Constitutional Lawyers are not Intellectual Property Lawyers.
Constitutional Law Professors and Intellectual Property Professors (Jack Balkin and Larry Lessig, to name two (and I had Torts from Prof Balkin)) do not support your statement. Neither does"every" Constitutional Lawyer on the planet - only Constitutional law applies within the US - the rest of the planet doesn't much care.
Actually, I'd be for limiting access to the religious texts... more people have died in the name of religion than any other cause in human history.
But what you propose goes against the US Constitution and that is the basis of this discussion. Article 8, Clause 8 says: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The Authors of the books you cite are long (400+ years) dead, and where the religious texts are concerned, they are considered "the works" of a deity.
I am an attorney. I have worked in the Patent Field and will again. You have some valid points and a mass of total misunderstanding for the balance of your comment.
The standard for a utility patent is "new, unique and non obvious" and at the time, the windshield wiper delay circuit was exactly that - and the patent issued and was stolen.
The inventor had to embark on a costly - and record length - legal battle just to recover a portion of the value of his invention. But for the patent protection - he would have had nothing and the automakers would be wealthier without paying him one cent.
Consider the alternative to patents and copyrights - trade secrets. Do you want closed systems that you can never hack? Never improve upon? Never reach the public domain?
The formula for Coke is a Trade Secret.
How do you protect a play, book or musical performance in the absence of copyright? By non-disclosure agreements - and then we have a real mess.
It is not the Supreme Court when Patents and Copyrights are at issue - it is the Federal Circuit. Yes, the SCT does have final say - but Judge Giles Sullivan Rich was the first Patent Practitioner appointed to the bench and the Fed.Cir has become, for all intents and purposes, the Patent, Trademark & Copyright court of last resort.
But, you miss the point - it has been Congress - and the constant lobbying from the IP industry - that has amended Title 17 at least a dozen times since the 1976 Act - extending copyright terms, bringing public domain works back into copyright and, through ancillary work with the DMCA they all but eliminated reverse engineering.
Consider that Linux and UNIX execute (mostly) the same commands - but the microcode is different - making Linux a non-infringing OS. But, if the DMCA had been in place when Mr. Torvalds created Linux the AT&T boys would have eliminated his OS.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
The terms, "shall have the power to" are imperatives. Congress MUST act.
Read the section of the constitution I posted. The status of inventors and authors are protected by Sec 8 Clause 8.
You can't change,"Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries: absent a constitutional amendment. Some time must be "secured to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" unless the constitution is amended to eliminate Sec.8Cl.8.
Dream on if you think that the Constitution can be ignored. Especially where certain parties make mega-bucks.
I have no problem with profit -I do have a problem with an undisclosed profit source. Where a grocery makes a radical shift from food to data as their profit center, the consumer ought to know what coin of the realm is traded in their transaction.
Data isn't dollars for apples.
The entire data mining industry - as well as the credit reporting industry are ripe for regulation....
A trademark is governed by the Lantham Act where Copyright is Title 17 of the USC. There are vast differences in the protections afforded and the scope of same. Suffice to say, Mickey could be used in other creations, without licensing, after the copyright expired.
There were 5 casinos in the city - all having the same 'loss limits' imposed by state law ($500.00/person/day).
They never went head-to-head in advertising - always claiming that their casino had the best food or the loosest slots - but never denigrating the competition.
How are authors supposed to make a buck? The guy who invented the windshield wiper delay circuit (a patent) had it stolen from him and 3 years after his 17 year patent expired he finally won his case.
The US Constitution guarantees the exclusive rights to authors and inventors for a limited period. Unless the Constitution is amended (Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries) there will always be a right to exclusive control over the works of an author.
I agree, and so do most realistic academics. It is the duty of the lawyers for the copyright holders to get the most money that they can for their clients. Today's pay-to-play government and our little friend WIPO have made the game a very, very expensive one.
Did it ever occur how strange it is that the FBI investigates copyright violations - why do the national police enforce a powerful publisher's rights? I certainly have never had stolen goods returned to me by the police...albeit that they will return anything that they happen to find...
We pay both ways - we pay to enforce the law and we pay the civil side to the RIAA. Seems like the balance is out of wack.
