If you are then there's two issues; One, will customers put up with it? History shows us that people tend to migrate to software w/o annoying copy protect schemes. Two, is it unbreakable? And if it ever runs at all, then it's breakable. It might be difficult, but again history shows us that people will also crack these things. (sometimes before it even hits the shelves!)
It would likely operate the way it used to: authors get paid the first time (and only the first time) that they release the work. So Neal sells the manuscript of Cryptonomicon II (this time it's #2hf^(i!) to Big Publishing Company A.
BPCA had better push it hard, because BPCB can buy a copy on the shelves, reset it and print it themselves at a lower price. BPCA has a very narrow window in which to recoup the money they spent on it.
Remember, a world without copyrights would probably result in people having a greater desire for works, not less. (after all, it's trivial; many books will be available for cost + a razor thin profit) There's still lots of money to be made, it's just an intensely more competitive environment.
Best selling authors could be like actors or sports figures; Neal might get a couple of million for Cryptonomicon II. Lesser known authors would get the shaft, but then that's hardly uncommon these days either. I don't think it would be as terrible as you seem to believe.
As it happens of course, fair use exists externally to the law; it took Congress over a hundred years IIRC to formally put it in place after it had been introduced in the courts. (as the result of the many limitations on copyrights and inherent freedoms)
It's unconstitutional for Fair Use to be limited by generic laws, no matter what Congress or their corporate puppet masters would like.
I read it when it hit the library round here (KCLS in the Seattle area) and it was really very illuminating. I strongly suggest that people read it. If you're already concerned it's a good resource; if you're complacent it's like reading "Unsafe at Any Speed" while driving 70 down the highway in a Corvair.
The ARPANet was never intended to survive a nuclear attack. A lot of the confusion comes from a RAND study to that effect that came out around the same time.
The ARPANet _was_, OTOH intended to be fairly reliable, and permit many nodes to share a few (very expensive) leased lines. Packet networks are to circuit networks what time-sharing systems are to batch systems. The popularity of time-sharing is more deeply rooted in the design of the net than fear of nuclear war.
(besides, the net can barely survive a few well-aimed backhoes)
The US basically got their ideas about copyright law from (fairly recent) laws passed in Britain. There was, IIRC a LOT of debate as to whether or not it was a good idea; this issue is still open, I suspect.
As for war, we were at war with the British at that time; it's called the War of 1812 and lasted until 1814. (though communications being what they were, everyone kept fighting until 1815) Notable events during this war include: *Attempts by the US to invade Canada (again - we'd tried and failed during the Revolutionary War too, but we'll get them yet;) *Victories by the USS Constitution (it used to do stuff other than rot in Charlestown, you know) *The burning of the District of Columbia by British troops (famously, Dolly Madison -wife of then-President Madison - saved only a painting of George Washington from the White House) *The Battle of New Orleans, weeks after the end of the war, was an amazing success for Andrew Jackson, who would go on to be President
o/~...don't know much about history/don't know much biology... o/~
So what happens if you want to write a story set in Middle Earth? What if your story is (and this would truly be something I'd want to see) even better than Tolkien's, but fundementally relied on people already being familiar with LotR, etc.?
Would this not be progress despite infringing on copyright?
If not, then don't you agree that Disney ought not to have copyrights on their movies which are adaptations of fairy tales?
Lastly, works can't be owned. The physical aspects of the work can be, the copyrights can be, the works cannot be. Copyrights aren't the same as ownership.
The outrageous claim I was referring to was that of the person who's post I was directly responding to, not your post.
I disagree with you however (your statement is very broad) as there _can_ be types of intangible property.
Copyrights (the rights - not the copyrighted material) is property; it can be used by the owner, it's use by others can be restricted (although there are many things it can't effect one way or the other, e.g. fair use), and it can be disposed of.
A story, on the other hand, doesn't qualify.
But yeah - property ultimately comes down to 'might makes right' and is not really a god-given right in the way that the unbridled freedom of speech includes the ability to copy and redistribute information freely.
The trick is this: require all the people donating to donate into an fund held by a third party. Then all cumulative donations are transferred to the school, but in a single lump, and the school is not informed by the third party who donated and how much.
Nike can claim to have donated $10 million if they like, but as long as the school sticks to the anonymous system, they have no reason to believe anyone.
It definately shows who's being altruistic and who wants their name on something.
Well my school didn't have recognized frats & sororities because they don't permit anyone who applies to join. And as it happens, many of the students don't really like them anyway.
