The copyright isn't "theft" it is Nazi memorabilia. Note, not the words or books of the words, which are in libraries all over Germany, apparently, but the *copyright* on the words.
But still, the/copyright/ wasn't sold or displayed (you couldn't display a copyright, because it doesn't physically exist).
Yes, this is logically nonsense, but if all the courts agree to the same nonsense then it becomes legal (cf, Generally Accepted Accounting Standards) or at least a legal fiction.
Likewise, the German courts could just redefine the copyrights G's diaries as Nazi memorabilia or some such, and if it is agreed by any court that could reverse it in Germany (don't know how their courts are organized) then it stands. Since Nazi memorabilia cannot be sold or displayed in German jurisdictions, the copyrights cannot be enforced. I assume that the German government cannot just make an ex post facto law covering the situation like the British could, of course, since that is the simplest way to go if one can get away with it.
If a quote were memorabilia, then wouldn't a book containing the quote also contain memorabilia, and therefore be illegal to sell? Also, if we're going with copyright=theft, then, even if it's illegal to sell memorabilia, is it illegal to sue for theft of memorabilia?
Yes, we are all going to die sooner or later, and all civilisations will fail sooner or later (if for no other reason, the cosmos will eventually succumb to entropy). In any case, I'd rather go with later than sooner, and I think worrying about it might help.
I think it's fair to say that some civilisations probably failed due to events that were beyond their ability to predict or prevent, but I think it's also fair to say that other civilisations probably failed due to events that they could have predicted and prevented, if only they'd worried more. Rapanui (Easter Island) and the Roman Empire are a couple of examples of cases that might fall into the latter category.
There are also disasters such as plagues and fires, etc. that have been pretty damaging, but not civilisation ending. In my country, a city was hit by an earthquake a while back, that caused a lot of damage. Building codes are stricter now, because people are more worried about it, and think this might help.
I always wear a seat belt when travelling by car, and in almost every case it's been an unnecessary precaution, and then one day, it wasn't. I've had vaccinations, which were possibly unnecessary, I don't know. My country, like most, has armed forces which spend most of their time/not/ fighting off foreign invaders.
We don't have complete knowledge, so we do risk management. We estimate, or just guess, the probability of an event, it's severity if it did happen, and the costs and benefits of preparations for it, and act accordingly. I think we should, even if the events usually don't happen, because one day, one might.
The photographer does hold the copyright to the photograph, but copyright isn't a right to make copies of the photograph, it's a right to prevent people from making copies of the photograph. People other than the photographer may hold other rights that also preclude making copies of the photograph (but that doesn't mean they're allowed to make copies of the photograph either).
Your first link is very different from the other two. In the first case, the guy who owned the camera initially claimed he was not the photographer--specifically that a monkey picked up his camera and took the photo itself. (The photo became a bit of a sensation on this basis, but when it came to light that you don't get copyright just by owning a camera, the guy changed his story, and instead claimed he had got the shot ready, and just let the monkey push the button.) In this case, the question is about who (or what) the photographer was, and therefore who (if anyone) holds copyright (since monkeys can't hold copyright). In this case, it is questionable whether the guy who owned the camera holds copyright, and therefore whether he can preclude others from making copies.
The other two links don't relate to disputes about who the photographer is, and therefore don't relate to disputes about who holds copyright. In these cases, it is not in question that the photographer can preclude people from making copies. What is in question is whether other people hold other rights that also preclude the photographer from making copies.
I expect this was a quip, rather than serious. Was the USA ever trustworthy, going back to the formation of the Union between 1776-1789? I'm not an historian, but I'd guess they started out relatively trustworthy. I'm given to understand they had some high ideals. Power corrupts though, I suppose.
There's ultimately no way to makes laws other than "those in power decide," as every system is really that system under the covers - by the definition of "power."
I think having proposed legislation vetted by juries would help.
Giving someone money isn't speech, but it can be closely tied to speech in such a way that taking away your ability to do so effectively infringes upon your free speech rights.
I disagree. I rather suspect that most of the money that people might make from such speech (assuming drawings of children having sex is considered a form of speech) comes from the legal right to prevent other people from copying them. This legal right is granted "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
To be clear, I'm not advocating a ban on drawing, or the possessition of drawings, but I'm far from convinced that the right to free speech encompases a right to claim payment for drawing children having sex.