I wouldn't go so far as to end it. A reasonable time - say 30 years - ought to be enough. Romeo & Juliet became West Side Story. Now, Leonard Bernstein's music is still in copyright as is Arthur Laurents (book), and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics....
But, from 1957 when the play opened on Broadway, only Sondheim is still alive. That show is 51 years old and by our current copyright laws it could remain in copyright (for one or more of the three creations) for at least another 50 years. What makes a fine derivative work like West Side Story so special that another Bernstein or Laurents or Sondheim couldn't build onto West Side Story and create another masterpiece - but not for another 50 years?
As for that damned mouse and its creator - Disney needs less income - it owns so much now that it can't keep track of it all.
Whose figures are you believing? The OIL industry? The Financial Times just ran a 2 part article on the profits of the industry - and the evidence is overwhelming that they are vastly underreporting their acquisitions and profits.
Why, I bet that that you have found out for yourself that there are no gages on Iraqi oil pipelines...nobody knows how much oil leaves that nation. Well, the oil industry has a good idea, collectively......
While you're at it, consider that the grocery store used to work on a 2-3% markup and do just fine. Today, food is a byproduct - the revenue is generated by the sale of data - mined from your purchases. Yep, those "affinity cards" create a 15% profit margin for the large chains and the mom and pop stores will be gone shortly.
And, casinos. Ah, yes, the money printing business. One that I sued had an operating cost of $0.167 - making their EBDA profit over 80 cents on the dollar. Consider that industry: physical plant, equipment - all depreciable as 3 year property or expensed in 1 year (cards, tickets) and staff costs. Cheap to operate and profitable as hell. Why, they sell their food and drink at a "loss" to entice in the suckers.
Ever wonder why Hold-em became such a hot game? Because, prior to that game, there was so much cheating that nobody could win on skill. Today that is the only game that you can play in a modern casino and have some reasonable chance of winning on skill. They don't let you play Backgammon for money - because the house loses. Today's oil business is a lot like Backgammon - and the problem is that you think that you are playing some other game.
The "halfway" mark is called "Peak Oil" and it is all downhill from there. Jimmy Carter had the right idea - make the US energy independent - but the greedy energy industry didn't want to innovate - so they bought politicians for a pittance and made fortunes beyond belief.
Any 1st year business major (or, any kid selling lemonade) knows that the cost of acquisition + cost of sale + profit margin = selling price. Where all of the oil companies (a cartel) have the same costs of acquisition, but not the same costs of sale, then their uniform pricing exposes a nasty little deal called "price fixing" - and, for those of you who don't believe that the oil companies would do such a thing - read the history of T. Roosevelt and the trust busters.
Moreover, in a free market you simply cannot have (1) High Costs of Acquisition, (2) High Sales Prices and (3) Record Profits.
You can have only two of those three or the market is "fixed" not free.
And, the same jerks made Dems share the same chairs in the 6 years that they controlled Congress. Thus far, no Dem VP has told a Senator to "Go Fuck yourself" as dear, kind Mr. Cheney did.
And, this seems like a good stopping point. As of 1976 we had 2 26 year terms for a copyright, the act was amended that year and has been amended so many times since that whole treatises exist just to explain the changes in the law over a 32 year period.
What is particularly outrageous is the Sonny Bono extension - or, Save Mickey from the Public Domain Act. That crazy amendment brought material that was in the public domain back into copyright!
The great argument was that the authors would be more motivated to create with longer royalty periods - the only problem: I haven't heard any new creations from George and Ira Gershwin - the lazy bastards (ok, they're dead). The real reason to extend and extend these terms is to allow the corporate assignees to continue to profit. Disney was a strong backer because Mickey was about to become public domain - and that mouse is worth millions to its corporate masters.
The RIAA has been raking in the loot for 10-15 years now - and it is about time to put a stop to this kind of bs. I think that Monday will be the beginning of the end of the RIAA's tactics.
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Ray,
Judge Rich has a major opinion that holds the other way - in the patent aspect of Art. 8, Cl. 8.
If you want me to go look it up and post the citation - I'd be happy to. I've enjoyed your posts.
GRO
Shall is imperative. May is not. Only 200+ years of precedent separate English from the language we call "law."
