There are some specific exceptions, but whether or not they apply depend on a number of details. (E.g. 17 USC 108, 117, 1001 et seq.) Odds are good that if you aren't already familiar with a particular exception that you fall under, nothing applies to you.
Fair use is an old standby, and it is true that any otherwise infringing activity could be a fair use, but remember that there is no guarantee that any particular activity actually will be a fair use. Fair use depends on the circumstances, and must be determined on a case-by-case basis and merely because something is fair for one person, that doesn't mean that it will be fair for another, even if all else is equal.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me that if we were to revisit several key fair use cases today, changed circumstances could render the outcomes quite different.
First, this only makes it non-actionable; that's not the same thing as lawful. The difference is subtle yet important given other provisions in the law, most notably first sale. (I have it on excellent authority that the bill was originally going to make it lawful, but that this was changed at the behest of the recording industry)
Second, the AHRA is almost never applicable. While it sounds like it is talking about things like using a computer to rip a CD, then copying the resulting files onto a media player, the rest of the Copyright Act and the AHRA (start with the definitions in sections 101 and 1001) make it fairly clear that this doesn't qualify. The well-known Diamond Rio case from the late 90's wound up verifying this, back when the RIAA was trying to use AHRA to kill off mp3 players just as it had DAT and Minidisc.
Unless you're using a standalone audio CD recorder (can't remember the last time I saw one of those), or specially labeled (and extra-expensive) audio CDRs, the odds are very good that you are not going to fall under the AHRA.
And given that the AHRA does things like requires compliant devices and media to support a DRM system (SCMS) and pay royalties to the recording industry, it's probably for the best.
We don't tolerate people who scream fire in movie theaters
Man, I hate that example. It comes from the Schenck case (which held, basically, that it was illegal to distribute pamphlets opposing the draft), which is no longer good law, and which, in any event, is never properly used.
Back in the old days (the Schenck case is nearly a hundred years old) theaters were deathtraps should they catch on fire, which was not an infrequent occurrence. Not only would the fire and smoke be deadly, but the panic as people trampled one another to escape, or pushed those near the exits (assuming they could be opened) so hard that they couldn't breathe, were serious threats. (Recall the infamous Station nightclub fire some years back to get an idea) Of course, were there a fire, it would be heroic to shout that out and warn everyone, panic or no. Schenck was concerned with falsely shouting fire, and causing a panic maliciously.
The standard in Schenck, however, was whether the speech and the circumstances surrounding it were such that there was a clear and present danger of causing some harm which could constitutionally be rendered illegal.
The Schenck Court by its own words would not find anything wrong with even falsely shouting fire in a theater that wasn't crowded, since there'd be no real danger of a deadly panic as people fled.
In any event the standard nowadays is that speech regarding illegal actions is not itself illegal unless it is intended to result in imminent illegal activity and is actually likely to do so. This is a much higher standard, and pretty tough to achieve.
As an example, Tea Partiers can run around with signs implying that they advocate violence against politicians and government officials or even outright armed rebellion, but they're protected because no one really takes them seriously and they don't actually do anything but posture.
Advocating genocide is protected speech in the US so long as there's no imminent danger of it being acted upon. Protecting that lets us protect all sorts of protests and advocacy; as usual, the First Amendment protects speech you don't like as well as speech you do. And it's important to uphold it, lest you find yourself on the unpopular end of things. Who around here would want to do time for merely talking about how it's right to pirate music or something?
Besides, it's handy to have hateful people out themselves. It saves an awful lot of trouble in identifying them, gathering information about them, etc. What good does it do to have them go underground?
As I understand it, the idea had been to dump it all on the moon. Sure, this might have caused a catastrophic accident that would cause the moon to hurtle into deep space at tremendous speeds, along with any unfortunates living in a moon base at the time, but what are the odds of that?
Oh? I think Google's got a fairly good fair use argument. A book search engine, while using all of a creative work for profit, does not appreciably harm the copyright holders, reduce the market for the book, etc.
After all, Google does precisely the same thing with web pages. If you think that a book search engine is a brazen violation of the law -- the whole law -- then search engines all need to be shut down for damn near everything.
