That depends. Often a work requires a non-trivial economic investment, which is not made by the author. If copyright beyond the authors death is necessary to encourage such investments, it could be ok. I personally favor a short, fixed period, regardless the life of the author. That way it's easier to check when it goes public domain.
By the way, I have a hard time understanding what you really mean. Please consult the nearest Grammar Nazi, and consider starting sentences with capital letters.
Ten bucks says copyright in the EU will be extended in the next 18 months or so...
Taken!
In order for this to be implemented equally all over the EU it needs to be in a directive. Creating an EU directive is a long and winding process. I don't think such a directive would catch us off guard (again), so it would probably fail.
But it completely fails to tax the damage a vehicle does to the roadways.
Sure, that's why there are also such things as taxes on new cars according to their weight etc. (They are probably also in place to secure revenue for the state, but let's not get distracted by reality)
Mind you, I'm not a stinking hippie by any stretch.
I am. Or, at least by american standards. I'm danish, and politically center-seeking. I think each and every member of the danish parliament would be labelled commie by american standards. The danish welfare system is rather dependent on tax revenue, and cars are convenient to tax because many people depend on them and you can use "the environment" as excuse. Even the 1 yr old liberal government (liberal as in "free market") hasn't done anything about it. The result is that the price of a new car is tripled by taxes. (Yes, that means x3!)
Taxes should be neutral IMHO ( not provide incentives OR disincentives ). As such, the only effective method of charging for road use is gas tax.
I disagree. First of all I fail to see how any tax could be "neutral" - it will always influence peoples behaviour.
Second: To build a livable society we need to discourage certain behaviours. I think taxes are often a much less intrusive way to do this than a lot of detailed bans. Case in point: a gas tax is much better than making every road a toll road. (That is, unless you can do the "toll road trick" without gates and full scale vehicle tracking)
One of the reasons I like the GPS system is that it can liberate congested roads in the cities where public transport is a realistic alternative, while it doesn't hurt people in the rural areas who really need to drive their cars everywhere.
The system needs no memory of where you've been, or even how far you've gone.
Each car contains a sealed box with GPS reciever, and a display showing how much money you have left. When you are low on money the box is filled up by a plastic card that you buy on the gas station. (The box checks that the card is digitally signed by the authorities.) Of course the card can't be tracked to you if you pay cash.
If you are ever stopped by the police with the seal on the box broken, or a display blinking "insert coin" you'll be in trouble, unless you ran out of money while racing somebody to the hospital or stuff like that. They'll never know where you've been, though.
The system could probably be jammed, and there would also likely be counterfeit cards in circulation. Whether that's enought to stop the system remains to be seen. (Counterfeit money hasn't destroyed the economy yet even though they've been around for a long time).
However, there is no privacy issue.
The box would also have a socket for connecting your navigation computer - why waste a perfectly good GPS reciever?
For instance, if you get free storage from a free hosting site, and you put, say, child porno on that site, do you own the child porno? No. So you can't get busted for posession.
I simply don't believe you. If you put the content on the server you are responsible. The minor detail of who owns the computer is not relevant.
I have no facts to back my opinion, but neither have you.
Copyright is a legal issue, not a technical one. The "copyright restrictions" on the content are the same as they always have been.
You ignore that under the DMCA (or the european EUCD) technical restrictions translate into legal ones.
You think too logical, and hence cannot relieve your mind of the obsolete concept of "fair use". You have been assigned to reeducation, please stand by for further instructions.
Imagine when everyone has a bunch of RFID cards like that. Then you could uniquely identify a person by the combined signature of his cards. Now all Big Brother has to do is to put up scanners in crowded places, feeding results into the TIA database. Welcome to Minority Report.
I remember my first term physics professor when a cell phone once rang during lecture:
"If this goes on, every form of radio astronomy will soon be absolutely impossible"
The coolest reaction to annoying cell phones I ever heard.