OTOH, we didn't have a football team anymore either, because except for about 50 years ago, they haven't really tried to recruit athletes. It was a lousy school for that; there was one race that I remember our team only beat another team that was unable to finish altogether.;)
Basically, there's no such thing. I suspect that the term was coined by lawyers who wanted their jobs to sound sexier. This is probably why you're shaky on the definition; it's doublespeak.
Generally it's meant though in reference to copyrighted works, patented inventions, trademarks, trade secrets and other forms of information.
Personally, I think that it's a very bogus phrase, I find it offensive and I avoid using it whenever possible. It's like referring to blacks as 'temporarily ex-slaves' or Jews as 'unbelievers damned to hell.' It's very weighted towards a specific point of view that's wrong to begin with.
Absolutely. Copyrights, for example, are intangible, but are considered property.
Copyrighted material, on the other hand, is not property, never has been, and never could be outside of an Orwellian world where up is down and black is white.
The Jefferson quote (boy, that's a good one) is an excellent refutation of your outrageous claim. If that's not enough, please check out some of my posts from Friday and Saturday, as they're pretty lengthy and I have no desire to retype them again and again and again.
Remember above all else, ideas aren't like property; an infinite number of people can have them at once. If I 'took' your opinion and also claimed that ideas were property, this doesn't keep you from holding the same opinion.
I'm no expert on any law. However, aside from it being impossible to own information (Jefferson, above, said it better and more succinctly than I have been) why shouldn't small incremental changes be possible, as long as credit is claimed only for the changes?
I read a lot of fanfic; fiction written about the stories and characters in works copyrighted by someone else. Yet, there is no small quantity of the stuff that's FAR better than the original material, but which still closely depends on it. (similar to the way in which fairy tales are often retold, because people know them already and are more interested in your version than the default)
These are considered derivative works 99.44% of the time, and as such infringe on copyright, despite that part of them that's original, and the whole being better than the 'legitimate' parts. You're telling me that this is a good thing?
But if you can't gain by withholding your idea under any circumstances, this does not preclude your ability to gain by disclosing it. Even if you can't control it after the first disclosure, you are still able to try to get paid by those you disclose it to first.
If people generally thought like you did we'd still be working on fire and the wheel. Fortunately most people love sharing their ideas, their works and their inventions.
Of course in cities streetcars were extremely popular for roughly 50 years. Originally they were pulled by horses, but they moved on to electric motors. (and in the case of San Francisco, being pulled by cables)
I just think that in different environments, different modes of transportation work better. In the sticks, you want a car. In the middle of the city, you want streetcars or subways. I lived in the Boston area for five years. I believe I drove downtown only twice, because it was such an amazing pain in the ass. Far easier to drive to a subway station and take the T in the rest of the way.
The copyright clause in the US Constitution is in Article I, Section 8. (along with a bunch of other powers that the Congress has)
It reads: The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
(This is where patents come from too.)
The two instances are 1) that authors and inventors only get the exclusive right for a limited time. If they owned it the government would not need to grant them the right, and this would conflict with the fifth amendment as well. 2) that copyrights and patents must promote the progress of science and useful arts which has never been believed to happen if you could own your information (or else we'd be paying the heirs of the guy that invented the alphabet, english, each of the words here, the constitution, etc. and this would not encourage people to use them constructively at all)
The Constitution and the Amendments are a good read. Even if you're not a US citizen I suggest you read them. And if you are you _really_ ought to read them.
I'm not sure. While the DOJ has to show that MS abused it's monopoly position and violated antitrust law, the remedy does not AFAIK have to remain specific to the violation the DOJ found, it just has to prevent violations in general. IANAL, but that's my impression.
Personally, I'd hope that AOL isn't allowed to merge with Time/Warner. It would be too big to be healthy and we'd very likely have to waste time breaking them up later.
As for Apple, when it violates antitrust laws, sure. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Do you know where I can find some screenshots of the Canon Cat? I've been looking around periodically, being pretty interested in UI, but I've never found any.
There have been a few other improvements to the MacOS you know.
IIRC the very first 128k Macs shipped had no command along the lines of makedir. Instead you had to keep an empty directory hanging around, and duplicate it as needed. I'm serious - I even have some old '84 glossy spiral bound Mac manuals detailing this process.
Macs weren't _really_ useful till 85/86 anyway, when the Plus came along. And I'm a big Mac guy, so I remember a lot of this.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are then there's two issues; One, will customers put up with it? History shows us that people tend to migrate to software w/o annoying copy protect schemes. Two, is it unbreakable? And if it ever runs at all, then it's breakable. It might be difficult, but again history shows us that people will also crack these things. (sometimes before it even hits the shelves!)
