"They say the laws are presented so everyone could find out what they are and mean so there is no excuse for not knowing them."
Yes and I have a simple, workable solution to the mess.
[Has to be done honestly though.]
Give the jury a test on the law in question. If a majority needed to convict do not know it, the person charged walks. If they know the law, proceed to trial. Now the government has an interest in seeing that the citizens know the laws of the land.
"Perhaps in the interest of preserving the public domain, there should be law stating that any use of public domain material within derivative works should also fall within the public domain."
You don't need for the derivatives to be public domain, copyleft would be enough, no?
"The "government granted monopoly" thinking is something that I'm just peeved at."
But copyrights and patents are government granted monopolies.
You can protect your stuff yourself without the government, just keep all your ideas secret. Now sure, the government should protect your person so that someone does not torture you into giving up your secrets to them...
"I'm in favour of a copyright system in which automatic copyright is for, say, 30 years, and you have to register to extend it up to, say, 60 years. Patents should be valid for a lot less, of course."
"IP is a "government granted monopoly" in the same way as a piece of land you own is a "government granted monopoly". IP is NECESSARY in a free market."
I seriously don't understand your thinking here. Should your rights to your real property also expire after 30 years?
"It's actually sad. A composer or performer CANNOT copyright a harmony (the chords). The melody, yes."
"Actually, no. In 1994, SCOTUS found that using a melody from another song is legal fair use [benedict.com], if the new version is genuinely a new song, even if the entire song is noticeably similar to the orignal."
"Can you elaborate please?"
I was asking for elaboration on the statement that a melody could not be copyrighted in itself, only the entire song. (I think that meant words and music but am not sure as the thing does not make sense to me and so I asked for elaboration.
I don't think your post actually tries to answer the question. Am I missing something obvious?
[George Harrison stated that the events that occurred during the litigation of a claim that he had plagiarized the melody for his worldwide smash hit, "My Sweet Lord" from a hit single from 1963 called "He's So Fine" would fill a book.]
"A record album was a fairly large thing, and, covers were small posters in their own right."
Bingo!
I have been suggesting for a while that CDs come in album packages instead of CD packages.
Reading through this threadthis morning, I think it might be even better if the acbum package contained the album and the CD and all of the art, lyrics, etc.
"That's an interesting point I don't recall seeing brought up before. Do you have a reference?"
Hmmm now here's a thought.
Design a little market place...
OK, well a web site to go along with your net radio.
Let advertisers bid per listener to place their ads for the upcoming block.
You will need to know what it takes to pay all royalties and whatever expenses you want to cover and then set a minimum bid.
If the minimum bid is exceeded, take the payment from the winning bidder and run your normal show. If the bid is not enough to meet expenses, don't take the bid and run a show comprised of music for which no royalties are due.
Or take the payment with the understanding that you will run different content if the winning bid does not go above X.
You could also allow listeners to individually or in a pool, bid to run the next (any future) segment without commercials.
"Eliminating place-of-birth automatic citizenship would remove much of the incentive for pregnant women to travel to the U.S., and it wouldn't necessarily result in a huge number of stateless persons."
I understand the arguments.
I also know that this can be a sensitive issue.
Still, how much of the problem you want to address would be dealt with by not having automatic citizenship where the mother was in the country illegally at the time of birth but would give automatic citizenship if the mother was in the country legally at the time of birth?
I don't think you need to go this far... It would work to only have birthright citizenship for those whose mother is in the country legally at the time of birth... (And even this may cause more problems than we imagine.)
I think birthright citizenship is a good thing overall though. Stateless people are not a good thing to have floating around in the world.
I think we have some form of birthright citizenship here as well and we get our own set of problems related to it from what I gather.
No need to be that astounded. I schooled as an engineer though I never took a job in the field and thus never got my PE. There are similar laws in that field for similar reasons.
You wouldn't want to be driving over a bridge built by an unqualified person either. That doesn't mean that the licensing laws can not be misued to restrict competition instead of for only their intended purpose. It also doesn't mean that there is not a cost worth knowing about even when they only function as intended. (Assuming the best of intentions on the part of those drafting and passing them.)
"The laws against practicing medicine without a license are there for an extremely good reason."
Yes, and how much worse would that purpose be served by making it illegal to claim to be a member in good standing of "official medical association X" when not one.
In any case, even if the laws really are the only way to handle the situation properly, shouldn't we have some idea of what it costs us to have them?
Plus, I seem to remember hearing, please correction or explanations if I am wrong, that in the US at least, seeing a doctor with a license is not real protection in any case. I think I understood that nothing really prevents a doctor from setting up a practice and operating in an area of medicine for which he has little or no actual training.
Plus, you could have well qualified doctors from another country where the local medical association will not recognize their qualifications and will not grant them a license. So they may be fully competant to practice medecine but not licensed to. Is this not possible?