I don't think that result would be in keeping with our copyright policy.
I understand how the GPL works. I even like the GPL. But the public domain is more important. Given this ordering of priorities, I really don't understand how things could work out differently. I'm open to suggestions.
If it's any consolation, a work that is derivative of a formerly-GPLed-but-now-public-domain work is only copyrightable in its new portions. Portions that were copied from the previous work remain in the public domain.
Well, in the fine arts, copyrights don't matter much. People pay more for the copy than for the work. An original Picasso, for example, is a worth far more than a postcard of the same piece, no matter how accurately the postcard reproduces the work. I suppose there are some fine artists who find copyrights to be very important, e.g. Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light, but they tend to be the exception. You could probably get rid of copyright for the fine arts altogether and it wouldn't change things very much.
Still, I agree with you. I have no problem with the US granting authors a copyright on eligible works if the author has registered the work with the Copyright Office, deposited copies and supplemental material with and as directed by the Library of Congress, and has placed a properly-formed and obvious copyright notice on copies of the work, let him have a copyright. If he renews within the time limit for renewal, and provides requested information with the renewal (e.g. updating his contact information so that he can be found), let him have a renewal term. Eventually there should be a maximum time limit, and it may even vary depending on the particular kind of work, but I don't really care whether or not the work is published beyond copies being in the Library of Congress. Worse comes to worst, those copies can be used for future third party publication efforts.
So you have no issues with people taking abandoned GPL projects and relicensing them as they see fit?
Although there would be a lot of details involved, I generally would support having abandoned, copyrighted software that was licensed under the GPL entering the public domain. While I suppose this means that some third party could offer it pursuant to some proprietary license, there wouldn't be much point, as they'd have no exclusivity over the public domain materials.
Indeed, I've never heard that GNU has a problem with the fact that copyrights are supposed to expire, which would result in the GPL no longer being particularly enforceable on those works. Reforming copyright law to deal effectively with orphan works merely causes this to happen sooner than later.
I thought violation of copyright didn't depend on whether you were trying to make money off the unauthorized use.
Normally no, but it is relevant in determining whether or not the use was a fair use; if it was fair, it is not unlawful despite otherwise being infringing. Of course, there are a number of factors that go into determining fair use, and it is always very fact-dependant. Just because a particular type of use is fair under one set of circumstances doesn't mean it will be under others.
And even if facts can't be copyrighted, a specific arrangement of them can be. The phone book's pages are copyrighted, even if the names and numbers aren't. You can copy the information but you can't just scan the pages themselves and reprint them.
Can be doesn't mean is, though. The arrangement and selection of non-copyrightable facts must itself be creative in nature as well as original (though do remember that originality, i.e. not having been copied, is not the same thing as novelty, i.e. never having been done before). A typical white pages will not be copyrightable in it's arrangement and selection of facts because it selects all the facts for a given area (few people want a phone book with only some listed numbers) and it arranges them in an uncreative way: last name, first name or initial, address, telephone number. Often this isn't an original way either, since they're just copying how other phone books were arranged.
In any case, I doubt there were arguments made that the article was uncopyrightable. Rather, how factual vs. how original a work is is another part of a fair use analysis. Generally, uses are more likely to be fair, the more factual the work used is.
I see, so I want to get paid for doing my job and producing profit/things at work out of greed. Burglars want to not pay for things out of greed. So we're morally and legally equivalent.
I don't know about moral equivalence; certainly copyright has no moral component to it. Authors are not awarded copyrights because they're good people. Copyright is a purely utilitarian system. Authors are awarded copyrights because doing so serves the public's interest in having new original and derivative works created and published and in the public domain. If copyright didn't do that, or didn't do that better than some alternative, it would be inappropriate, simply due to waste and inefficiency.
And from a utilitarian perspective, yes, there is a sizable equivalence between you and a thief. Your right to property is limited to what you can personally defend, and what other people are willing to allow you to have. If you claim to own the Brooklyn Bridge, it doesn't amount to anything because, at the end of the day, no one is willing to agree with you and behave as though you do; and if you attempt to enforce your claim, everyone else will outnumber you and stop you. OTOH, convince enough people, and suddenly you very well could own it.