Look at the lengths they went to on 9/11 - Getting into the country, learning to fly 747's, checking out security at airports, dry runs, co-ordinating the simultaneous hijacking of planes. It's much easier to mortar somewhere. The IRA mortared 10 Downing Street in London in the middle of the day during the last Gulf war, using home made mortars. Later they mortared Heathrow airport. Twice. And then had to phone the police to tell them that the police had missed a third set of mortars that didn't go off.
Sure, but 9/11 would have been a lot harder under the TIA-style system you describe. I think it would in general tend to lessen the scale of terrorist attacks.
If someone is determined enough, they will find a way to commit acts of terrorism.
Yeah, but again it's a question of scale. As to the rest of your comment, i share your concerns.
Other than that, knowing any amount of data about us could only be used to make generalizations about us
Or, it could be used against you when you started voicing the wrong opinions or hanging with the wrong people. Or more likely if you somehow became an annoyance to the wrong person. (The kinda guy that IN SOVIET RUSSIA would have good party connections)
Whatever. Read some Solzhenitsyn. He tells it so much better. Besides, it's a really good book.
However, if you really have to go to such great lengths "just" to mortar the Capitol I think it's actually a lot less probable that somebody's gonna do it. The system works.
The problem is that a lot of innocent civillians are also monitored, and that this will give their powerful enemies so many more ways to make their lives miserable if they happen to cross their way. This will mean that no one dares challenge the ones in power, and corruption, nepotism and neglect runs rampant.
The system would really scare me if it wasn't run by a man of such great personal integrity as John Pointdexter
If people are interested I'd be glad to share my views on why IP has
come so far its generals bad -- but that is much longer post.
I think you have some interesting points. (I don't agree with everything you say though) I'd like to hear your views on this - perhaps you can sketch them briefly if you're low on time.
I'd also like to have your ideas on how copyright should be handled in the future (please keep in mind that music is just a tiny subset of copyrightable matter)
Here in Denmark the quote is usually attributed to Robert Storm Petersen.
On the other hand this page (in danish) says that it originated in a danish parliamentary debate of the period 1935-39. This is according to the memoirs of the politician K.K. Steincke. He doesn't remember who said it though. (Basic political instinct, I suppose.) It has also been attributed to Markus M. Ronner (whoever that is)
Niels Bohr was apparently the first dane to bring the expression abroad, and hence he has recieved credit.
Well, I was hitting on some of the assumptions people make here that creative content is 'public property' once it becomes public.
Got a link?
That's just how the system works. Private property and all that.
Your description of the present copyright system was very accurate. But I really i think it's a mistake to treat copyrighted material as "private property". Copyright is an exclusive distribution right granted by the government. I really think the government should only grant that right to an author to the extent that the encouragement to creativity compensates society for the loss of freely distributed copies.
Btw, I still think your post on "freedom of association" was way off-topic. Whatever.
but the WWW has affected my life more than any physics since the Manhatten project I think.
How about the laser? Developed after WWII, now used in the fiber links you use to surf the web. More important is computer chips, based on semiconductors. Bardeen, Brattain and Schockley sure used some nifty physics to get that first transistor going...
Slashdot Mirror
they should expire with the death of the author
That depends. Often a work requires a non-trivial economic investment, which is not made by the author. If copyright beyond the authors death is necessary to encourage such investments, it could be ok. I personally favor a short, fixed period, regardless the life of the author. That way it's easier to check when it goes public domain.
By the way, I have a hard time understanding what you really mean. Please consult the nearest Grammar Nazi, and consider starting sentences with capital letters.
Ten bucks says copyright in the EU will be extended in the next 18 months or so...
Taken!
In order for this to be implemented equally all over the EU it needs to be in a directive. Creating an EU directive is a long and winding process. I don't think such a directive would catch us off guard (again), so it would probably fail.
But it completely fails to tax the damage a vehicle does to the roadways.