"In very rare circumstances do you ask a court to rule on a contract before anything has happened." -- queazocotal
That's my understanding too--a court generally gets involved when someone alleges someone else has broken the law, not when someone is considering doing something and wants to check it won't break the law. I expect Dixie_Flatline got the opposite view from the linked Microsoft or WinBeta articles, both of which imply otherwise (although neither directly state it). I'd hazard a guess that the WinBeta article is largely parroting the Microsoft one, and my feeling is that neither are particularly reliable sources.
How about instead of playing five knuckle shuffle while attempting to funnel more money into the government coffers we instead look at ways to sequester the carbon emissions and perhaps replace them with naturally economically viable solutions?
Governments could put more money into research, but it would still have to come from somewhere (not that I'm saying this is necessarily a bad idea, but I think it's a false dichotomy).
The entire idea behind cap and trade is to restrict usage and it hits the poor the worse.
Yes, but everything hits the poor worse. If food prices rise as a result of increasing crop failures, this would hit the poor worse too.
It's a trade-off (so to speak). Whether or not it's a good idea depends on what the comparison is between the costs that would be caused by tariffs and the costs that would be avoided by tariffs.
I agree. I have enough trouble remembering my own age. Besides, what if the scientists got it wrong, and the universe is really 13.7 or 13.9 billion years old?
The costs of patent litigation exceed their investment value in all industries except chemistry and pharmaceuticals.
Bessen, James & Meurer, Michael J. (2008) Patent Failure. Princeton University Press.
So it would make sense to abolish patents in all other areas.
The economically optimal copyright length, assuming a single flat term, is slightly less than 15 years
Pollock, Rufus (2009) Forever Minus a Day? Calculating Optimal Copyright Term.
I think it might be better to have a shorter copyright term followed by a further copyleft term though.
Copyright disallows people from copying ideas that others thought of. Patents disallow people from using ideas even if they thought of them themselves, if someone else thought of them earlier. Some people think that copyright is a moral right. I don't think so. But even if we were to assume that copyright were a moral right, I can't see how anyone could honestly think that patents are. It seems to me that if we accept that people have a right to think of ideas themselves, and also accept that we should not punish people on the mere presumption of guilt (i.e. we shouldn't assume that someone has copied an idea if it's possible they thought of it themselves), then there can be no basis for considering patents as a moral right.
If there is any basis for patents at all, then, it must be, like tax, justified as a democratically agreed upon imposition on liberty as a means for promoting the greater good (even if we assume copyright to be a moral right).
By using clean room design (starting with an empty code base, and ensuring everything added was written in-house), it is possible for a company to ensure that software they produce is not covered by other people's copyrights. This is not the case with patents. The only way to determine that software is not covered by other people's patents is to check every part of it against every patent in existence.
In the case of pharmaceuticals, patents do significantly promote innovation, and a patent search is realistically achievable, so pharmaceutical patents do promote the greater good. In the case of software, patents do not significantly promote innovation, and patent searches are generally impractical, so software patents do not promote the greater good.
You've said people sacrificing themselves to help others in order to propagate shared genes can not be called 'altruistic' because it is selfish, but is this really so? If I sacrifice myself, it doesn't actually help me any (quite the opposite), even if it does help propagate my genes. Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene talks about genes being 'selfish' although people aren't necessarily (AFAIK). And BTW, while you've objected to the use of the term 'altruistic', you've proceeded to use the term 'selfless' in a more objectionable way.
What about Sweden? We've freed ourselves from religion, and we are doing just fine.
Oh, you might think you're doing okay, but boy, are you in for a rude awakening. Real soon. Any day now, you mark my words. And when it does happen, I'm going to laugh at your misfortune heartily. In the meanwhile I'll just bide my time saying "Any day now." And if any misfortune comes my way, that's only bad luck, clearly.
If the Christian god exists, and is all powerful, then helping out those who most need and deserve it (like children about to be raped and murdered for instance) would consume an infinitesimal fraction of his effort. If he is all loving, then he surely wouldn't begrudge us that.
You're quite right we all assume the reliability of our memories, as well as that of our senses. (In fact, we may be wrong about these things. People with Alzheimer's disease may have unreliable memories, and people dreaming have unreliable senses.) And yes, we also assume that there was a past, and will be a future.
We start with these beliefs built-in, and a good thing because we couldn't do anything (including build further beliefs) without them. Some of us are also indoctrinated with religious beliefs as children. As adults, we can (hopefully) analyse our beliefs and question them. Nihilists notice none of our beliefs have any ultimate foundation, and therefore doubt them all. But this leads us nowhere. What if nothing exists, or at least nothing can be known? Then there is nothing to think about. We must make a few basic assumptions so we can admit anything as being worth thinking about.