Thieves are simply annoying, but if you're an individual, and you can't defend your things from a thief, you get stolen from. The answer is to band together with enough other people so that this no longer happens.
It's not pretty, and I wouldn't agree that might makes right in every context, or even for utilitarianism, but as for property law, that's how it works at the deepest levels.
Copyright's no different: Authors only get copyrights if everyone else agrees to grant them, respect them, and enforce them. If everyone said no to the authors, they'd have no copyrights. Both sides are acting selfishly, and the majority rules. To get copyrights, authors have to convince the public that it is in the public's best interest to grant them. Otherwise, why would they?
Well, perhaps there is a happy medium in which some piracy is illegal (say, if it is not done by a natural person, or if it is done in a commercial manner), while some other piracy is legal.
This could result in a shift as to what sorts of works are created and published -- movies might not be released to home video so much if studios could make money from theaters or pay TV channels, but would have to compete against pirates who shared copies online for free. Budgets might have to be reduced, but you can still make a surprisingly good movie on a small budget. It's mostly about the writing.
I would not be surprised to find a lot of pirates who would find that acceptable.
No, you're essentially saying that someone who infringes on a copyright steals the copyright itself, and now exclusively has a right to control, e.g. distribution, by entering into license agreements with third parties that the real copyright holder cannot do any more.
That's obviously wrong.
That's akin to saying that a person who breaks into your house suddenly owns it (as opposed to adverse possession, which is a little more involved), or that if the government censors you, it necessarily has a right to censor you as a result.
In fact, the possession of the copyright (or property right, or free speech right) is never lost by the rightful possessor. Instead, the right is kept, but has been infringed upon.
Hence 'copyright infringement.' It really is a lot more analogous to trespass than theft, I assure you.
Most piracy is not about formats, it's about getting things without paying.
That's not a bad reason. Copyright holders want to get money for their works out of greed. Pirates want to not pay money for works out of greed. They're both pretty legitimate in that regard.
Indeed, copyright is founded in greed; the public has a greed for new original and derivative works created, published, and in the public domain. Copyright is a means of getting more of those than there would be otherwise -- thus more greatly satisfying that public greed -- by accepting some delay in gratification so as to have something to use to get authors to do what we want.
The worst thing about pirates is simply that they aren't restraining themselves so as to get the bigger payoff later. That's hardly a great moral failing. It's just counter-productive.
Of course, if copyright isn't properly 'tuned' so that it isn't yielding the greatest net public benefit (or worse, so that it is harming the public more than if there were no copyright at all!) then the pirates may not even be acting against their own greater self-interest.
imagine trying to take out a GW of solar, it would probably take you more dynamite that you could get your hands on
That's why you'd target transmission lines -- lots of them, and multiple spots on each line, in a coordinated attack, so as to extend the time that cities would be blacked out by overwhelming the repair crews. (Extra fun if you hide additional bombs so that once the power is back up, you can trigger those and knock it out again)
Still, I generally agree that we ought to be pursuing wind, solar and geothermal more, drastically improving the power grid, and requiring greater efficiencies so as to lower the amount of power that we need in the first place. Space based solar would also be good, but we'd need to develop an entire space mining and manufacturing infrastructure to do it, so it'll take a while.
Eh, there was a day when you had to look slightly harder to find porn on the net. Some say that once there was no porn on the net at all, but I find that difficult to believe.
Man, I hated that movie. Only saw it the one time, having been dragged to it by my family. But IIRC, that part was real. There was one Pizza Hut in California someplace that had a web page that allowed for online ordering back then. I had read about it in Wired... probably sometime in 1994.
That's interesting. Provided that the FCC version was a US Government work, it should've been perfectly fine to post it (although not to post an identical version from Nielsen; provenance is central to copyright).
Do you think it was within the authority of the commerce clause to use the full power of the state to prevent a man from simply growing a crop on his own land to feed his own animals?
Yes, given that there was a nationwide regulatory system in effect to stabilize the price of that crop, and he was trying to get around it. It's quite similar to the vaccination debates that have been going around lately; it's not a crisis if one person skips getting vaccinated for various serious diseases, but if it becomes a common trend, it can be disastrous.