Now, this applies to some supposedly free market situations as well as the universal care situations.
Hopefully, this may get some actual discussion going if you choose.
"The fact that an acquaintance of mine waited 16 hours with a sprained ankle does not bother me, as a sprained ankle is hardly life threatening and it does not worsen over time."
Well it does me, something is wrong with that. (If he needs to be there.)
That is 16 hours of a person's life down the drain. There is an economic cost to that.
I don't see why private or private funded care should be outlawed.
I heard the best doctors will go there argument. Fine, make all doctors work at least 50% of their time on public or public funded work.
Any other issues why it should be illegal for people to pay for care should they wish to? And I would still like to hear from countries where it is legal if they have the problems Canada seems to fear.
"This is only the case in Canada, Cuba, and North Korea. Every other country that has universal health care also allows a parallel private system to coexist."
So, I have had a lot of comments, I think from Canada, as to why it needs to be this way. Do all of these other countries have the problems Canada fears?
"However, unlike garbage collectors, doctors are in short supply"
"In such a situation, you have two basic choices: let the law of supply and demand take hold, and let those who can pay the most get all the timely care they want, and let those at the bottom go without, or ration the supply of health care so that everyone has more or less equal access to the resource, irrespective of wealth."
Or figure out why doctors are in short supply and do something about that.
Now, unless you are going to make it illegal to leave the country for medical treatment or to get any but emergency medical treatment out of the country, you are not going to be able to see that there is equal treatment irrespective of wealth. You are simply adjusting the level of wealth needed to get above average treatment. Right?
Could the laws against practicing medicine without a license have something to do with that?
Could the risks be too great for the rewards?
"The longer-term solution is to increase the supply of health care workers, reduce the demand, or both. But this is easier said than done."
Bingo. I would say both, and I would agree that it will not be easy.
I don't have shares in them nor am I a customer myself.
I currently have no more room in my waste collection area to put my household waste. It has probably been well over two weeks since the garbage men came by on a pick up run.
When I was a kid, I got a rather large cut in my foot and sat in the outpatients area of the local government hospital for hours bleeding without being seen, finally my father was somehow contacted and came and took me to a private doctor.
Forgive me if I am not overly enamoured with government provided services. Granted, I am not overly enamoured with the state of private health care here these days either.
I don't think people are really seeing my post as a response to the post I responded to though. I will try and go back and check and explain furhter if I can find the time.
"When you have a public system, allowing private competition only makes a huge gap between service levels of the public and private systems, and you end up with something only marginally better than you have down there at the moment."
Fine, but they why not outlaw private garbage collection? Private "mail" delivery? Private "water' delivery (bottled water)?
Surely that same argument holds even if not in as critical a fashion.
And don't presume I am in the US for the sake of your answer, I am not.
While I agree that the health care market in the US is not a Free Market and thus talk of government fixes to the problems are not out of bounds, please talk to this point:
As far as I have ever heard, private garbage collection is not outlawed in places with public garbage collection.
On the other hand, I have heard that some places with public health care have outlawed private health care.
"The reason that corporations cannot be trusted to "do the right thing" is because they have been legally constructed in such a way as to prevent any shareholder or employee of that corporation let moral judgements interfere with the profit motive."
Yes, we hear this explanation all the time. What we don't hear is why they must be legally constructed in such a way. Is there some unbreakable natural law which forces us to construct them in this way?
Could we not give them a different legal construct and get a different outcome? A different twist in their articles of incorporation for instance?
"But in PA audio recording probably is. PA is a two party state. What that means is that all parties involved in a conversation must be aware it is being recorded for that to be legal."
Didn't the story say without consent, not without awareness? Can you speak to this further?
Slashdot Mirror
"They say the laws are presented so everyone could find out what they are and mean so there is no excuse for not knowing them."
Yes and I have a simple, workable solution to the mess.
[Has to be done honestly though.]
Give the jury a test on the law in question. If a majority needed to convict do not know it, the person charged walks. If they know the law, proceed to trial. Now the government has an interest in seeing that the citizens know the laws of the land.
all the best,
drew
"Perhaps in the interest of preserving the public domain, there should be law stating that any use of public domain material within derivative works should also fall within the public domain."
- on-copyright-offensive.html
You don't need for the derivatives to be public domain, copyleft would be enough, no?
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts
You may be interested in some of these ideas... Refinements welcome...
all the best,
drew
Here you go:
- on-copyright-offensive.html
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts
all the best,
drew
"The "government granted monopoly" thinking is something that I'm just peeved at."
But copyrights and patents are government granted monopolies.
