as good for the public as fewer unrestricted works. There is great value in having works be free to acquire, enjoy, disseminate, and use as the basis for more works. For example, it's better to have Shakespeare's plays in the public domain, where everyone can use them, give copies to others (at no or minimal cost), and make movies and other plays and works based on them, than if they were still copyrighted but that copyright had caused Shakespeare to write some more plays as well.
Shakespears' works are in public domain, so no matter who you are buying these books from the proceeds are not going to the copyright holders, only to the new publishers.
So? The point is that people are willing to pay for things even when they do not actually have to. And if there were an exemption that permitted noncommercial acts by natural persons, no one could sell copies other than the copyright holder or people he authorized. He might have to compete against individuals that gave copies away, but as I've proven, this is possible.
If the final product does not produce the necessary amount of profit to cover the loans, does not create some profit for the future works, the author in question may never try doing this again.
And if there are copyrights, and the work is a flop, the same thing might happen. And by flop, I mean only that the author doesn't get as much money as he wants -- if he wants a trillion dollars, anything less is a flop in his eyes, and will discourage him from making another work. But it would be stupid to have a copyright system that panders to his desires.
When a work is created, etc. this results in a public benefit. When a work is copyrighted, this results in a public harm. The trick is to balance the amount of benefit and the amount of harm, so that the public receives the greatest possible net benefit.
Too much copyright harms the public more than the works created under such a regime benefit the public, and the public ends up worse off than it would if it had less copyright, despite that also meaning fewer works created. This is because the amounts of benefit and harm do not scale in a consistant fashion. One year's worth of copyright is worth much, much more to the author if the year in question is the first year of publication, rather than the one hundred and first year of publication. Thus adding one year to zero is more of an incentive than adding one year to one hundred. The harm to the public is more or less the same, however. What might be tolerable in the first year is just stupid in the 101st year.
Well, trademark could be scaled down somewhat. Trademark as a consumer-protection law that is aimed at preventing customer confusion is good (e.g. if I buy a can of Coke, I should be able to rely on it originating with the Coca-Cola company, and not somewhere else). However, there is no point in trying to protect businesses for their own sake, in the absence of confusion, as we see with trademark dilution statutes. (In your Lexus Chicken example, this is the case -- no one thinks there's really a connection, and why should a company get to control the use of a word even in areas which they don't do business in)
Geographic indicators could also probably go or be radically scaled back. I don't care if a bottle marked 'Champagne' is from France or California, so long as the country of origin is indicated. This seems quite protectionist, but lots of regions that originally created various kinds of cheeses, wines, and so on are trying to control the generic, geographically-oriented names of those products, even though the same stuff is made elsewhere.
So a significant amount of trademark law could be abolished, and we'd likely be better off. So long as it protects consumers, I'm okay with it. But trademarks are not acceptable as a sort of property that businesses should grab up for their own sake.
I think that abolition of copyright would be tolerable, but not ideal. (Except that certain kinds of works, e.g. unfixed works, chip masks, boat hulls, architecture, should not be copyrightable) Drastically scaling it back would be an excellent idea, however, if done right.
With regards to patents, I think that examination should be more exacting, disclosure requirements made more strict (i.e. disclosure of multiple best modes, whether known by the inventor, an assignee, or licensee, and with a continuing disclosure requirement through the life of the patent), certain subject matter made unpatentable due to the reason that patents provide no incentive there and are in fact likely harming invention there (i.e. the fields of software and business methods), and stronger exceptions for public health and research. Also inventions made with full or partial government funding should be unpatentable -- no reason to give taxpayer dollars to people and an artificial monopoly. Let them have one or the other, but not both.
Copyright serves public interest by giving more rights to the producer.
Giving rights to authors is not enough, by itself, to serve the public interest. Rather, the public interest is in causing original works to be created, among other things, and this is what may be promoted by granting copyrights. Still, remember that there are other forms of the public interest, and that sometimes to promote them means to not give rights to authors.
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include
That's right. There are factors to be considered. More factors can also be considered. And the factors are not determinative -- they're only a way to determine if the use is fair or not. Like I said, no bright lines.
Collectors always want the originals and the older the originals are the more they are worth.
That's not the kind of copies I meant, but it's worthwhile to remember them. I was thinking of printed copies of Shakespeare which are thoroughly modern. I spent a decent amount buying a copy of the Riverside Shakespeare, even though I could've downloaded the same materials for free. It's because I appreciate having a nicely printed hardcopy.
In a world where useful/priceless becomes useful/worthless in a matter of days (thanks to the internet, obviously,) this is truly a problem.
Only for people who make bad investments. Perhaps the situation will change such that it's no longer worth it to take out loans, and some works won't get made. That doesn't mean that it's not worth it when you consider the big picture.
I am sorry, I don't understand your point here. Your comparison is weird, are you telling me that fewer books by an author is better than more books? Or fewer songs by a musician is better than more? Please clarify.
You're right, you don't understand my point.
I agree that it is better for an author to write more books. However, it is also better for those books to be copyrighted minimally for the duration of the copyright, and for the copyright to last for as short a time as possible.
I think it is a bad idea to focus entirely on making copyright encourage creation. I think that even if the amount of creation was lessened, it might still be worth it in terms of the desire to have copyrights of minimal scope and short duration. Basically, I think that the net public good is what we need to look at, rather than one specific factor.