For somebody who is so liberal with the important words of the Constitution, you're sure strict about the interpretation of rants on the internet
Naw, I'm just a bit pedantic.
So, for you the barrier to representative balance and justice is... a building?
I don't think it's a significant barrier. I have no problems with enlarging the number of representatives, and while this might -- lot of emphasis on might, there -- result in representatives that are more attentive to their constituents and less liable to be bought by moneyed interests, I am very skeptical as to whether or not the House would be able to function reasonably well.
And of course, there are other concerns like mere logistical ones. I think that increasing the number of House seats is a serious issue and we shouldn't just assume it'll be a panacea.
Indeed, I'd expect to be a wash at best. We have more serious problems in our democratic institutions.
Build a new capitol.
I'm opposed to that. While I have my issues with the current building, I'm too concerned that any replacement would be in a more modern style. The last thing we need is a building designed by Gehry or one of those other shitheads. The risk is too great to allow for a new building. Maybe when architects stop building ugly crap. (This is not an imagined danger -- check out what happened to the Florida capitol in the 70's. The pictures on Wikipedia do not do it justice, so see it here)
Also, where would it be put? DC has gotten pretty built up over the years.
As for specific gerrymandering reforms, take the authority of districting away from the people who get the seats for starters.
No problem. We're talking about the US House, and the districts for that are drawn at the state level. Congressmen don't have authority over it.
I said that without reform corruption cannot be stopped from growing
And again, while I think it might be nice, we have more serious causes of corruption which I do not believe this will address. We may want to prioritize.
By the logic that is currently being applied, practically any in-state commerce "affects" interstate commerce and is therefore subject to regulation.
Do you think that it doesn't?
It's fairly obvious that this was not the intent
Intent is nice, but it's not all that controlling. It helps us to figure out what the language in the law means, but the Constitution is written in a very unusually general way; a lot can fit within its language. And there's still the hurdle of drawing that line between what is and isn't interstate commerce. Two states could easily have purely intrastate regulations (e.g. all cars in state A must have only 3 wheels, all cars in state B must have only 5 wheels) that if allowed to stand would impair interstate commerce, and thus run afoul of the federal government's plans.
The idea of a weak federal government may appeal to some, but if the fact is that intrastate commerce is an extremely minute amount of commerce, that idea can't go anywhere. Denying the scope of interstate commerce strikes me as more wishful thinking than mere disagreement over facts.
(the federal government is empowered to regulate commerce between, but not inside states)
You think that commerce within a state is unrelated to commerce without a state? If you want to reduce federal power, just say so. But arguing that it's illegitimate now just doesn't fly.
Lastly absolute limits must be placed on the maximum population that can be represented by merely one man in congress
There is. It is zero. Everyone that is represented in Congress (at least by a voting member; non-voting delegates don't amount to much) is represented by three members: Two senators and one representative.
If you're talking about a limit in the House, though, where are you planning on putting them? Does the Capitol get a new wing? Or would you gut the existing south wing and make it into one big chamber? (Assuming that's enough room; the maximum number of representatives allowed is something like 10,000)
steps must be taken to end gerrymandering at all levels.
Great. What, specifically?
but without a real desire to restore balance to representative government and the checks between branches, there is no hope to resist the slow creep of corruption
Wait, you're saying you don't think that they used to be corrupt before, at the earliest, the Civil War? I doubt that there's any sort of government that would lack for corruption. Even if you had a good and incorruptible dictator, there would still surely be corrupt underlings working for him.
I recall this anecdote of Thoreau's (dealing with the state government, but I don't think it matters much):
I went to the store the other day to buy a bolt for our front door, for, as I told the storekeeper, the Governor was coming here. "Aye," said he, "and the Legislature too." "Then I will take two bolts," said I. He said that there had been a steady demand for bolts and locks of late, for our protectors were coming.
Slashdot Mirror
Generally there isn't one.
There are some specific exceptions, but whether or not they apply depend on a number of details. (E.g. 17 USC 108, 117, 1001 et seq.) Odds are good that if you aren't already familiar with a particular exception that you fall under, nothing applies to you.
