I'd go for v2 or any later with the caveat that if you want to merge into official kernel it must be v2. Except, of course, "going for v2 or any later" is essentially staying v2. When you give the recipients the choice of two versions, corporations like TiVo, for whom v3 was partially designed, will just choose v2. "Going for v2 or any later" is essentially the weasel response which, 1) hurts adoption of v3; 2) doesn't put you firmly in v2 camp where you would have to defend your position.
Perhaps the only thing even changing the official Linux to "v2 or later" would do is, it will open up possibilities for v3-only forks. But as long as there is a well-maintained version of Linux under GPL v2 out there, such forks serve absolutely no purpose, other than to fragment the free software community.
Because my notebook has only one crappy video output! My integrated graphics cannot drive more than one external monitor, and God knows I don't want an external monitor the size of my laptop LCD.
And yes, I am absolutely sure that my crappy integrated graphics can drive 2880x900 just fine. Absolutely fine.
If in fact blu-ray does end up the 'winner', is there anyone else here who attributes this more to the early success of hackers and the AnyDVD devs at HD-DVD ripping? For all we know blu-ray is in fact unhackable, with that ability to change the DRM whenever they want. I don't know about the true implications of "ability to change the DRM whenever they want", but BluRay DRM has been broken, and if they change it, it will be broken again.
In the end, "unbreakable DRM" doesn't really matter---there's one thing that can break anything and it's the economics. Consumers have clearly expressed that they do not like DRM, and thanks to Sony, they are driven away from DRM day by day. The media corporations' attempts to tighten their control will be, in the very end, their own downfall.
Ladies and gentlement, I present, the case in point, who can't see the funny side of his own ass as he shows it in public. Give him a round of applause, he might not deserve it, but he needs it. Except, of course, it's not his own ass, but ass of his dubious friend's presented as his own ass. RMS has plenty sense of humour (if you doubt, try visiting his personal webpage, I recommend reading his suggestion for taking revenge for 9/11), and I hope so do free software advocates. But when you confuse open source with free software and make fun of free software advocates as if they are open source advocates... well, I guess that says more about who is an ass.
Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable. You may have something there. Maybe magnetic monopoles are the first step towards the answer to that question, hence the irrepeatable magnetic monopole experiment! It all makes perfect sense now.
Hey, Cowon isn't a "no-name asian" company. In fact, their players are one of the best out there (a number of CNet and other user reviews will confirm this). I personally owned iAudio U3 a while ago, and in the time that I had it, I had absolutely no complaint whatsoever. Great audio quality, good access as general USB mass storage device with folder structure (none of that MSC crap), and, of course, Ogg support. I almost took that support for granted, until I lost that small player and had to buy a cheap-o replacement from Sansa (something I regret to this day)... and realized that Sansa didn't have Ogg support and I had to convert all my Ogg media.
The only potential downside for Cowon is... well, I heard that their customer support (or lack of one) sucks. Not that it's much of a problem, given the quality of their products.
"All my friends use it" And I want to tell them how bad Facebook is, and the best way to do that is through Facebook (use their infernal News Feed against them!).
Well, maybe he was talking about LP records. After all, nowhere does the submitter mention "CD", and there are still people buying those, you know. I had a roommate who had a fairly good collection of classical records. I'm pretty sure even he wouldn't have bought the crap that's coming out these days, though.
Kill the author so the item enters the public domain. Uh, right. "I love your work so much that I will kill you so that it enters the public domain and I can share it with everyone!" Never mind that this will preclude the author from producing any other work... You are so shortsighted. You kill the author AND then steal his notes and other relevant materials. Now the work is in public domain so that you are free to make derivative work, and with the exclusive insight afforded by the stolen notes, you get to make superior quality derivative work, which then allows you to profit.
It's simple logic. Killing is just means to an end, not an end in itself.
Very racist, but oh so true. Nope. Not racist at all. What the parent poster should have said was "very prejudiced." Racism isn't the only kind of prejudice/discrimination (let's see, what are the standard criteria: gender, age, nationality, or sexual orientation), and an unqualified "Don't deal with Nigeria" sounds like it is based on a strong prejudice.
I'm not saying whether this prejudice is right or not (I know nothing about Nigeria), but it can certainly be hurtful a long way down the road---especially if this... reputation/prejudice persists even after Nigeria takes care of the corruption problem.
Even a career student shouldn't still be doing their PhD 12 years after they started their undergrad. Are you sure about that?