I think it's a shame that you view artists solely as something to be exploited by society by offering meager rewards for maximal gain, but of course you're entitled to your personal opinion. Mine is that a fair society should reward in proportion to benefit, simply because IMHO it's the right (if not the selfish) thing to do, just as giving to a deserving charity is. If an artist only ever produces rubbish, they don't deserve to benefit from it, but if an artist genuinely brings some happiness to millions of people, I have no problem with them gaining a large reward from it.
Well, copyright is utilitarian. The idea is to get the most reward for the public for the least cost. Paying more than is necessary is wasteful. Since it's the public that is bearing the cost, I don't think that charity is appropriate, at least not where everyone is forced by law to be charitable. If you want to personally reward an artist more than is necessary, however, I have no objection to you doing so, as long as I don't have to.
If an author or a band truly had the freedom to negotiate a fair price for the copyright they give up to their publisher or record label, that would be one thing, but they don't; in order to even get in the door, they pretty much have to give up their copyright to a mere middleman as the admission charge. There is nothing free about this decision.
I disagree. First, the choice is free. If an author wants to get the help from a publisher, he has to come to an agreement with that publisher. As it happens, it's a buyer's market; there are a lot of authors out there -- so many that publishers can adopt a take-it-or-leave-it approach. This still isn't a lack of choice for authors. They can still leave it, and continue to look for a publisher that they're happy with (assuming that they're unhappy even with terms you dislike; maybe they're happy even though you wouldn't be) or they can self-publish. But if you have your heart set on one of the big record labels or movie studios or book publishers, then you'll probably have to accept that they won't touch you unless you accept their terms.
Second, you greatly underestimate the value of a publisher. Frankly, most of the economic value of a work is due to the publisher, not the author. For example, a small movie studio can get a movie in, say, a hundred theaters. Revenues might be in the tens of millions. A big studio can get the movie in several thousand theaters, and revenues could be in the hundreds of millions. The movie itself is the same, but the publisher has better contacts and more money to invest in the project (e.g. in advertising more heavily, making more prints of the film, etc.). Is it wrong that they're unwilling to make the investment without a larger share of the returns? Why do you think that they should work for less than they can get on the free market? They're no more a charity than anyone else is. Artists should be -- and are -- free to get the best deal they can. So are publishers.
The artist is truly free to sell off the benefits of their work at what they believe to be a fair price, as you say, yet at the same time they are immune from the kind of bully-boy tactics in widespread use by major distributors today.
And that's the case now. EMI is not bullying musicians by not doing business with them if they cannot come to an agreement.
As their own, private agenda. Nothing provable in court.
You'd be surprised how provable in court it might end up being. It's entirely possible to look into her actions and determine whether she did them in her official capacity or not.
Why should a person who may have a vested interest in a company have less rights as a private individual than anyone else?
They don't, but you seem to be forgetting that one's state of mind is a factor.
If Alice, the CEO of a company that is competing against Bob, relies on the proposed exception for her own personal use, then that would be allowable. However, if she engaged in the sort of behavior that would be unlawful if not for the exception, in order to facilitate the interests of the company she is CEO for, then it wouldn't be. Courts are pretty good at being able to look at the circumstances and determine which is the case. And you did say that it was "for the sole purpose of squashing that competitor."
You seem to be doing something that many other/. posters do: thinking of the law as a machine that can be easily fooled, and which behaves in an overly mechanical fashion. It's a mistake to do so. You may enjoy reading the essay What Colour are your bits?.
What would stop the head of a company from personally distributing a work that somebody else did? Perhaps for the sole purpose of squashing that competitor? After all, if he's not doing it under the name of the company, there's no way the distribution can legally be tied to a commercial endeavor.
Of course it can. This is exactly the sort of facade that courts are good at seeing through.
I categorically do not believe that non-commercial endeavors should be exempt from copyright infringement on the sole basis that they are non-commercial.
My object is somewhat different. I'm interested in exempting ordinary people, in their ordinary lives, from copyright law. It would only remain relevant where the party involved wasn't an ordinary person (i.e. a non-natural person), or was engaged in some sort of commercial activity, since this is outside the realm of the sort of activities that people ordinarily would engage in and would need the exemption for.
If someone wants to write their own sequel to a book, and didn't do so as a commercial endeavor, it would qualify. If someone wanted to make a copy of something for a friend, it would qualify. If someone wanted to play a CD on their boombox loudly in a public area, it would qualify.
Permitting it to be legal would cause all sorts of problems that would ultimately do little more than condemn most currently unknown artists from ever becoming successful.
I disagree. Other than that there would probably be fewer copies of works sold to the public (although many people are willing to buy copies of even public domain works) I don't see much impact on new authors.
If someone wants to make copies of their book for sale, they'd need permission. If someone wants to use their music in an ad or on tv or for muzak, they'd need permission. If someone wanted to throw a concert or show a film and sell tickets, they'd need permission. If someone wants to broadcast their work on an ad-supported medium, such as typical radio or tv, they'd need permission.
Remember, people already engage in piracy on a massive scale, but of the sort that would fall under this exception. All this would do is legitimize what everyone is already doing. I don't think it would change how much of it goes on.