Fair use is an old standby, and it is true that any otherwise infringing activity could be a fair use, but remember that there is no guarantee that any particular activity actually will be a fair use. Fair use depends on the circumstances, and must be determined on a case-by-case basis and merely because something is fair for one person, that doesn't mean that it will be fair for another, even if all else is equal.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me that if we were to revisit several key fair use cases today, changed circumstances could render the outcomes quite different.
No.
First, this only makes it non-actionable; that's not the same thing as lawful. The difference is subtle yet important given other provisions in the law, most notably first sale. (I have it on excellent authority that the bill was originally going to make it lawful, but that this was changed at the behest of the recording industry)
Second, the AHRA is almost never applicable. While it sounds like it is talking about things like using a computer to rip a CD, then copying the resulting files onto a media player, the rest of the Copyright Act and the AHRA (start with the definitions in sections 101 and 1001) make it fairly clear that this doesn't qualify. The well-known Diamond Rio case from the late 90's wound up verifying this, back when the RIAA was trying to use AHRA to kill off mp3 players just as it had DAT and Minidisc.
Unless you're using a standalone audio CD recorder (can't remember the last time I saw one of those), or specially labeled (and extra-expensive) audio CDRs, the odds are very good that you are not going to fall under the AHRA.
And given that the AHRA does things like requires compliant devices and media to support a DRM system (SCMS) and pay royalties to the recording industry, it's probably for the best.
We don't tolerate people who scream fire in movie theaters
Man, I hate that example. It comes from the Schenck case (which held, basically, that it was illegal to distribute pamphlets opposing the draft), which is no longer good law, and which, in any event, is never properly used.
Back in the old days (the Schenck case is nearly a hundred years old) theaters were deathtraps should they catch on fire, which was not an infrequent occurrence. Not only would the fire and smoke be deadly, but the panic as people trampled one another to escape, or pushed those near the exits (assuming they could be opened) so hard that they couldn't breathe, were serious threats. (Recall the infamous Station nightclub fire some years back to get an idea) Of course, were there a fire, it would be heroic to shout that out and warn everyone, panic or no. Schenck was concerned with falsely shouting fire, and causing a panic maliciously.
The standard in Schenck, however, was whether the speech and the circumstances surrounding it were such that there was a clear and present danger of causing some harm which could constitutionally be rendered illegal.
The Schenck Court by its own words would not find anything wrong with even falsely shouting fire in a theater that wasn't crowded, since there'd be no real danger of a deadly panic as people fled.
In any event the standard nowadays is that speech regarding illegal actions is not itself illegal unless it is intended to result in imminent illegal activity and is actually likely to do so. This is a much higher standard, and pretty tough to achieve.
As an example, Tea Partiers can run around with signs implying that they advocate violence against politicians and government officials or even outright armed rebellion, but they're protected because no one really takes them seriously and they don't actually do anything but posture.
Advocating genocide is protected speech in the US so long as there's no imminent danger of it being acted upon. Protecting that lets us protect all sorts of protests and advocacy; as usual, the First Amendment protects speech you don't like as well as speech you do. And it's important to uphold it, lest you find yourself on the unpopular end of things. Who around here would want to do time for merely talking about how it's right to pirate music or something?
Besides, it's handy to have hateful people out themselves. It saves an awful lot of trouble in identifying them, gathering information about them, etc. What good does it do to have them go underground?
I agree. But the previous question was about copyright, and copyright infringement and plagiarism are not the same thing.
Actually, I'm fairly sure that to claim the 'fair use' argument, the original article has to be fully attributed.
No, attribution is not required for fair use.
As I understand it, the idea had been to dump it all on the moon. Sure, this might have caused a catastrophic accident that would cause the moon to hurtle into deep space at tremendous speeds, along with any unfortunates living in a moon base at the time, but what are the odds of that?
Perhaps Gerald Bull faked his death and is alive, and well, and living in North Korea?
Oh? I think Google's got a fairly good fair use argument. A book search engine, while using all of a creative work for profit, does not appreciably harm the copyright holders, reduce the market for the book, etc.