Most people already finish their PhD *at least* 9 years after they start undergrad (that's assuming 4 years of undergrad and 5 years of graduate school, which is actually lower than average). And suppose someone graduated from college, spent a few years (2 to 3, maybe?) in the industry, and then decided to go back and earn a PhD (I suppose there are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the PhD being necessary to advancement in career to becoming disinterested in making money and (re-)entering academia). That's easily 12 years, and I didn't have to concoct any unusual scenario like someone waking out of coma after 10 years.
As for what kind of information one would be looking for... well, how about the syllabus? The information in that, like which textbook is used in the course and what will be covered, is not available in any commonly-sold textbook. Of course, this doesn't fit with the PhD thesis scenario, but if you just imagine someone staying out of school just a little longer (oh... 5 to 8 years) and then applying to grad school, you can see how this will be a problem: some grad school applications ask for textbook used in the course (to gauge the level and breadth of the course), and... guess what, that information is locked away in a "deprecated" file format.
I actually disagree on both points. Copyright abolition removes a very important incentive for making new works, since without copyright, you can't reliably get paid for new works. Excessively long copyright terms also remove an incentive for producing new works, since you can just keep getting paid for the same works for much too long. In some fields (as I see it, novel-writing and such), you are absolutely right. However, for most everything else, there is such a thing as "work for hire". Despite the irony in using a concept in copyright law to argue for copyright abolition, here is a widely-applied case where the actual author doesn't own copyright to his work---his employer does, and the author is instead guaranteed a salary (or whatever was specified in the contract). Even if there were no such thing as copyright, if there is true value in what these people create (like software, articles, etc.), there will be some to hire them to make those stuff, so that they don't instead go and become waiters at restaurants.
Of course, this just shifts the economic burden onto the companies, but I think a good argument can be made, at least in software, that copyleft and free software have already proven that copyright is not necessary to sustain the market. There are numerous free software companies that are, more or less, selling support contracts, not software (since their customers generally can choose to download the software gratis elsewhere). In case of music, well, perhaps musicians shouldn't be paid for what they record once and sell million times? Perhaps they should only be paid for live performances---I also see this as curing many of the society's ills with its obsession over millionaire stars and so on.
Copyright is not an absolute necessity to maintain a market in many fields where they are being applied now. And even if it were, perhaps in those fields, we would be better left with hobbyists, who have no monetary incentives, and not professionals? If you want a bad, perhaps misapplied analogy, consider that the venerable Founding Fathers were amateur politicians (they were plantation owners or got their wealth elsewhere---politics was more of a hobby). Current deplorable political state of affairs is maintained by career, professional politicians. Who governed the country better?
Just reiterating what the other poster said. In the normal world, you get paid for the work you do, not the work of your work. If I hire Bob to come build me a gate, he doesn't get to charge me every time someone comes through it. He is paid to build the gate and then he gets the hell out of my life. He only gets paid again if I need him to return and do more work. Er, you are missing one of the main ways that copyright works: WORK FOR HIRE.
How do you think corporations like IBM and Sun own copyrights? After all, corporations cannot write programs (even though they are legal persons). Programmers get hired, and what they write while they are employed belongs to the company. They got paid once, and they will not, in most cases, see any more royalties for future sale of that program. The same applies to journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. Since reporters are hired by the publisher, the copyright usually belongs to the publisher (and, again, the journalist or columnist will not see additional royalties from future publication). A novel is a special case, since most of the time, novelists are not hired by someone to write it. They are probably lucky to publish them without having to pay for the cost out of their own pocket (probably through some licensing deal with publishers).
I could go on and on, but one thing I want to emphasize is, most of the time, if someone paid you to create something that's copyrightable, the person who paid you owns the copyright, as a work-for-hire, not you. That's the law.
P.S. BTW, that's why FSF wants you to get a copyright disclaimer from your employer if you contribute to FSF projects (and they want copyright assignment to them, for more effective GPL enforcement)---your employer could potentially claim copyright on your code as work-for-hire, sometimes even if you worked on it entirely on your own time.
Well, we seem to be in agreement for the most part.
Of course, there's a limit to one can axiomatize social science... but your replacement does seem reasonable. As far as copyright situation goes, I myself believe that today's society will be a better place without it (even though it may mean no copyleft protection for free software, and it will certainly mean fewer people becoming singers and movie producers), but perhaps not for the reasons you put forth. I just wanted to clarify one point:
Since we are not using existence of competition as a criterion anymore (only price and quality), it would seem that "dumping" (lower prices, same quality, and "bundling" (more for the same price), are good things and should not be discouraged. I just wanted to remind you that laws against dumping and bundling were made with more foresight than what I implied in my previous post. The reasoning goes as: Someone competes with monopolist -> monopolist undercuts the competitor in price (dumping) or destroys his market with bundling (Windows & IE vs. Netscape situation) -> competition dies out -> monopoly is maintained, including the characteristic price markup (above what the normal supply and demand would have set it as).