You can protect your stuff yourself without the government, just keep all your ideas secret. Now sure, the government should protect your person so that someone does not torture you into giving up your secrets to them...
all the best,
drew
"I'm in favour of a copyright system in which automatic copyright is for, say, 30 years, and you have to register to extend it up to, say, 60 years. Patents should be valid for a lot less, of course."
"IP is a "government granted monopoly" in the same way as a piece of land you own is a "government granted monopoly". IP is NECESSARY in a free market."
I seriously don't understand your thinking here. Should your rights to your real property also expire after 30 years?
all the best,
drew
"It's actually sad. A composer or performer CANNOT copyright a harmony (the chords). The melody, yes."
"Actually, no. In 1994, SCOTUS found that using a melody from another song is legal fair use [benedict.com], if the new version is genuinely a new song, even if the entire song is noticeably similar to the orignal."
"Can you elaborate please?"
I was asking for elaboration on the statement that a melody could not be copyrighted in itself, only the entire song. (I think that meant words and music but am not sure as the thing does not make sense to me and so I asked for elaboration.
I don't think your post actually tries to answer the question. Am I missing something obvious?
all the best,
drew
Can you elaborate please?
That seems to be a case of parody fair use. They show words.
And if what you say is so, how does it relate to this:
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/mysweet.htm
[George Harrison stated that the events that occurred during the litigation of a claim that he had plagiarized the melody for his worldwide smash hit, "My Sweet Lord" from a hit single from 1963 called "He's So Fine" would fill a book.]
Trying to figure things out...
all the best,
drew
"A record album was a fairly large thing, and, covers were small posters in their own right."
Bingo!
I have been suggesting for a while that CDs come in album packages instead of CD packages.
Reading through this threadthis morning, I think it might be even better if the acbum package contained the album and the CD and all of the art, lyrics, etc.
all the best,
drew
From what I can see, most CC using artists use NC unfortunately and so most stations will not benefit by playing them.
Now for By and BY-SA this may be an option.
all the best,
drew
"That's an interesting point I don't recall seeing brought up before. Do you have a reference?"
Hmmm now here's a thought.
Design a little market place...
OK, well a web site to go along with your net radio.
Let advertisers bid per listener to place their ads for the upcoming block.
You will need to know what it takes to pay all royalties and whatever expenses you want to cover and then set a minimum bid.
If the minimum bid is exceeded, take the payment from the winning bidder and run your normal show. If the bid is not enough to meet expenses, don't take the bid and run a show comprised of music for which no royalties are due.
Or take the payment with the understanding that you will run different content if the winning bid does not go above X.
You could also allow listeners to individually or in a pool, bid to run the next (any future) segment without commercials.
Let the market decide.
Just a zany thought.
all the best,
drew
"Eliminating place-of-birth automatic citizenship would remove much of the incentive for pregnant women to travel to the U.S., and it wouldn't necessarily result in a huge number of stateless persons."
I understand the arguments.
I also know that this can be a sensitive issue.
Still, how much of the problem you want to address would be dealt with by not having automatic citizenship where the mother was in the country illegally at the time of birth but would give automatic citizenship if the mother was in the country legally at the time of birth?
Do you have any idea on what percentage is what?
all the best,
drew
"Then also remove birthright citizenship"
I don't think you need to go this far... It would work to only have birthright citizenship for those whose mother is in the country legally at the time of birth... (And even this may cause more problems than we imagine.)
I think birthright citizenship is a good thing overall though. Stateless people are not a good thing to have floating around in the world.
I think we have some form of birthright citizenship here as well and we get our own set of problems related to it from what I gather.
all the best,
drew
"Wow, just.. wow."
No need to be that astounded. I schooled as an engineer though I never took a job in the field and thus never got my PE. There are similar laws in that field for similar reasons.
You wouldn't want to be driving over a bridge built by an unqualified person either. That doesn't mean that the licensing laws can not be misued to restrict competition instead of for only their intended purpose. It also doesn't mean that there is not a cost worth knowing about even when they only function as intended. (Assuming the best of intentions on the part of those drafting and passing them.)
"The laws against practicing medicine without a license are there for an extremely good reason."
Yes, and how much worse would that purpose be served by making it illegal to claim to be a member in good standing of "official medical association X" when not one.
In any case, even if the laws really are the only way to handle the situation properly, shouldn't we have some idea of what it costs us to have them?
Plus, I seem to remember hearing, please correction or explanations if I am wrong, that in the US at least, seeing a doctor with a license is not real protection in any case. I think I understood that nothing really prevents a doctor from setting up a practice and operating in an area of medicine for which he has little or no actual training.
Plus, you could have well qualified doctors from another country where the local medical association will not recognize their qualifications and will not grant them a license. So they may be fully competant to practice medecine but not licensed to. Is this not possible?
Now, this applies to some supposedly free market situations as well as the universal care situations.