It would likely operate the way it used to: authors get paid the first time (and only the first time) that they release the work. So Neal sells the manuscript of Cryptonomicon II (this time it's #2hf^(i!) to Big Publishing Company A.
BPCA had better push it hard, because BPCB can buy a copy on the shelves, reset it and print it themselves at a lower price. BPCA has a very narrow window in which to recoup the money they spent on it.
Remember, a world without copyrights would probably result in people having a greater desire for works, not less. (after all, it's trivial; many books will be available for cost + a razor thin profit) There's still lots of money to be made, it's just an intensely more competitive environment.
Best selling authors could be like actors or sports figures; Neal might get a couple of million for Cryptonomicon II. Lesser known authors would get the shaft, but then that's hardly uncommon these days either. I don't think it would be as terrible as you seem to believe.
As it happens of course, fair use exists externally to the law; it took Congress over a hundred years IIRC to formally put it in place after it had been introduced in the courts. (as the result of the many limitations on copyrights and inherent freedoms)
It's unconstitutional for Fair Use to be limited by generic laws, no matter what Congress or their corporate puppet masters would like.
I read it when it hit the library round here (KCLS in the Seattle area) and it was really very illuminating. I strongly suggest that people read it. If you're already concerned it's a good resource; if you're complacent it's like reading "Unsafe at Any Speed" while driving 70 down the highway in a Corvair.
The ARPANet was never intended to survive a nuclear attack. A lot of the confusion comes from a RAND study to that effect that came out around the same time.
The ARPANet _was_, OTOH intended to be fairly reliable, and permit many nodes to share a few (very expensive) leased lines. Packet networks are to circuit networks what time-sharing systems are to batch systems. The popularity of time-sharing is more deeply rooted in the design of the net than fear of nuclear war.
(besides, the net can barely survive a few well-aimed backhoes)
Well of course - it's the song HAL sings in 2001 at about 45rpm ;)
I'll say - you'd get better terms going to a bank or a loan shark than you ever will from a record company.
The US basically got their ideas about copyright law from (fairly recent) laws passed in Britain. There was, IIRC a LOT of debate as to whether or not it was a good idea; this issue is still open, I suspect.
;)
...don't know much about history/don't know much biology... o/~
As for war, we were at war with the British at that time; it's called the War of 1812 and lasted until 1814. (though communications being what they were, everyone kept fighting until 1815) Notable events during this war include:
*Attempts by the US to invade Canada (again - we'd tried and failed during the Revolutionary War too, but we'll get them yet
*Victories by the USS Constitution (it used to do stuff other than rot in Charlestown, you know)
*The burning of the District of Columbia by British troops (famously, Dolly Madison -wife of then-President Madison - saved only a painting of George Washington from the White House)
*The Battle of New Orleans, weeks after the end of the war, was an amazing success for Andrew Jackson, who would go on to be President
o/~
That's nothing. In New England it's called tonic.
The law has a hell of a lot to do with semantics. You'd do well not to ignore them.
So what happens if you want to write a story set in Middle Earth? What if your story is (and this would truly be something I'd want to see) even better than Tolkien's, but fundementally relied on people already being familiar with LotR, etc.?
Would this not be progress despite infringing on copyright?
If not, then don't you agree that Disney ought not to have copyrights on their movies which are adaptations of fairy tales?
Lastly, works can't be owned. The physical aspects of the work can be, the copyrights can be, the works cannot be. Copyrights aren't the same as ownership.
The outrageous claim I was referring to was that of the person who's post I was directly responding to, not your post.
I disagree with you however (your statement is very broad) as there _can_ be types of intangible property.
Copyrights (the rights - not the copyrighted material) is property; it can be used by the owner, it's use by others can be restricted (although there are many things it can't effect one way or the other, e.g. fair use), and it can be disposed of.
A story, on the other hand, doesn't qualify.
But yeah - property ultimately comes down to 'might makes right' and is not really a god-given right in the way that the unbridled freedom of speech includes the ability to copy and redistribute information freely.
I don't think MS has Color Sync yet.
The trick is this: require all the people donating to donate into an fund held by a third party. Then all cumulative donations are transferred to the school, but in a single lump, and the school is not informed by the third party who donated and how much.
Nike can claim to have donated $10 million if they like, but as long as the school sticks to the anonymous system, they have no reason to believe anyone.
It definately shows who's being altruistic and who wants their name on something.