The IE vs. Netscape situation is a bit more complicated in this light... since it was MS using its monopoly on OS to establish a monopoly on web browser. But one could argue that having the monopoly on web browser helps them maintain the monopoly on OS (and higher price of OS).
Since the concept of intellectual property is almost completely meaningless, the title must be about Internet Protocol, and I bet close to 99% of the worlds computers have IP, and most use it every day. But the title also says "infringe", not "use". So I must interpret that to mean 36.4% of computers have TCP/IP stack that somehow violates the standard, not just use TCP/IP
But then, I guess even then the statistics sound kinda low for Windows, kinda high for anyone else. The only group that fits something around "30%" must be... Windows Vista users.
Let me just say... you and I have a very different view on "double life".
For me, if you couldn't tell your mother what you did with your friends or talked about with your friends, then you are living a double life. At least you are hiding enough aspects or life that the person you are at home is not the person you are at work or party.
And, for me, if you are going to live that kind of life, the burden is on you to keep some sort of real barrier between the two sides of your life.
But then again, that's me. You probably think everyone (including for-profit companies) should watch out for you lest you stumble... even if you were a double agent. It's Google's fault for revealing what you shared with your contacts in CIA to your contacts in North Korea. You had absolutely no fault for not caring about your own privacy in the first place.
Hm. I didn't know that. I assume it's done through the newer Javascript stuff?
Perhaps if they cared enough, they could implement what you suggest to apply to AC postings. I still think the traffic/bandwidth generated might be a problem if it's done for every single post, but implemented only for AC posts, they might be able to throttle it down.
I think the problem is... you are starting from the wrong axiom. "Monopoly is bad" is simply not true, at least not true enough to be an axiom.
The axiom you should start with is: "Competition is good."
From this, you can derive (and I use that word very loosely here) the following:
1. A monopoly in certain markets allow the monopolist to engage in anticompetitive behavior, such as dumping and bundling. This reduces competition in the marketplace, therefore we need laws limiting monopolists from these acts.
2. If creative works are allowed to be copied and distributed at will, there will be no monetary market (there is still one for reputation, which is one that existed before copyright laws and which is what still matters more for academia). Without monetary market, there will be less competition (if one can call it that---more like participation), since only a smaller set of people, essentially those who do not need money, will participate in creative production. From this, one can make a good argument that limiting such copying and distribution and giving the author monopoly rights will increase competition in the marketplace. Of course, if today's society is any evidence, there should be a reasonable limit to this monopoly---look at the music industry and look at how it failed!
But the essential fact is, monopoly is not bad, but competition is good (as this is primarily how the "invisible hand" of market forces works). Monopoly is bad only to the extent that it reduces competition in the marketplace.
Because shortening the term (and this had better be retroactive, just as well!) will reduce the amount of copyrighted work. This, using my out-of-my-arse calculation, will reduce the amount of copyrighted work to 95% of what it is now at conservative estimate (here's how I figure---the "reasonable" length that many people seem to propose is 5 years, so I choose that as maximum; assuming the author didn't die at the moment of publication, most copyright will have lasted around 100 years; ignoring that there's probably more work created in last couple decades (music, movies, books, everything!) in comparison to any other time period, I get that 5%).
This is a practical abolition of copyright, at least compared to today's draconian standards. If you can't stomach the idea of copyright abolition, you are not going to be able to stomach the idea of copyright reduction.
No more than I can stomach the idea of author's life + 75 years... because I personally think perpetual copyright is as immoral as slavery.
College students also tend to be partial to socialism, too - until they start earning a living and take a look at the taxes deducted from their paychecks. Same principle applies.... While there is something to be said about anecdotal evidences, while I was a college student (and will be again soon), I worked part time all 4 years (and have known many friends who held a job at most times). I did see my paycheck and saw all the taxes deducted (and, yes, I earned enough that I'd have to pay several hundred in taxes each year). I still think taxes do enough good work that I will support them.
In fact, at the higher tax bracket, I don't think they are taxing enough. I think they should tax to the equilibrium (... where high wage-earners would be just at the verge of not bothering to make that extra dollar knowing how much tax they'll have to pay on it). And given than fewer than 5% of Americans earn more than $100,000, I'll bet that will be the stance that a huge majority takes, even following your reasoning.