Sure, that's why there are also such things as taxes on new cars according to their weight etc. (They are probably also in place to secure revenue for the state, but let's not get distracted by reality)
Mind you, I'm not a stinking hippie by any stretch.
I am. Or, at least by american standards. I'm danish, and politically center-seeking. I think each and every member of the danish parliament would be labelled commie by american standards. The danish welfare system is rather dependent on tax revenue, and cars are convenient to tax because many people depend on them and you can use "the environment" as excuse. Even the 1 yr old liberal government (liberal as in "free market") hasn't done anything about it. The result is that the price of a new car is tripled by taxes. (Yes, that means x3!)
Taxes should be neutral IMHO ( not provide incentives OR disincentives ). As such, the only effective method of charging for road use is gas tax.
I disagree. First of all I fail to see how any tax could be "neutral" - it will always influence peoples behaviour.
Second: To build a livable society we need to discourage certain behaviours. I think taxes are often a much less intrusive way to do this than a lot of detailed bans. Case in point: a gas tax is much better than making every road a toll road. (That is, unless you can do the "toll road trick" without gates and full scale vehicle tracking)
One of the reasons I like the GPS system is that it can liberate congested roads in the cities where public transport is a realistic alternative, while it doesn't hurt people in the rural areas who really need to drive their cars everywhere.
-- of how good readers post good comments, but great readers steal great comments.
Congrats with the karma!
Read my other comment
Read my other comment
(or rather, doesn't have to be)
The system needs no memory of where you've been, or even how far you've gone.
Each car contains a sealed box with GPS reciever, and a display showing how much money you have left. When you are low on money the box is filled up by a plastic card that you buy on the gas station. (The box checks that the card is digitally signed by the authorities.) Of course the card can't be tracked to you if you pay cash.
If you are ever stopped by the police with the seal on the box broken, or a display blinking "insert coin" you'll be in trouble, unless you ran out of money while racing somebody to the hospital or stuff like that.
They'll never know where you've been, though.
The system could probably be jammed, and there would also likely be counterfeit cards in circulation. Whether that's enought to stop the system remains to be seen. (Counterfeit money hasn't destroyed the economy yet even though they've been around for a long time).
However, there is no privacy issue.
The box would also have a socket for connecting your navigation computer - why waste a perfectly good GPS reciever?
- You can tax congested roads only.
- You can tax places where public transportation is available only.
- You can tax during peak hours only.
In short, the intended effect on drivers' habits can be tuned in a much more fine grained way.The status of the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) is updated in this wiki.
I should also point out, that the EUCD is late, not overturned. The countries are still obliged to implement it.
Self Censorship.
This is really the trick behind any form of censorship.
The moment you know that suspicious activity is tagged, you will stop behaving "suspiciously". This again raises the profile of the few that does.
For instance, if you get free storage from a free hosting site, and you put, say, child porno on that site, do you own the child porno? No. So you can't get busted for posession.
I simply don't believe you. If you put the content on the server you are responsible. The minor detail of who owns the computer is not relevant.
I have no facts to back my opinion, but neither have you.
If someone ever sends me a C&D letter, I'm going to say no.
I don't know what I'd do, except for one thing:
Post the "Cease and Desist" to my page immediately
That brings the opponent out in the open, something that can only work to advance justice (or what? IANAL!)
I'd probably also submit it to chillingeffects.org. This is a truly cool place for information on this topic. Go there.
Copyright is a legal issue, not a technical one. The "copyright restrictions" on the content are the same as they always have been.
You ignore that under the DMCA (or the european EUCD) technical restrictions translate into legal ones.
You think too logical, and hence cannot relieve your mind of the obsolete concept of "fair use". You have been assigned to reeducation, please stand by for further instructions.
Imagine when everyone has a bunch of RFID cards like that. Then you could uniquely identify a person by the combined signature of his cards. Now all Big Brother has to do is to put up scanners in crowded places, feeding results into the TIA database. Welcome to Minority Report.