Jack Balkin's Blog: http://balkin.blogspot.com/
Read a while, it will do you some good.
Larry Lessig's blog: http://www.lessig.org/blog/
Now - go read.
Constitutional Lawyers are not Intellectual Property Lawyers.
Constitutional Law Professors and Intellectual Property Professors (Jack Balkin and Larry Lessig, to name two (and I had Torts from Prof Balkin)) do not support your statement. Neither does"every" Constitutional Lawyer on the planet - only Constitutional law applies within the US - the rest of the planet doesn't much care.
Actually, I'd be for limiting access to the religious texts... more people have died in the name of religion than any other cause in human history.
But what you propose goes against the US Constitution and that is the basis of this discussion. Article 8, Clause 8 says: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The Authors of the books you cite are long (400+ years) dead, and where the religious texts are concerned, they are considered "the works" of a deity.
An absurd proposal.
I am an attorney. I have worked in the Patent Field and will again. You have some valid points and a mass of total misunderstanding for the balance of your comment.
The standard for a utility patent is "new, unique and non obvious" and at the time, the windshield wiper delay circuit was exactly that - and the patent issued and was stolen.
The inventor had to embark on a costly - and record length - legal battle just to recover a portion of the value of his invention. But for the patent protection - he would have had nothing and the automakers would be wealthier without paying him one cent.
Consider the alternative to patents and copyrights - trade secrets. Do you want closed systems that you can never hack? Never improve upon? Never reach the public domain?
The formula for Coke is a Trade Secret.
How do you protect a play, book or musical performance in the absence of copyright? By non-disclosure agreements - and then we have a real mess.
It is not the Supreme Court when Patents and Copyrights are at issue - it is the Federal Circuit. Yes, the SCT does have final say - but Judge Giles Sullivan Rich was the first Patent Practitioner appointed to the bench and the Fed.Cir has become, for all intents and purposes, the Patent, Trademark & Copyright court of last resort.
But, you miss the point - it has been Congress - and the constant lobbying from the IP industry - that has amended Title 17 at least a dozen times since the 1976 Act - extending copyright terms, bringing public domain works back into copyright and, through ancillary work with the DMCA they all but eliminated reverse engineering.
Consider that Linux and UNIX execute (mostly) the same commands - but the microcode is different - making Linux a non-infringing OS. But, if the DMCA had been in place when Mr. Torvalds created Linux the AT&T boys would have eliminated his OS.
Missouri has the $500.00/day loss limit.
English not your native language? Sec 8 says:
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
The terms, "shall have the power to" are imperatives. Congress MUST act.
Read the section of the constitution I posted. The status of inventors and authors are protected by Sec 8 Clause 8.
You can't change,"Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries: absent a constitutional amendment. Some time must be "secured to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" unless the constitution is amended to eliminate Sec.8Cl.8.
Dream on if you think that the Constitution can be ignored. Especially where certain parties make mega-bucks.
Turning to profit margins:
I have no problem with profit -I do have a problem with an undisclosed profit source. Where a grocery makes a radical shift from food to data as their profit center, the consumer ought to know what coin of the realm is traded in their transaction.
Data isn't dollars for apples.
The entire data mining industry - as well as the credit reporting industry are ripe for regulation....
Try www.edgar.gov
Get the original 10Q and 8K reports as required by the SEC.
Yeah, and he also opined that Libraries were evil copyright infringers, too.
He's dead. Former KS Congressman and Ag Commissioner Dan Glickman followed Valenti....
A trademark is governed by the Lantham Act where Copyright is Title 17 of the USC. There are vast differences in the protections afforded and the scope of same. Suffice to say, Mickey could be used in other creations, without licensing, after the copyright expired.
There were 5 casinos in the city - all having the same 'loss limits' imposed by state law ($500.00/person/day).
They never went head-to-head in advertising - always claiming that their casino had the best food or the loosest slots - but never denigrating the competition.
Oh, I think we'll find out that more has been stolen over the past 8 years.....
How are authors supposed to make a buck? The guy who invented the windshield wiper delay circuit (a patent) had it stolen from him and 3 years after his 17 year patent expired he finally won his case.