In fact, given that most people have more to benefit from using other people's creations freely (in both senses of the word) than they do from gouging others for their own creation, even after these college kids have created some imaginary properties to protect, a huge majority will still believe (after all, they are better educated on these issues than today's old people) what they apparently believe now.
Not when you are forced to reinvent the wheel from scratch. If you are making a movie yourself (and can't pay royalties or... find copyright owners), you can't include any music created 1927 and onwards. You couldn't include any clips created 1927 and onwards. You couldn't include any images created 1927 and onwards. Everything must be completely original, and better than other movies (made by media conglomerates that own all those copyrights, and can make derivative works off of those and have done so for last century) made with much bigger budgets.
Don't you think that's a rather large barrier to entry (one of requirements of monopoly)? What do you think supports that barrier?
Don't forget---copyright used to be only 20, 30 years. That's what it should have been---for book publishing industries. For all the newer media, it should have been dramatically shorter.
This is the basis of Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture movement. Our draconian laws are stifling people's creativity (and probably market competition).
(In the electoral college system, you could work out what the *theoretical* proportion of votes one candidate receive and still lose the election is... but I'll bet that's below 90% of the votes. Not to mention that such outcome is just highly unlikely.) Let me just correct myself here. I just realized that if you assume that the winner won each of his state (and he only needs 26 of them) with a single voter (that's right---out of everyone that lives in the state, only one person voted; I don't know of any "quorum" that needs to be satisfied in a general election... on the other hand, I suppose there might be some rules so that every voter district needs at least one vote (which means the winner needs same number of votes as... oh, what makes the majority in the House?)), then the loser could win 99.999% of the votes and still lose.
If anyone's actually going to do the calculation that reflects reality in any sense, you would either have to assume that everyone in the state votes, or that the state's last voter turnout rate holds for this hypothetical election. Or something.
However, he with 99.6% of the votes, or 66% of the votes, or even (probably) 55% of the votes do not lose the election. Generally. (In the electoral college system, you could work out what the *theoretical* proportion of votes one candidate receive and still lose the election is... but I'll bet that's below 90% of the votes. Not to mention that such outcome is just highly unlikely.)
When there is such a discrepancy between what a large majority (and I don't mean 50.1%. I mean something close to 70%. Something close to Bush's approval rating right after 9/11) believes should not be a crime and what law says is a crime, it's a pretty good sign that the law should be changed.
Oh, and let me just say... constitution isn't supposed to protect powerful special interests either. In fact, if you read the section of constitution granting Congress the power to create copyright laws, it states for what purpose it is (the benefit of the public), and it states that it must be for a limited term. I won't repeat here what others have argued much more eloquently (e.g. find Lawrence Lessig's article about the Supreme Court case regarding Sony Bono copyright law, or his "Free Culture" movement; alternatively, Richard Stallman's views on copyright), but the current copyright laws are the most draconian laws we have ever had in history and, to common sense, although not to the Supreme Court, downright unconstitutional.
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Perhaps the only thing even changing the official Linux to "v2 or later" would do is, it will open up possibilities for v3-only forks. But as long as there is a well-maintained version of Linux under GPL v2 out there, such forks serve absolutely no purpose, other than to fragment the free software community.
Because my notebook has only one crappy video output! My integrated graphics cannot drive more than one external monitor, and God knows I don't want an external monitor the size of my laptop LCD.
And yes, I am absolutely sure that my crappy integrated graphics can drive 2880x900 just fine. Absolutely fine.
In the end, "unbreakable DRM" doesn't really matter---there's one thing that can break anything and it's the economics. Consumers have clearly expressed that they do not like DRM, and thanks to Sony, they are driven away from DRM day by day. The media corporations' attempts to tighten their control will be, in the very end, their own downfall.
Hey, Cowon isn't a "no-name asian" company. In fact, their players are one of the best out there (a number of CNet and other user reviews will confirm this). I personally owned iAudio U3 a while ago, and in the time that I had it, I had absolutely no complaint whatsoever. Great audio quality, good access as general USB mass storage device with folder structure (none of that MSC crap), and, of course, Ogg support. I almost took that support for granted, until I lost that small player and had to buy a cheap-o replacement from Sansa (something I regret to this day) ... and realized that Sansa didn't have Ogg support and I had to convert all my Ogg media.
... well, I heard that their customer support (or lack of one) sucks. Not that it's much of a problem, given the quality of their products.