But why make more assumptions than we need to? In particular, why make some specific religious assumptions rather than others? And although we can't hope for any ultimate foundation for our beliefs, we can aim for self-consistency, and Christianity doesn't seem very self-consistent to me.
The use of the term "pirate" when referring to infringing on copyright goes back hundreds of years. If you think the meaning is still dubious, you're an idiot.
I said that, if anything, a later meaning is dubious, and specifically in response to the suggestion that an earlier meaning is dubious.
The term "public domain" also goes back hundreds of years, and is very specific. Anything that can legally be copied is said to be in the public domain. Public domain is the natural domain of all works (and in fact all objects), copyright is an exception that pulls works out of the public domain and into the private domain for a set period of time.
This definition is in fact no different than any other definition of "public domain". It is literally free for the public to use because nobody owns it any more. Same with any other object in the public domain.
To publish a work is to make it public, hence 'publish'. Copyright laws have historically applied from the time of publication (i.e. from the time that a work is made public), not to works that have not been made public (which are covered by the likes of privacy laws), hence, historically, all works under copyright law would necessarily be in the public domain, regardless of the lack of a public legal right to make copies.
You were using a meaning of the term external to the domain of this discussion either to purposely confuse the issue to benefit an agenda, or just to be jackass.
In the context of copyright law 'public domain' has a very specific meaning which has nothing to do with being 'publically available.' Using other (dubious) meanings of 'public domain' in this conversation is being willfully obtuse.
The earlier meaning of 'public domain' is no more dubious than the earlier meaning of 'pirate'. If anything, it is the later meaning which is dubious, and used to confuse the issue to benefit an agenda.
It's a huge lie. Everything on the web is in fact public domain.
Well...
Intellectual works aren't the sort of things that can be public domain or not, but rather they might or might not be in the public domain. However that said, yes, all intellectual works on the web are in fact in the public domain, although what is at issue here is whether or not they are in the public domain in law. Not every road that exists in law exists in fact, and vice versa, and this applies to works being in the public domain too.
There are people in this country that will kill you because you think abortion is okay,
If you're interested in the abortion debate, I'd encourage you to take a look at the abortion debate map at Debategraph (it's kind of like Wikipedia for debates).
Slashdot Mirror
The copyright isn't "theft" it is Nazi memorabilia. Note, not the words or books of the words, which are in libraries all over Germany, apparently, but the *copyright* on the words.
But still, the /copyright/ wasn't sold or displayed (you couldn't display a copyright, because it doesn't physically exist).
Yes, this is logically nonsense, but if all the courts agree to the same nonsense then it becomes legal (cf, Generally Accepted Accounting Standards) or at least a legal fiction.
Yeah, I guess so. :-/
Likewise, the German courts could just redefine the copyrights G's diaries as Nazi memorabilia or some such, and if it is agreed by any court that could reverse it in Germany (don't know how their courts are organized) then it stands. Since Nazi memorabilia cannot be sold or displayed in German jurisdictions, the copyrights cannot be enforced. I assume that the German government cannot just make an ex post facto law covering the situation like the British could, of course, since that is the simplest way to go if one can get away with it.
If a quote were memorabilia, then wouldn't a book containing the quote also contain memorabilia, and therefore be illegal to sell? Also, if we're going with copyright=theft, then, even if it's illegal to sell memorabilia, is it illegal to sue for theft of memorabilia?
Yes, we are all going to die sooner or later, and all civilisations will fail sooner or later (if for no other reason, the cosmos will eventually succumb to entropy). In any case, I'd rather go with later than sooner, and I think worrying about it might help.
I think it's fair to say that some civilisations probably failed due to events that were beyond their ability to predict or prevent, but I think it's also fair to say that other civilisations probably failed due to events that they could have predicted and prevented, if only they'd worried more. Rapanui (Easter Island) and the Roman Empire are a couple of examples of cases that might fall into the latter category.
There are also disasters such as plagues and fires, etc. that have been pretty damaging, but not civilisation ending. In my country, a city was hit by an earthquake a while back, that caused a lot of damage. Building codes are stricter now, because people are more worried about it, and think this might help.
I always wear a seat belt when travelling by car, and in almost every case it's been an unnecessary precaution, and then one day, it wasn't. I've had vaccinations, which were possibly unnecessary, I don't know. My country, like most, has armed forces which spend most of their time /not/ fighting off foreign invaders.