I remember my first term physics professor when a cell phone once rang during lecture:
"If this goes on, every form of radio astronomy will soon be absolutely impossible"
The coolest reaction to annoying cell phones I ever heard.
Look at the lengths they went to on 9/11 - Getting into the country, learning to fly 747's, checking out security at airports, dry runs, co-ordinating the simultaneous hijacking of planes. It's much easier to mortar somewhere. The IRA mortared 10 Downing Street in London in the middle of the day during the last Gulf war, using home made mortars. Later they mortared Heathrow airport. Twice. And then had to phone the police to tell them that the police had missed a third set of mortars that didn't go off.
Sure, but 9/11 would have been a lot harder under the TIA-style system you describe. I think it would in general tend to lessen the scale of terrorist attacks.
If someone is determined enough, they will find a way to commit acts of terrorism.
Yeah, but again it's a question of scale.
As to the rest of your comment, i share your concerns.
Other than that, knowing any amount of data about us could only be used to make generalizations about us
Or, it could be used against you when you started voicing the wrong opinions or hanging with the wrong people. Or more likely if you somehow became an annoyance to the wrong person. (The kinda guy that IN SOVIET RUSSIA would have good party connections)
Whatever. Read some Solzhenitsyn. He tells it so much better. Besides, it's a really good book.
Vveerrrii cleverrr skeeem!!
However, if you really have to go to such great lengths "just" to mortar the Capitol I think it's actually a lot less probable that somebody's gonna do it. The system works.
The problem is that a lot of innocent civillians are also monitored, and that this will give their powerful enemies so many more ways to make their lives miserable if they happen to cross their way. This will mean that no one dares challenge the ones in power, and corruption, nepotism and neglect runs rampant.
The system would really scare me if it wasn't run by a man of such great personal integrity as John Pointdexter
We want dot geek!
.ipv6 or .hackme?
Or how about
Of course, that could also be ipv6.geek and hackme.geek (or crackme.geek for Eric Raymond et. al.)
If people are interested I'd be glad to share my views on why IP has come so far its generals bad -- but that is much longer post.
I think you have some interesting points. (I don't agree with everything you say though) I'd like to hear your views on this - perhaps you can sketch them briefly if you're low on time.
I'd also like to have your ideas on how copyright should be handled in the future (please keep in mind that music is just a tiny subset of copyrightable matter)
Thanks, infolib.
Here in Denmark the quote is usually attributed to Robert Storm Petersen.
On the other hand this page (in danish) says that it originated in a danish parliamentary debate of the period 1935-39. This is according to the memoirs of the politician K.K. Steincke. He doesn't remember who said it though. (Basic political instinct, I suppose.) It has also been attributed to Markus M. Ronner (whoever that is)
Niels Bohr was apparently the first dane to bring the expression abroad, and hence he has recieved credit.
Well, I was hitting on some of the assumptions people make here that creative content is 'public property' once it becomes public.
Got a link?
That's just how the system works. Private property and all that.
Your description of the present copyright system was very accurate. But I really i think it's a mistake to treat copyrighted material as "private property". Copyright is an exclusive distribution right granted by the government. I really think the government should only grant that right to an author to the extent that the encouragement to creativity compensates society for the loss of freely distributed copies.
Btw, I still think your post on "freedom of association" was way off-topic. Whatever.
but the WWW has affected my life more than any physics since the Manhatten project I think.
;-)
How about the laser? Developed after WWII, now used in the fiber links you use to surf the web. More important is computer chips, based on semiconductors. Bardeen, Brattain and Schockley sure used some nifty physics to get that first transistor going...
Although I would gladly be proven wrong.
Happy now?
(Of course I don't have numbers to back this up--faked data is not new, either).
Since 1982, the frequency of faked data incidents has grown by 79%.
(Ok, I made that result up myself, so what?)
I can't see how that relates to a fee-based copyright system. Could you enlighten me?
Btw, I'm danish if that helps. I don't mind discussing the US constitution in this context though.