Hopefully, this may get some actual discussion going if you choose.
all the best,
drew
"The fact that an acquaintance of mine waited 16 hours with a sprained ankle does not bother me, as a sprained ankle is hardly life threatening and it does not worsen over time."
Well it does me, something is wrong with that. (If he needs to be there.)
That is 16 hours of a person's life down the drain. There is an economic cost to that.
I don't see why private or private funded care should be outlawed.
I heard the best doctors will go there argument. Fine, make all doctors work at least 50% of their time on public or public funded work.
Any other issues why it should be illegal for people to pay for care should they wish to? And I would still like to hear from countries where it is legal if they have the problems Canada seems to fear.
all the best,
drew
"This is only the case in Canada, Cuba, and North Korea. Every other country that has universal health care also allows a parallel private system to coexist."
So, I have had a lot of comments, I think from Canada, as to why it needs to be this way. Do all of these other countries have the problems Canada fears?
Thank your for the info by the way.
all the best,
drew
Jaun, you need to stop faking my name on documents.
signed,
Epstein's Mother
"However, unlike garbage collectors, doctors are in short supply"
"In such a situation, you have two basic choices: let the law of supply and demand take hold, and let those who can pay the most get all the timely care they want, and let those at the bottom go without, or ration the supply of health care so that everyone has more or less equal access to the resource, irrespective of wealth."
Or figure out why doctors are in short supply and do something about that.
Now, unless you are going to make it illegal to leave the country for medical treatment or to get any but emergency medical treatment out of the country, you are not going to be able to see that there is equal treatment irrespective of wealth. You are simply adjusting the level of wealth needed to get above average treatment. Right?
Could the laws against practicing medicine without a license have something to do with that?
Could the risks be too great for the rewards?
"The longer-term solution is to increase the supply of health care workers, reduce the demand, or both. But this is easier said than done."
Bingo. I would say both, and I would agree that it will not be easy.
all the best,
drew
"You can hardly just hire more doctors, there is a much more limited supply."
Ah, but why is the supply so limited?
"I have never heard of a private garbage collection company, and I have trouble imagining why someone would hire a private company."
Well, in my country we have them:
http://www.bahamaswaste.com/
I don't have shares in them nor am I a customer myself.
I currently have no more room in my waste collection area to put my household waste. It has probably been well over two weeks since the garbage men came by on a pick up run.
When I was a kid, I got a rather large cut in my foot and sat in the outpatients area of the local government hospital for hours bleeding without being seen, finally my father was somehow contacted and came and took me to a private doctor.
Forgive me if I am not overly enamoured with government provided services. Granted, I am not overly enamoured with the state of private health care here these days either.
I don't think people are really seeing my post as a response to the post I responded to though. I will try and go back and check and explain furhter if I can find the time.
all the best,
drew
"When you have a public system, allowing private competition only makes a huge gap between service levels of the public and private systems, and you end up with something only marginally better than you have down there at the moment."
Fine, but they why not outlaw private garbage collection? Private "mail" delivery? Private "water' delivery (bottled water)?
Surely that same argument holds even if not in as critical a fashion.
And don't presume I am in the US for the sake of your answer, I am not.
all the best,
drew
"This also ignores the garbage-collector effect."
While I agree that the health care market in the US is not a Free Market and thus talk of government fixes to the problems are not out of bounds, please talk to this point:
As far as I have ever heard, private garbage collection is not outlawed in places with public garbage collection.
On the other hand, I have heard that some places with public health care have outlawed private health care.
If this is indeed the case, why?
all the best,
drew
"The reason that corporations cannot be trusted to "do the right thing" is because they have been legally constructed in such a way as to prevent any shareholder or employee of that corporation let moral judgements interfere with the profit motive."
Yes, we hear this explanation all the time. What we don't hear is why they must be legally constructed in such a way. Is there some unbreakable natural law which forces us to construct them in this way?
Could we not give them a different legal construct and get a different outcome? A different twist in their articles of incorporation for instance?
all the best,
drew
"These kind of things just don't happen in countries that have sane gun laws, privacy laws or not."
I live in a country with fairly strict gun control laws. It doesn't seem to stop criminals who want them from having them.
all the best,
drew
"But in PA audio recording probably is. PA is a two party state. What that means is that all parties involved in a conversation must be aware it is being recorded for that to be legal."
Didn't the story say without consent, not without awareness? Can you speak to this further?
all the best,
drew
Ah, google? Aren't they taking pictures of people's cats in their windows?
The news, don't they film crowds in public places?
Traffic Cams?
Is it only the audio part that is supposed to be illegal?
Mute your video camera I guess.
all the best,
drew
"In the end, I suppose Starbucks..."
And in the end....
The mug you take....
Is equal to the mug.....
You break.
All I need is a grande a day...
all the best,
drew