After all, Google does precisely the same thing with web pages. If you think that a book search engine is a brazen violation of the law -- the whole law -- then search engines all need to be shut down for damn near everything.
I don't think that result would be in keeping with our copyright policy.
I understand how the GPL works. I even like the GPL. But the public domain is more important. Given this ordering of priorities, I really don't understand how things could work out differently. I'm open to suggestions.
If it's any consolation, a work that is derivative of a formerly-GPLed-but-now-public-domain work is only copyrightable in its new portions. Portions that were copied from the previous work remain in the public domain.
Well, in the fine arts, copyrights don't matter much. People pay more for the copy than for the work. An original Picasso, for example, is a worth far more than a postcard of the same piece, no matter how accurately the postcard reproduces the work. I suppose there are some fine artists who find copyrights to be very important, e.g. Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light, but they tend to be the exception. You could probably get rid of copyright for the fine arts altogether and it wouldn't change things very much.
Still, I agree with you. I have no problem with the US granting authors a copyright on eligible works if the author has registered the work with the Copyright Office, deposited copies and supplemental material with and as directed by the Library of Congress, and has placed a properly-formed and obvious copyright notice on copies of the work, let him have a copyright. If he renews within the time limit for renewal, and provides requested information with the renewal (e.g. updating his contact information so that he can be found), let him have a renewal term. Eventually there should be a maximum time limit, and it may even vary depending on the particular kind of work, but I don't really care whether or not the work is published beyond copies being in the Library of Congress. Worse comes to worst, those copies can be used for future third party publication efforts.
So you have no issues with people taking abandoned GPL projects and relicensing them as they see fit?
Although there would be a lot of details involved, I generally would support having abandoned, copyrighted software that was licensed under the GPL entering the public domain. While I suppose this means that some third party could offer it pursuant to some proprietary license, there wouldn't be much point, as they'd have no exclusivity over the public domain materials.
Indeed, I've never heard that GNU has a problem with the fact that copyrights are supposed to expire, which would result in the GPL no longer being particularly enforceable on those works. Reforming copyright law to deal effectively with orphan works merely causes this to happen sooner than later.
I thought violation of copyright didn't depend on whether you were trying to make money off the unauthorized use.
Normally no, but it is relevant in determining whether or not the use was a fair use; if it was fair, it is not unlawful despite otherwise being infringing. Of course, there are a number of factors that go into determining fair use, and it is always very fact-dependant. Just because a particular type of use is fair under one set of circumstances doesn't mean it will be under others.
And even if facts can't be copyrighted, a specific arrangement of them can be. The phone book's pages are copyrighted, even if the names and numbers aren't. You can copy the information but you can't just scan the pages themselves and reprint them.
Can be doesn't mean is, though. The arrangement and selection of non-copyrightable facts must itself be creative in nature as well as original (though do remember that originality, i.e. not having been copied, is not the same thing as novelty, i.e. never having been done before). A typical white pages will not be copyrightable in it's arrangement and selection of facts because it selects all the facts for a given area (few people want a phone book with only some listed numbers) and it arranges them in an uncreative way: last name, first name or initial, address, telephone number. Often this isn't an original way either, since they're just copying how other phone books were arranged.
In any case, I doubt there were arguments made that the article was uncopyrightable. Rather, how factual vs. how original a work is is another part of a fair use analysis. Generally, uses are more likely to be fair, the more factual the work used is.
I see, so I want to get paid for doing my job and producing profit/things at work out of greed. Burglars want to not pay for things out of greed. So we're morally and legally equivalent.
I don't know about moral equivalence; certainly copyright has no moral component to it. Authors are not awarded copyrights because they're good people. Copyright is a purely utilitarian system. Authors are awarded copyrights because doing so serves the public's interest in having new original and derivative works created and published and in the public domain. If copyright didn't do that, or didn't do that better than some alternative, it would be inappropriate, simply due to waste and inefficiency.