The only potential downside for Cowon is
Well, maybe he was talking about LP records. After all, nowhere does the submitter mention "CD", and there are still people buying those, you know. I had a roommate who had a fairly good collection of classical records. I'm pretty sure even he wouldn't have bought the crap that's coming out these days, though.
It's simple logic. Killing is just means to an end, not an end in itself.
It's "anything to yourself". I'm pretty sure shooting your opponent will still be just as much a foul as kicking him in the balls.
I'm not saying whether this prejudice is right or not (I know nothing about Nigeria), but it can certainly be hurtful a long way down the road---especially if this
Most people already finish their PhD *at least* 9 years after they start undergrad (that's assuming 4 years of undergrad and 5 years of graduate school, which is actually lower than average). And suppose someone graduated from college, spent a few years (2 to 3, maybe?) in the industry, and then decided to go back and earn a PhD (I suppose there are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the PhD being necessary to advancement in career to becoming disinterested in making money and (re-)entering academia). That's easily 12 years, and I didn't have to concoct any unusual scenario like someone waking out of coma after 10 years.
As for what kind of information one would be looking for
Of course, this just shifts the economic burden onto the companies, but I think a good argument can be made, at least in software, that copyleft and free software have already proven that copyright is not necessary to sustain the market. There are numerous free software companies that are, more or less, selling support contracts, not software (since their customers generally can choose to download the software gratis elsewhere). In case of music, well, perhaps musicians shouldn't be paid for what they record once and sell million times? Perhaps they should only be paid for live performances---I also see this as curing many of the society's ills with its obsession over millionaire stars and so on.
Copyright is not an absolute necessity to maintain a market in many fields where they are being applied now. And even if it were, perhaps in those fields, we would be better left with hobbyists, who have no monetary incentives, and not professionals? If you want a bad, perhaps misapplied analogy, consider that the venerable Founding Fathers were amateur politicians (they were plantation owners or got their wealth elsewhere---politics was more of a hobby). Current deplorable political state of affairs is maintained by career, professional politicians. Who governed the country better?
How do you think corporations like IBM and Sun own copyrights? After all, corporations cannot write programs (even though they are legal persons). Programmers get hired, and what they write while they are employed belongs to the company. They got paid once, and they will not, in most cases, see any more royalties for future sale of that program. The same applies to journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. Since reporters are hired by the publisher, the copyright usually belongs to the publisher (and, again, the journalist or columnist will not see additional royalties from future publication). A novel is a special case, since most of the time, novelists are not hired by someone to write it. They are probably lucky to publish them without having to pay for the cost out of their own pocket (probably through some licensing deal with publishers).
I could go on and on, but one thing I want to emphasize is, most of the time, if someone paid you to create something that's copyrightable, the person who paid you owns the copyright, as a work-for-hire, not you. That's the law.
P.S. BTW, that's why FSF wants you to get a copyright disclaimer from your employer if you contribute to FSF projects (and they want copyright assignment to them, for more effective GPL enforcement)---your employer could potentially claim copyright on your code as work-for-hire, sometimes even if you worked on it entirely on your own time.
It's like abolishing speed limits. Sure, it's already widely ignored, but abolishing it will give a great peace of mind to the people who do.
Of course, there's a limit to one can axiomatize social science
The IE vs. Netscape situation is a bit more complicated in this light
But then, I guess even then the statistics sound kinda low for Windows, kinda high for anyone else. The only group that fits something around "30%" must be
Hey, Windows Vista infringes on IP!
Let me just say ... you and I have a very different view on "double life".
... even if you were a double agent. It's Google's fault for revealing what you shared with your contacts in CIA to your contacts in North Korea. You had absolutely no fault for not caring about your own privacy in the first place.
For me, if you couldn't tell your mother what you did with your friends or talked about with your friends, then you are living a double life. At least you are hiding enough aspects or life that the person you are at home is not the person you are at work or party.
And, for me, if you are going to live that kind of life, the burden is on you to keep some sort of real barrier between the two sides of your life.
But then again, that's me. You probably think everyone (including for-profit companies) should watch out for you lest you stumble
Hm. I didn't know that. I assume it's done through the newer Javascript stuff?
Perhaps if they cared enough, they could implement what you suggest to apply to AC postings. I still think the traffic/bandwidth generated might be a problem if it's done for every single post, but implemented only for AC posts, they might be able to throttle it down.
I think the problem is ... you are starting from the wrong axiom. "Monopoly is bad" is simply not true, at least not true enough to be an axiom.