For example, I have the ability to pirate pretty much any movie I feel like, at DVD quality levels, and I know how to do it in a way that would strongly minimize my chances of getting caught. But I still buy and rent movies on DVD because I enjoy having them; not because I care about paying the author. So I'm essentially already in the situation I'm describing in my proposed exception. If it were to come to pass, I don't think my conduct would significantly change.
Ratify that personal use copying would forever be exempt from copyright infringement.
I don't think that's really sufficient. It doesn't permit for, say, non-commercial derivative works which wouldn't be covered by fair use. There are other interesting things to do with works besides make copies of them.
Fair use helps the consumer, while copyright helps the producer.
I disagree. Both are meant to serve the public interest, and are inappropriate where they do not.
as long as large portions of the original product are not being distributed illegaly
You have made a common mistake. A fair use can be any kind of otherwise infringing use, so long as it is fair, given the circumstances. You can sell copies of works, or large portions of works, and it can still be fair, given the entire set of circumstances. There are no bright line rules as to what's fair and what isn't. Just trends, at most.
You are depriving the original author of the natural monopoly on the distribution by removing appearence of scarcity of the product.
There is no natural monopoly here, only an artificial one. Remember, copies of a given work are essentially commodities. One is as good as another, basically.
but it makes the product appear WORTHLESS
Not really. I can get copies of Shakespeare for free, as it is a public domain work. However, his works are of great worth, and in fact people often pay money for copies, rather than pursuing free copies (often for reasons such as convenience, the quality of the copy, etc.).
In some cases not being able to retrieve the investment is very dangerous, as it may preclude the author from working on anything else that requires an investment
So? The author will always only invest as much as he thinks he can recoup, plus an adequate profit. No one is making trillion-dollar movies, and no one gives enough of a crap to suggest making copyright so expansive that such an idea would be reasonable.
If we reduced copyright in length and scope, yes, authorial profits might go down. I say might, because the vast majority of works are of no economic value, and of those that are, the vast majority make the vast majority of their revenue immediately upon publication in a given medium, e.g. movies make most of their money in the first few weeks they are released in theaters, or on dvd, etc. and not for years upon years.
However, if the public would nevertheless benefit more from doing so -- since the public wants not only original works to be created, but also for derivative works to be created, and for works to have the least copyright possible, and for works to rapidly enter the public domain -- than if we didn't reduce them, then it would be worth it.
It's like, I don't know, cars. People like cars and the freedom of movement they provide, but we need a functioning environment and we like it to function in a particular way. It could be that the best thing for humanity involves fewer cars on the road. The inconvenience is worth having good weather and our continued survival on this planet. Yes, it's bad for the car companies, but more importantly, it's good for everyone in general. Paying attention only to what's good for authors is like paying attention only to what's good for General Motors.
If I rely on the fruits of my labor to feed my family, let me make the choice of whether I want to give it away, OK?
Why? Remember, you're the one asking us to artificially cause the fruits of your labor to have additional (or any) economic value, at our expense. It's got to be our choice. Your choice is in doing that sort of labor, or getting a different kind of job.
If we get more of a benefit from your work, even after considering the cost of subsidizing you via a copyright system, then it is worth it to us. If not, we're all better off if you work as an accountant or something. And if you'd create it without a subsidy, it's wasteful of us to give you one; better to reserve that for those that actually need them.
My idea has been this: I would exempt otherwise infringing actions taken by natural persons, if not commercial in nature.
Thus, if Alice the author wrote a book, Bob could give copies away to Carol for free. However, Bob could not lawfully make and sell copies to Dave. And Bob's company could not make use of the exemption no matter what, since it's a corporation.
While this might reduce the revenues of some authors, I think that the benefits for the public (such as publication of works and creation of derivative works) might outweigh the possible reduction of creation and authorial publication of original works.
It would also restore respect to copyrights, if only by reducing copyrights to match the current levels of respect, rather than trying to force the public to respect laws that they routinely ignore.
I'm not convinced it would be a good idea, but it's certainly an interesting one, and I would not be quick to dismiss it.
We should return to the original mandate of copyright for "promoting the useful arts."
No, patents promote the useful arts, and copyrights promote science, given what those words meant in the late 18th century, when they were written. The modern meanings are somewhat different.
When you buy from a legit music store online, you are not "transferring" or "copying" - you are downloading a licensed product.
Actually, you are copying, but have been licensed to do so.
If you mean the people who generate new works that are protected by copyright, then they are special, and of great value to society.
Meh. They're not that special. They're useful. So long as we can exploit them to the public's benefit, we ought to do so. To the extent that the public doesn't derive a net benefit from it, no special treatment is merited.
Artists don't deserve anything for being artists. They deserve a meager reward when they give us something of great value.
If making a copy does harm the copyright holder, then perhaps it should be illegal, since preventing such harm is what copyright law offers the rightsholder in exchange for sharing their work with society.
Meh. Depends on whether the harm is such that it would be better for the public to harm them and accept that some artists might produce less, or whether the greater production is worth not harming them. If an artist will still create the same stuff with little protection, why should we give them one iota more? That would be wasteful and harmful to the public.
the underlying right should be non-transferrable in law
I'm not asking you to go into it, but I completely disagree. I think that normal adults should be free to sell their copyrights in full, permanently, for any price they deem adequate. Your paternalistic attitude -- protecting artists from their own decisions -- is insulting and is not seen elsewhere, save for children or the incompetent.