And from a utilitarian perspective, yes, there is a sizable equivalence between you and a thief. Your right to property is limited to what you can personally defend, and what other people are willing to allow you to have. If you claim to own the Brooklyn Bridge, it doesn't amount to anything because, at the end of the day, no one is willing to agree with you and behave as though you do; and if you attempt to enforce your claim, everyone else will outnumber you and stop you. OTOH, convince enough people, and suddenly you very well could own it.
Thieves are simply annoying, but if you're an individual, and you can't defend your things from a thief, you get stolen from. The answer is to band together with enough other people so that this no longer happens.
It's not pretty, and I wouldn't agree that might makes right in every context, or even for utilitarianism, but as for property law, that's how it works at the deepest levels.
Copyright's no different: Authors only get copyrights if everyone else agrees to grant them, respect them, and enforce them. If everyone said no to the authors, they'd have no copyrights. Both sides are acting selfishly, and the majority rules. To get copyrights, authors have to convince the public that it is in the public's best interest to grant them. Otherwise, why would they?
Well, perhaps there is a happy medium in which some piracy is illegal (say, if it is not done by a natural person, or if it is done in a commercial manner), while some other piracy is legal.
This could result in a shift as to what sorts of works are created and published -- movies might not be released to home video so much if studios could make money from theaters or pay TV channels, but would have to compete against pirates who shared copies online for free. Budgets might have to be reduced, but you can still make a surprisingly good movie on a small budget. It's mostly about the writing.
I would not be surprised to find a lot of pirates who would find that acceptable.
No, you're essentially saying that someone who infringes on a copyright steals the copyright itself, and now exclusively has a right to control, e.g. distribution, by entering into license agreements with third parties that the real copyright holder cannot do any more.
That's obviously wrong.
That's akin to saying that a person who breaks into your house suddenly owns it (as opposed to adverse possession, which is a little more involved), or that if the government censors you, it necessarily has a right to censor you as a result.
In fact, the possession of the copyright (or property right, or free speech right) is never lost by the rightful possessor. Instead, the right is kept, but has been infringed upon.
Hence 'copyright infringement.' It really is a lot more analogous to trespass than theft, I assure you.
Most piracy is not about formats, it's about getting things without paying.
That's not a bad reason. Copyright holders want to get money for their works out of greed. Pirates want to not pay money for works out of greed. They're both pretty legitimate in that regard.
Indeed, copyright is founded in greed; the public has a greed for new original and derivative works created, published, and in the public domain. Copyright is a means of getting more of those than there would be otherwise -- thus more greatly satisfying that public greed -- by accepting some delay in gratification so as to have something to use to get authors to do what we want.
The worst thing about pirates is simply that they aren't restraining themselves so as to get the bigger payoff later. That's hardly a great moral failing. It's just counter-productive.
Of course, if copyright isn't properly 'tuned' so that it isn't yielding the greatest net public benefit (or worse, so that it is harming the public more than if there were no copyright at all!) then the pirates may not even be acting against their own greater self-interest.
imagine trying to take out a GW of solar, it would probably take you more dynamite that you could get your hands on
That's why you'd target transmission lines -- lots of them, and multiple spots on each line, in a coordinated attack, so as to extend the time that cities would be blacked out by overwhelming the repair crews. (Extra fun if you hide additional bombs so that once the power is back up, you can trigger those and knock it out again)
Still, I generally agree that we ought to be pursuing wind, solar and geothermal more, drastically improving the power grid, and requiring greater efficiencies so as to lower the amount of power that we need in the first place. Space based solar would also be good, but we'd need to develop an entire space mining and manufacturing infrastructure to do it, so it'll take a while.
Eh, there was a day when you had to look slightly harder to find porn on the net. Some say that once there was no porn on the net at all, but I find that difficult to believe.
You could have just looked it up on Wikipedia.
(And you really ought to watch the Marx Bros. movies -- at very least up through A Day at the Races)
Man, I hated that movie. Only saw it the one time, having been dragged to it by my family. But IIRC, that part was real. There was one Pizza Hut in California someplace that had a web page that allowed for online ordering back then. I had read about it in Wired... probably sometime in 1994.
That's interesting. Provided that the FCC version was a US Government work, it should've been perfectly fine to post it (although not to post an identical version from Nielsen; provenance is central to copyright).