We don't have complete knowledge, so we do risk management. We estimate, or just guess, the probability of an event, it's severity if it did happen, and the costs and benefits of preparations for it, and act accordingly. I think we should, even if the events usually don't happen, because one day, one might.
The photographer does hold the copyright to the photograph, but copyright isn't a right to make copies of the photograph, it's a right to prevent people from making copies of the photograph. People other than the photographer may hold other rights that also preclude making copies of the photograph (but that doesn't mean they're allowed to make copies of the photograph either).
Your first link is very different from the other two. In the first case, the guy who owned the camera initially claimed he was not the photographer--specifically that a monkey picked up his camera and took the photo itself. (The photo became a bit of a sensation on this basis, but when it came to light that you don't get copyright just by owning a camera, the guy changed his story, and instead claimed he had got the shot ready, and just let the monkey push the button.) In this case, the question is about who (or what) the photographer was, and therefore who (if anyone) holds copyright (since monkeys can't hold copyright). In this case, it is questionable whether the guy who owned the camera holds copyright, and therefore whether he can preclude others from making copies.
The other two links don't relate to disputes about who the photographer is, and therefore don't relate to disputes about who holds copyright. In these cases, it is not in question that the photographer can preclude people from making copies. What is in question is whether other people hold other rights that also preclude the photographer from making copies.
That's not true. Wilson Parking also does this. (I expect there are others too.)
I expect this was a quip, rather than serious. Was the USA ever trustworthy, going back to the formation of the Union between 1776-1789? I'm not an historian, but I'd guess they started out relatively trustworthy. I'm given to understand they had some high ideals. Power corrupts though, I suppose.
I think having proposed legislation vetted by juries would help.
I disagree. I rather suspect that most of the money that people might make from such speech (assuming drawings of children having sex is considered a form of speech) comes from the legal right to prevent other people from copying them. This legal right is granted "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
To be clear, I'm not advocating a ban on drawing, or the possessition of drawings, but I'm far from convinced that the right to free speech encompases a right to claim payment for drawing children having sex.
Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror
... The game's play centers on the player's character of the Doctor (specifically his sixth incarnation), and his robotic programmable cat Splinx. ...
"In very rare circumstances do you ask a court to rule on a contract before anything has happened." -- queazocotal
That's my understanding too--a court generally gets involved when someone alleges someone else has broken the law, not when someone is considering doing something and wants to check it won't break the law. I expect Dixie_Flatline got the opposite view from the linked Microsoft or WinBeta articles, both of which imply otherwise (although neither directly state it). I'd hazard a guess that the WinBeta article is largely parroting the Microsoft one, and my feeling is that neither are particularly reliable sources.
Governments could put more money into research, but it would still have to come from somewhere (not that I'm saying this is necessarily a bad idea, but I think it's a false dichotomy).
Yes, but everything hits the poor worse. If food prices rise as a result of increasing crop failures, this would hit the poor worse too.
It's a trade-off (so to speak). Whether or not it's a good idea depends on what the comparison is between the costs that would be caused by tariffs and the costs that would be avoided by tariffs.
I agree. I have enough trouble remembering my own age. Besides, what if the scientists got it wrong, and the universe is really 13.7 or 13.9 billion years old?
The costs of patent litigation exceed their investment value in all industries except chemistry and pharmaceuticals.
Bessen, James & Meurer, Michael J. (2008) Patent Failure. Princeton University Press.
So it would make sense to abolish patents in all other areas.
The economically optimal copyright length, assuming a single flat term, is slightly less than 15 years
Pollock, Rufus (2009) Forever Minus a Day? Calculating Optimal Copyright Term.
I think it might be better to have a shorter copyright term followed by a further copyleft term though.
Copyright disallows people from copying ideas that others thought of. Patents disallow people from using ideas even if they thought of them themselves, if someone else thought of them earlier. Some people think that copyright is a moral right. I don't think so. But even if we were to assume that copyright were a moral right, I can't see how anyone could honestly think that patents are. It seems to me that if we accept that people have a right to think of ideas themselves, and also accept that we should not punish people on the mere presumption of guilt (i.e. we shouldn't assume that someone has copied an idea if it's possible they thought of it themselves), then there can be no basis for considering patents as a moral right.
If there is any basis for patents at all, then, it must be, like tax, justified as a democratically agreed upon imposition on liberty as a means for promoting the greater good (even if we assume copyright to be a moral right).
By using clean room design (starting with an empty code base, and ensuring everything added was written in-house), it is possible for a company to ensure that software they produce is not covered by other people's copyrights. This is not the case with patents. The only way to determine that software is not covered by other people's patents is to check every part of it against every patent in existence.