This is funny because the US only recently joined Berne after about a century of staying out of it, and still is not in compliance with it. We've been successful without Berne, and I think we'd be more successful if we stayed the hell away from it, like the bad idea it is.
So you're saying that the reason that there are duplicate stories posted to/. is because they originate in a parallel -- and therefore evil -- universe? What a novel idea.
Re: science and useful arts, the framers' meaning is clear, it's just that English has changed since they wrote that, over 200 years ago. You can check in your convenient, pocket-sized unabridged OED for the historical definitions, but I'll provide them here just in case.
'Science' means something like knowledge, generally. Copyright is intended to promote this by encouraging people to write about any sort of knowledge, whether it's a story they made up or is a book about facts they've discovered.
'Useful Arts' is the field of applied technology. The word 'art' in this old sense is still present in a few places in our language: e.g. prior art, or state of the art. The useful arts are intended to be promoted by patents. Technology must have utility -- use -- in order to be patentable; a requirement we have today, and have had for a very long time. Inventions that aren't good for anything, such as perpetual motion machines that don't work (since their objective is impossible) are unpatentable.
The structure of the clause -- science/useful arts, authors/inventors, writings/discoveries -- also indicates what language refers to copyrights, and what to patents.
Actually, that's assumption of risk in a tort context (and it's volenti, not volonti, IIRC). I'm talking about assumption of risk in a contractual context. There's a pretty significant difference. Furthermore, neither artists nor publishers are in a position where consumer protection has any traction as an argument either.
Ultimately, I see a contract to sell a copyright as being no different than a contract to sell a car, or a house, etc. So long as the parties act in good faith and have the ability to contract, etc. there is no need to allow either of them to later be able to engage in rescission. Maybe they'll make a bad deal, but the law should not protect everyone from their own poor judgment.
Slashdot Mirror
The PowerBooks first came out in 1991. There were no PowerPC Macs at that time, and the models introduced (the PB 100, 140, and 170) used the 68000 and 68030. The first PowerBooks with 68040's came out in 1994, as did the first PowerMacs. The first PPC PowerBooks came out in 1995.
Generally though, no matter what source you're using for the right to privacy, the question becomes one of due process -- whether an imposition on someone's rights is allowable given some competing state interest.
And what's your policy on half-penny loaves, three hoop'd pots, and small beer?
They use simpler verbage like "unauthorized reproduction prohibited" and the like. It means the same thing.
That is completely false. CDs, DVDs, books, and the like are ordinarily sold. No license involving the reader exists.
The copyright holder still has their rights; the music does not pass into the public domain upon publication.
And if they said nothing (which is the case) they wouldn't lose their rights.
The fact that they don't use the word "license" should not be taken as tacit permission to put it in your Kazaa share directory, or make ten copies and give them to your friends.
Yes, because it would be illegal, not a breach.
Look, you clearly don't know anything about copyright law. So maybe you should not post about it, until you have learned something. Right now, at best, you're just being ignored. At worst, you're misleading people, and I dislike that.
As an owner of property (intellectual or otherwise) you must show a minimum of effort in protecting your asset(s), lest they be considered "free-for-all" or in the public domain.
DRM is not necessary to do this, and in any case, your statement is not true.
Either you steal content, and DRM bothers you, or you're worried about the trouble of accessing your rightfully paid for content.
Or you're worried about public domain content, which includes works which are copyrighted, to the extent that they are not protected by copyright (e.g. fair uses, section 117 backups, section 1008 copying, etc.) It also includes works which are no longer copyrighted at all; DRM doesn't expire when a copyright does, but will impede people from engaging in lawful activity.
DRM really is not tolerable. I don't think we can ban it, but I think we can strongly discourage it.
Additionally, forms are generally considered uncopyrightable anyway. You cannot copyright a name, or a title, or a short clause or phrase. You cannot copyright the format or typography of a work. And you cannot copyright anything you did not create yourself. If you write down that, say, 12 inches equals 1 foot, that's not your creation and is uncopyrightable. Nor can you copyright an idea, method, or system for doing things. Where there is only one, or are only a few ways of reasonably presenting an idea, no copyright is allowed, lest the copyright effectively protect the unprotectable idea. The end result is that forms aren't copyrightable. Instructions accompanying it, if creative (and probably of substantial length) could be. And maybe even diagrams. But not the basic form itself. And again, if the author is the United States, there can't be a copyright no matter how creative the work is.
This has implications for the anticircumvention provisions in the Copyright Act. 17 USC 1201 prohibits the act of circumventing an access control applied to a copyrighted work, and trafficking in devices that can circumvent access controls and copyright controls. While circumvention itself isn't really interesting here, as circumvention on one work poses no threat to other works, the trafficking provisions are.
The sort of thing the original poster seems to want to do might involve 17 USC 1201(b):
If the tool is primarily designed or produced for circumventing protection for public domain forms, (b)(1)(A) isn't applicable. Likewise, if the tool-maker or other distributors of the tool take care to not get involved with its use in conjunction with copyrighted works, (b)(1)(C) isn't applicable. Of course, just because someone says that this is their intent doesn't mean that a court would necessarily take their word for it.