The axiom you should start with is: "Competition is good."
From this, you can derive (and I use that word very loosely here) the following:
1. A monopoly in certain markets allow the monopolist to engage in anticompetitive behavior, such as dumping and bundling. This reduces competition in the marketplace, therefore we need laws limiting monopolists from these acts.
2. If creative works are allowed to be copied and distributed at will, there will be no monetary market (there is still one for reputation, which is one that existed before copyright laws and which is what still matters more for academia). Without monetary market, there will be less competition (if one can call it that---more like participation), since only a smaller set of people, essentially those who do not need money, will participate in creative production. From this, one can make a good argument that limiting such copying and distribution and giving the author monopoly rights will increase competition in the marketplace. Of course, if today's society is any evidence, there should be a reasonable limit to this monopoly---look at the music industry and look at how it failed!
But the essential fact is, monopoly is not bad, but competition is good (as this is primarily how the "invisible hand" of market forces works). Monopoly is bad only to the extent that it reduces competition in the marketplace.
Well, not exactly.
... because I personally think perpetual copyright is as immoral as slavery.
Because shortening the term (and this had better be retroactive, just as well!) will reduce the amount of copyrighted work. This, using my out-of-my-arse calculation, will reduce the amount of copyrighted work to 95% of what it is now at conservative estimate (here's how I figure---the "reasonable" length that many people seem to propose is 5 years, so I choose that as maximum; assuming the author didn't die at the moment of publication, most copyright will have lasted around 100 years; ignoring that there's probably more work created in last couple decades (music, movies, books, everything!) in comparison to any other time period, I get that 5%).
This is a practical abolition of copyright, at least compared to today's draconian standards. If you can't stomach the idea of copyright abolition, you are not going to be able to stomach the idea of copyright reduction.
No more than I can stomach the idea of author's life + 75 years
In fact, at the higher tax bracket, I don't think they are taxing enough. I think they should tax to the equilibrium (... where high wage-earners would be just at the verge of not bothering to make that extra dollar knowing how much tax they'll have to pay on it). And given than fewer than 5% of Americans earn more than $100,000, I'll bet that will be the stance that a huge majority takes, even following your reasoning.
In fact, given that most people have more to benefit from using other people's creations freely (in both senses of the word) than they do from gouging others for their own creation, even after these college kids have created some imaginary properties to protect, a huge majority will still believe (after all, they are better educated on these issues than today's old people) what they apparently believe now.
Not when you are forced to reinvent the wheel from scratch. If you are making a movie yourself (and can't pay royalties or ... find copyright owners), you can't include any music created 1927 and onwards. You couldn't include any clips created 1927 and onwards. You couldn't include any images created 1927 and onwards. Everything must be completely original, and better than other movies (made by media conglomerates that own all those copyrights, and can make derivative works off of those and have done so for last century) made with much bigger budgets.
Don't you think that's a rather large barrier to entry (one of requirements of monopoly)? What do you think supports that barrier?
Don't forget---copyright used to be only 20, 30 years. That's what it should have been---for book publishing industries. For all the newer media, it should have been dramatically shorter.
This is the basis of Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture movement. Our draconian laws are stifling people's creativity (and probably market competition).
If anyone's actually going to do the calculation that reflects reality in any sense, you would either have to assume that everyone in the state votes, or that the state's last voter turnout rate holds for this hypothetical election. Or something.
However, he with 99.6% of the votes, or 66% of the votes, or even (probably) 55% of the votes do not lose the election. Generally. (In the electoral college system, you could work out what the *theoretical* proportion of votes one candidate receive and still lose the election is ... but I'll bet that's below 90% of the votes. Not to mention that such outcome is just highly unlikely.)
... constitution isn't supposed to protect powerful special interests either. In fact, if you read the section of constitution granting Congress the power to create copyright laws, it states for what purpose it is (the benefit of the public), and it states that it must be for a limited term. I won't repeat here what others have argued much more eloquently (e.g. find Lawrence Lessig's article about the Supreme Court case regarding Sony Bono copyright law, or his "Free Culture" movement; alternatively, Richard Stallman's views on copyright), but the current copyright laws are the most draconian laws we have ever had in history and, to common sense, although not to the Supreme Court, downright unconstitutional.
When there is such a discrepancy between what a large majority (and I don't mean 50.1%. I mean something close to 70%. Something close to Bush's approval rating right after 9/11) believes should not be a crime and what law says is a crime, it's a pretty good sign that the law should be changed.
Oh, and let me just say