In the case of pharmaceuticals, patents do significantly promote innovation, and a patent search is realistically achievable, so pharmaceutical patents do promote the greater good. In the case of software, patents do not significantly promote innovation, and patent searches are generally impractical, so software patents do not promote the greater good.
What we're seeing here is evidence of the LORD intervening to gently nudge the universe towards the development of goodness.
You've said people sacrificing themselves to help others in order to propagate shared genes can not be called 'altruistic' because it is selfish, but is this really so? If I sacrifice myself, it doesn't actually help me any (quite the opposite), even if it does help propagate my genes. Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene talks about genes being 'selfish' although people aren't necessarily (AFAIK). And BTW, while you've objected to the use of the term 'altruistic', you've proceeded to use the term 'selfless' in a more objectionable way.
I think that's the smarter you are if you are above average, or the less smart you are if you are below average.
Or to put it another way, the conclusion is this: The further away you are from average, the less likely you are to fit in.
What about Sweden? We've freed ourselves from religion, and we are doing just fine.
Oh, you might think you're doing okay, but boy, are you in for a rude awakening. Real soon. Any day now, you mark my words. And when it does happen, I'm going to laugh at your misfortune heartily. In the meanwhile I'll just bide my time saying "Any day now." And if any misfortune comes my way, that's only bad luck, clearly.
If the Christian god exists, and is all powerful, then helping out those who most need and deserve it (like children about to be raped and murdered for instance) would consume an infinitesimal fraction of his effort. If he is all loving, then he surely wouldn't begrudge us that.
You're quite right we all assume the reliability of our memories, as well as that of our senses. (In fact, we may be wrong about these things. People with Alzheimer's disease may have unreliable memories, and people dreaming have unreliable senses.) And yes, we also assume that there was a past, and will be a future.
We start with these beliefs built-in, and a good thing because we couldn't do anything (including build further beliefs) without them. Some of us are also indoctrinated with religious beliefs as children. As adults, we can (hopefully) analyse our beliefs and question them. Nihilists notice none of our beliefs have any ultimate foundation, and therefore doubt them all. But this leads us nowhere. What if nothing exists, or at least nothing can be known? Then there is nothing to think about. We must make a few basic assumptions so we can admit anything as being worth thinking about.
But why make more assumptions than we need to? In particular, why make some specific religious assumptions rather than others? And although we can't hope for any ultimate foundation for our beliefs, we can aim for self-consistency, and Christianity doesn't seem very self-consistent to me.
The use of the term "pirate" when referring to infringing on copyright goes back hundreds of years. If you think the meaning is still dubious, you're an idiot.
I said that, if anything, a later meaning is dubious, and specifically in response to the suggestion that an earlier meaning is dubious.
The term "public domain" also goes back hundreds of years, and is very specific. Anything that can legally be copied is said to be in the public domain. Public domain is the natural domain of all works (and in fact all objects), copyright is an exception that pulls works out of the public domain and into the private domain for a set period of time.
This definition is in fact no different than any other definition of "public domain". It is literally free for the public to use because nobody owns it any more. Same with any other object in the public domain.
To publish a work is to make it public, hence 'publish'. Copyright laws have historically applied from the time of publication (i.e. from the time that a work is made public), not to works that have not been made public (which are covered by the likes of privacy laws), hence, historically, all works under copyright law would necessarily be in the public domain, regardless of the lack of a public legal right to make copies.
You were using a meaning of the term external to the domain of this discussion either to purposely confuse the issue to benefit an agenda, or just to be jackass.
In the context of copyright law 'public domain' has a very specific meaning which has nothing to do with being 'publically available.' Using other (dubious) meanings of 'public domain' in this conversation is being willfully obtuse.
The earlier meaning of 'public domain' is no more dubious than the earlier meaning of 'pirate'. If anything, it is the later meaning which is dubious, and used to confuse the issue to benefit an agenda.
It's a huge lie. Everything on the web is in fact public domain.
Well... Intellectual works aren't the sort of things that can be public domain or not, but rather they might or might not be in the public domain. However that said, yes, all intellectual works on the web are in fact in the public domain, although what is at issue here is whether or not they are in the public domain in law. Not every road that exists in law exists in fact, and vice versa, and this applies to works being in the public domain too.
If you're interested in the abortion debate, I'd encourage you to take a look at the abortion debate map at Debategraph (it's kind of like Wikipedia for debates).