The main sticking point is (b)(1)(B). The tool could be used for either sort of work. And there is likely little use (or worse still, commercially significant use) of it in conjunction with public domain documents. Thus, it could still be prohibited to traffic in them.
Could go either way, but remember that a similar argument (for access circumvention devices) was made for DeCSS in the Reimerdes case, and was not accepted by the court.
I would rather see more original works than someone elses interpretations/rehashes of the same material
... I personally agree with a 20 year copyright term, plus minus 5 years.
Why? They're both generally of equal artistic merit. And as often as not, the remake is better than the original. Again, see Shakespeare, who rewrote earlier plays and stories into his plays. He was not a highly original guy.
the only caveat is that to work with these materials you need to ask the copyright holder permission, possibly buy a license. So there is no real problem here.
Quite wrong. Permission is rarely forthcoming, and is costly. Do you really think that Disney will let me make and show my own Mickey Mouse movies? Only a tiny fraction of derivative works get made. By reducing or removing the restriction on this, the field can be opened up more fully.
noone is expecting a 'trillion dollars'.
I wish that were the case, but it's not. People who support expansion of copyright do so because they want more money. And worse still, they often want more money than the minimum amount that they would have still created and published a work for. That additional money is undeserved.
I'm merely pointing out we have to set a limit on copyright somewhere, and that that limit must be the point at which the public is best served, considering its equal interests in having works created, and in having works unencumbered by copyright. There will always be some number of artists that want more copyright than that, but they need to be ignored. We're better off without them, by definition.
Just because many people disagree with what the law says does not mean that the law is wrong.
Given that we're not talking about a civil rights issue, yes, the law is wrong when it does not serve the majority. Copyright is a utilitarian law; it is only tolerable when it benefits the public generally, as much as possible. We are not talking about freedom of speech, or due process, or other areas in which minorities need to be protected from majorities. Copyright has nothing to do with that.
I am only arguing that copyrights should be upheld whatever they are
You contradict yourself. If you think that copyrights should only last 20±5 years, then you do not think that copyrights should be upheld if they last for a different term. Instead, you must think that copyrights of terms outside of the range you prefer should be abolished and replaced with those that you do find satisfactory.
Frankly, we're a lot alike. I think that current copyright laws are completely intolerable, and must be immediately reformed. However, I do not think that merely bringing their length into the realm of reason is sufficient. The scope of copyright -- that is, what works are copyrightable, what exceptions to copyright exist, what conditions have to be met in order to get a copyright, etc. -- must also be made reasonable, and made to best serve the public interest.
A broad exception for noncommercial activity by natural persons is, I think, in the public interest. I do not think that the diminishment, if any, in creation that would result, outweighs the benefits of unencumbering works.
You are only talking about short term gain here
Actually, I am talking about long term gain.
in the long term, the more works are created the better it is for the society in general
That is only true if the works are in the public domain. More restricted works are not as good for the public as fewer unrestricted works. There is great value in having works be free to acquire, enjoy, disseminate, and use as the basis for more works. For example, it's better to have Shakespeare's plays in the public domain, where everyone can use them, give copies to others (at no or minimal cost), and make movies and other plays and works based on them, than if they were still copyrighted but that copyright had caused Shakespeare to write some more plays as well.
Shakespears' works are in public domain, so no matter who you are buying these books from the proceeds are not going to the copyright holders, only to the new publishers.
So? The point is that people are willing to pay for things even when they do not actually have to. And if there were an exemption that permitted noncommercial acts by natural persons, no one could sell copies other than the copyright holder or people he authorized. He might have to compete against individuals that gave copies away, but as I've proven, this is possible.
If the final product does not produce the necessary amount of profit to cover the loans, does not create some profit for the future works, the author in question may never try doing this again.
And if there are copyrights, and the work is a flop, the same thing might happen. And by flop, I mean only that the author doesn't get as much money as he wants -- if he wants a trillion dollars, anything less is a flop in his eyes, and will discourage him from making another work. But it would be stupid to have a copyright system that panders to his desires.
When a work is created, etc. this results in a public benefit. When a work is copyrighted, this results in a public harm. The trick is to balance the amount of benefit and the amount of harm, so that the public receives the greatest possible net benefit.
Too much copyright harms the public more than the works created under such a regime benefit the public, and the public ends up worse off than it would if it had less copyright, despite that also meaning fewer works created. This is because the amounts of benefit and harm do not scale in a consistant fashion. One year's worth of copyright is worth much, much more to the author if the year in question is the first year of publication, rather than the one hundred and first year of publication. Thus adding one year to zero is more of an incentive than adding one year to one hundred. The harm to the public is more or less the same, however. What might be tolerable in the first year is just stupid in the 101st year.