Well my school didn't have recognized frats & sororities because they don't permit anyone who applies to join. And as it happens, many of the students don't really like them anyway.
;)
OTOH, we didn't have a football team anymore either, because except for about 50 years ago, they haven't really tried to recruit athletes. It was a lousy school for that; there was one race that I remember our team only beat another team that was unable to finish altogether.
Basically, there's no such thing. I suspect that the term was coined by lawyers who wanted their jobs to sound sexier. This is probably why you're shaky on the definition; it's doublespeak.
Generally it's meant though in reference to copyrighted works, patented inventions, trademarks, trade secrets and other forms of information.
Personally, I think that it's a very bogus phrase, I find it offensive and I avoid using it whenever possible. It's like referring to blacks as 'temporarily ex-slaves' or Jews as 'unbelievers damned to hell.' It's very weighted towards a specific point of view that's wrong to begin with.
Absolutely. Copyrights, for example, are intangible, but are considered property.
Copyrighted material, on the other hand, is not property, never has been, and never could be outside of an Orwellian world where up is down and black is white.
The Jefferson quote (boy, that's a good one) is an excellent refutation of your outrageous claim. If that's not enough, please check out some of my posts from Friday and Saturday, as they're pretty lengthy and I have no desire to retype them again and again and again.
Remember above all else, ideas aren't like property; an infinite number of people can have them at once. If I 'took' your opinion and also claimed that ideas were property, this doesn't keep you from holding the same opinion.
I'm no expert on any law. However, aside from it being impossible to own information (Jefferson, above, said it better and more succinctly than I have been) why shouldn't small incremental changes be possible, as long as credit is claimed only for the changes?
I read a lot of fanfic; fiction written about the stories and characters in works copyrighted by someone else. Yet, there is no small quantity of the stuff that's FAR better than the original material, but which still closely depends on it. (similar to the way in which fairy tales are often retold, because people know them already and are more interested in your version than the default)
These are considered derivative works 99.44% of the time, and as such infringe on copyright, despite that part of them that's original, and the whole being better than the 'legitimate' parts. You're telling me that this is a good thing?
But if you can't gain by withholding your idea under any circumstances, this does not preclude your ability to gain by disclosing it. Even if you can't control it after the first disclosure, you are still able to try to get paid by those you disclose it to first.
If people generally thought like you did we'd still be working on fire and the wheel. Fortunately most people love sharing their ideas, their works and their inventions.
Of course in cities streetcars were extremely popular for roughly 50 years. Originally they were pulled by horses, but they moved on to electric motors. (and in the case of San Francisco, being pulled by cables)
I just think that in different environments, different modes of transportation work better. In the sticks, you want a car. In the middle of the city, you want streetcars or subways. I lived in the Boston area for five years. I believe I drove downtown only twice, because it was such an amazing pain in the ass. Far easier to drive to a subway station and take the T in the rest of the way.
The copyright clause in the US Constitution is in Article I, Section 8. (along with a bunch of other powers that the Congress has)
It reads: The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
(This is where patents come from too.)
The two instances are 1) that authors and inventors only get the exclusive right for a limited time. If they owned it the government would not need to grant them the right, and this would conflict with the fifth amendment as well. 2) that copyrights and patents must promote the progress of science and useful arts which has never been believed to happen if you could own your information (or else we'd be paying the heirs of the guy that invented the alphabet, english, each of the words here, the constitution, etc. and this would not encourage people to use them constructively at all)
The Constitution and the Amendments are a good read. Even if you're not a US citizen I suggest you read them. And if you are you _really_ ought to read them.
I'm not sure. While the DOJ has to show that MS abused it's monopoly position and violated antitrust law, the remedy does not AFAIK have to remain specific to the violation the DOJ found, it just has to prevent violations in general. IANAL, but that's my impression.
Anyone know more about this?
Personally, I'd hope that AOL isn't allowed to merge with Time/Warner. It would be too big to be healthy and we'd very likely have to waste time breaking them up later.
As for Apple, when it violates antitrust laws, sure. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Do you know where I can find some screenshots of the Canon Cat? I've been looking around periodically, being pretty interested in UI, but I've never found any.
There have been a few other improvements to the MacOS you know.
IIRC the very first 128k Macs shipped had no command along the lines of makedir. Instead you had to keep an empty directory hanging around, and duplicate it as needed. I'm serious - I even have some old '84 glossy spiral bound Mac manuals detailing this process.
Macs weren't _really_ useful till 85/86 anyway, when the Plus came along. And I'm a big Mac guy, so I remember a lot of this.