Do you think it was within the authority of the commerce clause to use the full power of the state to prevent a man from simply growing a crop on his own land to feed his own animals?
Yes, given that there was a nationwide regulatory system in effect to stabilize the price of that crop, and he was trying to get around it. It's quite similar to the vaccination debates that have been going around lately; it's not a crisis if one person skips getting vaccinated for various serious diseases, but if it becomes a common trend, it can be disastrous.
For somebody who is so liberal with the important words of the Constitution, you're sure strict about the interpretation of rants on the internet
Naw, I'm just a bit pedantic.
So, for you the barrier to representative balance and justice is... a building?
I don't think it's a significant barrier. I have no problems with enlarging the number of representatives, and while this might -- lot of emphasis on might, there -- result in representatives that are more attentive to their constituents and less liable to be bought by moneyed interests, I am very skeptical as to whether or not the House would be able to function reasonably well.
And of course, there are other concerns like mere logistical ones. I think that increasing the number of House seats is a serious issue and we shouldn't just assume it'll be a panacea.
Indeed, I'd expect to be a wash at best. We have more serious problems in our democratic institutions.
Build a new capitol.
I'm opposed to that. While I have my issues with the current building, I'm too concerned that any replacement would be in a more modern style. The last thing we need is a building designed by Gehry or one of those other shitheads. The risk is too great to allow for a new building. Maybe when architects stop building ugly crap. (This is not an imagined danger -- check out what happened to the Florida capitol in the 70's. The pictures on Wikipedia do not do it justice, so see it here)
Also, where would it be put? DC has gotten pretty built up over the years.
As for specific gerrymandering reforms, take the authority of districting away from the people who get the seats for starters.
No problem. We're talking about the US House, and the districts for that are drawn at the state level. Congressmen don't have authority over it.
I said that without reform corruption cannot be stopped from growing
And again, while I think it might be nice, we have more serious causes of corruption which I do not believe this will address. We may want to prioritize.
By the logic that is currently being applied, practically any in-state commerce "affects" interstate commerce and is therefore subject to regulation.
Do you think that it doesn't?
It's fairly obvious that this was not the intent
Intent is nice, but it's not all that controlling. It helps us to figure out what the language in the law means, but the Constitution is written in a very unusually general way; a lot can fit within its language. And there's still the hurdle of drawing that line between what is and isn't interstate commerce. Two states could easily have purely intrastate regulations (e.g. all cars in state A must have only 3 wheels, all cars in state B must have only 5 wheels) that if allowed to stand would impair interstate commerce, and thus run afoul of the federal government's plans.
The idea of a weak federal government may appeal to some, but if the fact is that intrastate commerce is an extremely minute amount of commerce, that idea can't go anywhere. Denying the scope of interstate commerce strikes me as more wishful thinking than mere disagreement over facts.
(the federal government is empowered to regulate commerce between, but not inside states)
You think that commerce within a state is unrelated to commerce without a state? If you want to reduce federal power, just say so. But arguing that it's illegitimate now just doesn't fly.
Lastly absolute limits must be placed on the maximum population that can be represented by merely one man in congress
There is. It is zero. Everyone that is represented in Congress (at least by a voting member; non-voting delegates don't amount to much) is represented by three members: Two senators and one representative.
If you're talking about a limit in the House, though, where are you planning on putting them? Does the Capitol get a new wing? Or would you gut the existing south wing and make it into one big chamber? (Assuming that's enough room; the maximum number of representatives allowed is something like 10,000)
steps must be taken to end gerrymandering at all levels.
Great. What, specifically?
but without a real desire to restore balance to representative government and the checks between branches, there is no hope to resist the slow creep of corruption
Wait, you're saying you don't think that they used to be corrupt before, at the earliest, the Civil War? I doubt that there's any sort of government that would lack for corruption. Even if you had a good and incorruptible dictator, there would still surely be corrupt underlings working for him.
I recall this anecdote of Thoreau's (dealing with the state government, but I don't think it matters much):
Law enforcement is empowered by the law. Discard the law because it 'hampers' them, and they're just another group of thugs with no legitimacy.