Well, trademark could be scaled down somewhat. Trademark as a consumer-protection law that is aimed at preventing customer confusion is good (e.g. if I buy a can of Coke, I should be able to rely on it originating with the Coca-Cola company, and not somewhere else). However, there is no point in trying to protect businesses for their own sake, in the absence of confusion, as we see with trademark dilution statutes. (In your Lexus Chicken example, this is the case -- no one thinks there's really a connection, and why should a company get to control the use of a word even in areas which they don't do business in)
Geographic indicators could also probably go or be radically scaled back. I don't care if a bottle marked 'Champagne' is from France or California, so long as the country of origin is indicated. This seems quite protectionist, but lots of regions that originally created various kinds of cheeses, wines, and so on are trying to control the generic, geographically-oriented names of those products, even though the same stuff is made elsewhere.
So a significant amount of trademark law could be abolished, and we'd likely be better off. So long as it protects consumers, I'm okay with it. But trademarks are not acceptable as a sort of property that businesses should grab up for their own sake.
I think that abolition of copyright would be tolerable, but not ideal. (Except that certain kinds of works, e.g. unfixed works, chip masks, boat hulls, architecture, should not be copyrightable) Drastically scaling it back would be an excellent idea, however, if done right.
With regards to patents, I think that examination should be more exacting, disclosure requirements made more strict (i.e. disclosure of multiple best modes, whether known by the inventor, an assignee, or licensee, and with a continuing disclosure requirement through the life of the patent), certain subject matter made unpatentable due to the reason that patents provide no incentive there and are in fact likely harming invention there (i.e. the fields of software and business methods), and stronger exceptions for public health and research. Also inventions made with full or partial government funding should be unpatentable -- no reason to give taxpayer dollars to people and an artificial monopoly. Let them have one or the other, but not both.
Copyright serves public interest by giving more rights to the producer.
Giving rights to authors is not enough, by itself, to serve the public interest. Rather, the public interest is in causing original works to be created, among other things, and this is what may be promoted by granting copyrights. Still, remember that there are other forms of the public interest, and that sometimes to promote them means to not give rights to authors.
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include
That's right. There are factors to be considered. More factors can also be considered. And the factors are not determinative -- they're only a way to determine if the use is fair or not. Like I said, no bright lines.
Collectors always want the originals and the older the originals are the more they are worth.
That's not the kind of copies I meant, but it's worthwhile to remember them. I was thinking of printed copies of Shakespeare which are thoroughly modern. I spent a decent amount buying a copy of the Riverside Shakespeare, even though I could've downloaded the same materials for free. It's because I appreciate having a nicely printed hardcopy.
In a world where useful/priceless becomes useful/worthless in a matter of days (thanks to the internet, obviously,) this is truly a problem.
Only for people who make bad investments. Perhaps the situation will change such that it's no longer worth it to take out loans, and some works won't get made. That doesn't mean that it's not worth it when you consider the big picture.
I am sorry, I don't understand your point here. Your comparison is weird, are you telling me that fewer books by an author is better than more books? Or fewer songs by a musician is better than more? Please clarify.
You're right, you don't understand my point.
I agree that it is better for an author to write more books. However, it is also better for those books to be copyrighted minimally for the duration of the copyright, and for the copyright to last for as short a time as possible.
I think it is a bad idea to focus entirely on making copyright encourage creation. I think that even if the amount of creation was lessened, it might still be worth it in terms of the desire to have copyrights of minimal scope and short duration. Basically, I think that the net public good is what we need to look at, rather than one specific factor.
Does this help you out, or shall I try it again?
I think it's a shame that you view artists solely as something to be exploited by society by offering meager rewards for maximal gain, but of course you're entitled to your personal opinion. Mine is that a fair society should reward in proportion to benefit, simply because IMHO it's the right (if not the selfish) thing to do, just as giving to a deserving charity is. If an artist only ever produces rubbish, they don't deserve to benefit from it, but if an artist genuinely brings some happiness to millions of people, I have no problem with them gaining a large reward from it.
Well, copyright is utilitarian. The idea is to get the most reward for the public for the least cost. Paying more than is necessary is wasteful. Since it's the public that is bearing the cost, I don't think that charity is appropriate, at least not where everyone is forced by law to be charitable. If you want to personally reward an artist more than is necessary, however, I have no objection to you doing so, as long as I don't have to.
If an author or a band truly had the freedom to negotiate a fair price for the copyright they give up to their publisher or record label, that would be one thing, but they don't; in order to even get in the door, they pretty much have to give up their copyright to a mere middleman as the admission charge. There is nothing free about this decision.
I disagree. First, the choice is free. If an author wants to get the help from a publisher, he has to come to an agreement with that publisher. As it happens, it's a buyer's market; there are a lot of authors out there -- so many that publishers can adopt a take-it-or-leave-it approach. This still isn't a lack of choice for authors. They can still leave it, and continue to look for a publisher that they're happy with (assuming that they're unhappy even with terms you dislike; maybe they're happy even though you wouldn't be) or they can self-publish. But if you have your heart set on one of the big record labels or movie studios or book publishers, then you'll probably have to accept that they won't touch you unless you accept their terms.
Second, you greatly underestimate the value of a publisher. Frankly, most of the economic value of a work is due to the publisher, not the author. For example, a small movie studio can get a movie in, say, a hundred theaters. Revenues might be in the tens of millions. A big studio can get the movie in several thousand theaters, and revenues could be in the hundreds of millions. The movie itself is the same, but the publisher has better contacts and more money to invest in the project (e.g. in advertising more heavily, making more prints of the film, etc.). Is it wrong that they're unwilling to make the investment without a larger share of the returns? Why do you think that they should work for less than they can get on the free market? They're no more a charity than anyone else is. Artists should be -- and are -- free to get the best deal they can. So are publishers.
The artist is truly free to sell off the benefits of their work at what they believe to be a fair price, as you say, yet at the same time they are immune from the kind of bully-boy tactics in widespread use by major distributors today.
And that's the case now. EMI is not bullying musicians by not doing business with them if they cannot come to an agreement.
As their own, private agenda. Nothing provable in court.
You'd be surprised how provable in court it might end up being. It's entirely possible to look into her actions and determine whether she did them in her official capacity or not.
What facade, exactly?
/. posters do: thinking of the law as a machine that can be easily fooled, and which behaves in an overly mechanical fashion. It's a mistake to do so. You may enjoy reading the essay What Colour are your bits?.
Why should a person who may have a vested interest in a company have less rights as a private individual than anyone else?
They don't, but you seem to be forgetting that one's state of mind is a factor.
If Alice, the CEO of a company that is competing against Bob, relies on the proposed exception for her own personal use, then that would be allowable. However, if she engaged in the sort of behavior that would be unlawful if not for the exception, in order to facilitate the interests of the company she is CEO for, then it wouldn't be. Courts are pretty good at being able to look at the circumstances and determine which is the case. And you did say that it was "for the sole purpose of squashing that competitor."
You seem to be doing something that many other
What would stop the head of a company from personally distributing a work that somebody else did? Perhaps for the sole purpose of squashing that competitor? After all, if he's not doing it under the name of the company, there's no way the distribution can legally be tied to a commercial endeavor.
Of course it can. This is exactly the sort of facade that courts are good at seeing through.
I categorically do not believe that non-commercial endeavors should be exempt from copyright infringement on the sole basis that they are non-commercial.
My object is somewhat different. I'm interested in exempting ordinary people, in their ordinary lives, from copyright law. It would only remain relevant where the party involved wasn't an ordinary person (i.e. a non-natural person), or was engaged in some sort of commercial activity, since this is outside the realm of the sort of activities that people ordinarily would engage in and would need the exemption for.
If someone wants to write their own sequel to a book, and didn't do so as a commercial endeavor, it would qualify. If someone wanted to make a copy of something for a friend, it would qualify. If someone wanted to play a CD on their boombox loudly in a public area, it would qualify.
Permitting it to be legal would cause all sorts of problems that would ultimately do little more than condemn most currently unknown artists from ever becoming successful.
I disagree. Other than that there would probably be fewer copies of works sold to the public (although many people are willing to buy copies of even public domain works) I don't see much impact on new authors.
If someone wants to make copies of their book for sale, they'd need permission. If someone wants to use their music in an ad or on tv or for muzak, they'd need permission. If someone wanted to throw a concert or show a film and sell tickets, they'd need permission. If someone wants to broadcast their work on an ad-supported medium, such as typical radio or tv, they'd need permission.
Remember, people already engage in piracy on a massive scale, but of the sort that would fall under this exception. All this would do is legitimize what everyone is already doing. I don't think it would change how much of it goes on.
For example, I have the ability to pirate pretty much any movie I feel like, at DVD quality levels, and I know how to do it in a way that would strongly minimize my chances of getting caught. But I still buy and rent movies on DVD because I enjoy having them; not because I care about paying the author. So I'm essentially already in the situation I'm describing in my proposed exception. If it were to come to pass, I don't think my conduct would significantly change.
Ratify that personal use copying would forever be exempt from copyright infringement.
I don't think that's really sufficient. It doesn't permit for, say, non-commercial derivative works which wouldn't be covered by fair use. There are other interesting things to do with works besides make copies of them.
Fair use helps the consumer, while copyright helps the producer.
I disagree. Both are meant to serve the public interest, and are inappropriate where they do not.
as long as large portions of the original product are not being distributed illegaly
You have made a common mistake. A fair use can be any kind of otherwise infringing use, so long as it is fair, given the circumstances. You can sell copies of works, or large portions of works, and it can still be fair, given the entire set of circumstances. There are no bright line rules as to what's fair and what isn't. Just trends, at most.
You are depriving the original author of the natural monopoly on the distribution by removing appearence of scarcity of the product.
There is no natural monopoly here, only an artificial one. Remember, copies of a given work are essentially commodities. One is as good as another, basically.
but it makes the product appear WORTHLESS
Not really. I can get copies of Shakespeare for free, as it is a public domain work. However, his works are of great worth, and in fact people often pay money for copies, rather than pursuing free copies (often for reasons such as convenience, the quality of the copy, etc.).
In some cases not being able to retrieve the investment is very dangerous, as it may preclude the author from working on anything else that requires an investment
So? The author will always only invest as much as he thinks he can recoup, plus an adequate profit. No one is making trillion-dollar movies, and no one gives enough of a crap to suggest making copyright so expansive that such an idea would be reasonable.
If we reduced copyright in length and scope, yes, authorial profits might go down. I say might, because the vast majority of works are of no economic value, and of those that are, the vast majority make the vast majority of their revenue immediately upon publication in a given medium, e.g. movies make most of their money in the first few weeks they are released in theaters, or on dvd, etc. and not for years upon years.
However, if the public would nevertheless benefit more from doing so -- since the public wants not only original works to be created, but also for derivative works to be created, and for works to have the least copyright possible, and for works to rapidly enter the public domain -- than if we didn't reduce them, then it would be worth it.
It's like, I don't know, cars. People like cars and the freedom of movement they provide, but we need a functioning environment and we like it to function in a particular way. It could be that the best thing for humanity involves fewer cars on the road. The inconvenience is worth having good weather and our continued survival on this planet. Yes, it's bad for the car companies, but more importantly, it's good for everyone in general. Paying attention only to what's good for authors is like paying attention only to what's good for General Motors.
If I rely on the fruits of my labor to feed my family, let me make the choice of whether I want to give it away, OK?
Why? Remember, you're the one asking us to artificially cause the fruits of your labor to have additional (or any) economic value, at our expense. It's got to be our choice. Your choice is in doing that sort of labor, or getting a different kind of job.
If we get more of a benefit from your work, even after considering the cost of subsidizing you via a copyright system, then it is worth it to us. If not, we're all better off if you work as an accountant or something. And if you'd create it without a subsidy, it's wasteful of us to give you one; better to reserve that for those that actually need them.
My idea has been this: I would exempt otherwise infringing actions taken by natural persons, if not commercial in nature.
Thus, if Alice the author wrote a book, Bob could give copies away to Carol for free. However, Bob could not lawfully make and sell copies to Dave. And Bob's company could not make use of the exemption no matter what, since it's a corporation.
While this might reduce the revenues of some authors, I think that the benefits for the public (such as publication of works and creation of derivative works) might outweigh the possible reduction of creation and authorial publication of original works.
It would also restore respect to copyrights, if only by reducing copyrights to match the current levels of respect, rather than trying to force the public to respect laws that they routinely ignore.
I'm not convinced it would be a good idea, but it's certainly an interesting one, and I would not be quick to dismiss it.
We should return to the original mandate of copyright for "promoting the useful arts."
No, patents promote the useful arts, and copyrights promote science, given what those words meant in the late 18th century, when they were written. The modern meanings are somewhat different.
When you buy from a legit music store online, you are not "transferring" or "copying" - you are downloading a licensed product.
Actually, you are copying, but have been licensed to do so.
If you mean the people who generate new works that are protected by copyright, then they are special, and of great value to society.
Meh. They're not that special. They're useful. So long as we can exploit them to the public's benefit, we ought to do so. To the extent that the public doesn't derive a net benefit from it, no special treatment is merited.
Artists don't deserve anything for being artists. They deserve a meager reward when they give us something of great value.
If making a copy does harm the copyright holder, then perhaps it should be illegal, since preventing such harm is what copyright law offers the rightsholder in exchange for sharing their work with society.
Meh. Depends on whether the harm is such that it would be better for the public to harm them and accept that some artists might produce less, or whether the greater production is worth not harming them. If an artist will still create the same stuff with little protection, why should we give them one iota more? That would be wasteful and harmful to the public.
the underlying right should be non-transferrable in law
I'm not asking you to go into it, but I completely disagree. I think that normal adults should be free to sell their copyrights in full, permanently, for any price they deem adequate. Your paternalistic attitude -- protecting artists from their own decisions -- is insulting and is not seen elsewhere, save for children or the incompetent.
This is funny because the US only recently joined Berne after about a century of staying out of it, and still is not in compliance with it. We've been successful without Berne, and I think we'd be more successful if we stayed the hell away from it, like the bad idea it is.
So you're saying that the reason that there are duplicate stories posted to /. is because they originate in a parallel -- and therefore evil -- universe? What a novel idea.
Re: science and useful arts, the framers' meaning is clear, it's just that English has changed since they wrote that, over 200 years ago. You can check in your convenient, pocket-sized unabridged OED for the historical definitions, but I'll provide them here just in case.
'Science' means something like knowledge, generally. Copyright is intended to promote this by encouraging people to write about any sort of knowledge, whether it's a story they made up or is a book about facts they've discovered.
'Useful Arts' is the field of applied technology. The word 'art' in this old sense is still present in a few places in our language: e.g. prior art, or state of the art. The useful arts are intended to be promoted by patents. Technology must have utility -- use -- in order to be patentable; a requirement we have today, and have had for a very long time. Inventions that aren't good for anything, such as perpetual motion machines that don't work (since their objective is impossible) are unpatentable.
The structure of the clause -- science/useful arts, authors/inventors, writings/discoveries -- also indicates what language refers to copyrights, and what to patents.
Typical. The one place where the copyright industry seems to be acting the way people would like, and it's Poland. ;)
Actually, that's assumption of risk in a tort context (and it's volenti, not volonti, IIRC). I'm talking about assumption of risk in a contractual context. There's a pretty significant difference. Furthermore, neither artists nor publishers are in a position where consumer protection has any traction as an argument either.
Ultimately, I see a contract to sell a copyright as being no different than a contract to sell a car, or a house, etc. So long as the parties act in good faith and have the ability to contract, etc. there is no need to allow either of them to later be able to engage in rescission. Maybe they'll make a bad deal, but the law should not protect everyone from their own poor judgment.