The US Constitution guarantees the exclusive rights to authors and inventors for a limited period. Unless the Constitution is amended (Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries) there will always be a right to exclusive control over the works of an author.
I agree, and so do most realistic academics. It is the duty of the lawyers for the copyright holders to get the most money that they can for their clients. Today's pay-to-play government and our little friend WIPO have made the game a very, very expensive one.
Did it ever occur how strange it is that the FBI investigates copyright violations - why do the national police enforce a powerful publisher's rights? I certainly have never had stolen goods returned to me by the police...albeit that they will return anything that they happen to find...
We pay both ways - we pay to enforce the law and we pay the civil side to the RIAA. Seems like the balance is out of wack.
I wouldn't go so far as to end it. A reasonable time - say 30 years - ought to be enough. Romeo & Juliet became West Side Story. Now, Leonard Bernstein's music is still in copyright as is Arthur Laurents (book), and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics....
But, from 1957 when the play opened on Broadway, only Sondheim is still alive. That show is 51 years old and by our current copyright laws it could remain in copyright (for one or more of the three creations) for at least another 50 years. What makes a fine derivative work like West Side Story so special that another Bernstein or Laurents or Sondheim couldn't build onto West Side Story and create another masterpiece - but not for another 50 years?
As for that damned mouse and its creator - Disney needs less income - it owns so much now that it can't keep track of it all.
Is that in 1928 dollars?
Whose figures are you believing? The OIL industry? The Financial Times just ran a 2 part article on the profits of the industry - and the evidence is overwhelming that they are vastly underreporting their acquisitions and profits.
Why, I bet that that you have found out for yourself that there are no gages on Iraqi oil pipelines...nobody knows how much oil leaves that nation. Well, the oil industry has a good idea, collectively......
While you're at it, consider that the grocery store used to work on a 2-3% markup and do just fine. Today, food is a byproduct - the revenue is generated by the sale of data - mined from your purchases. Yep, those "affinity cards" create a 15% profit margin for the large chains and the mom and pop stores will be gone shortly.
And, casinos. Ah, yes, the money printing business. One that I sued had an operating cost of $0.167 - making their EBDA profit over 80 cents on the dollar. Consider that industry: physical plant, equipment - all depreciable as 3 year property or expensed in 1 year (cards, tickets) and staff costs. Cheap to operate and profitable as hell. Why, they sell their food and drink at a "loss" to entice in the suckers.
Ever wonder why Hold-em became such a hot game? Because, prior to that game, there was so much cheating that nobody could win on skill. Today that is the only game that you can play in a modern casino and have some reasonable chance of winning on skill. They don't let you play Backgammon for money - because the house loses. Today's oil business is a lot like Backgammon - and the problem is that you think that you are playing some other game.
The "halfway" mark is called "Peak Oil" and it is all downhill from there. Jimmy Carter had the right idea - make the US energy independent - but the greedy energy industry didn't want to innovate - so they bought politicians for a pittance and made fortunes beyond belief.
You are dead right.
Any 1st year business major (or, any kid selling lemonade) knows that the cost of acquisition + cost of sale + profit margin = selling price. Where all of the oil companies (a cartel) have the same costs of acquisition, but not the same costs of sale, then their uniform pricing exposes a nasty little deal called "price fixing" - and, for those of you who don't believe that the oil companies would do such a thing - read the history of T. Roosevelt and the trust busters.
Moreover, in a free market you simply cannot have (1) High Costs of Acquisition, (2) High Sales Prices and (3) Record Profits.
You can have only two of those three or the market is "fixed" not free.
And, the same jerks made Dems share the same chairs in the 6 years that they controlled Congress. Thus far, no Dem VP has told a Senator to "Go Fuck yourself" as dear, kind Mr. Cheney did.
Talk about maturity.....
And, this seems like a good stopping point. As of 1976 we had 2 26 year terms for a copyright, the act was amended that year and has been amended so many times since that whole treatises exist just to explain the changes in the law over a 32 year period.
What is particularly outrageous is the Sonny Bono extension - or, Save Mickey from the Public Domain Act. That crazy amendment brought material that was in the public domain back into copyright!
The great argument was that the authors would be more motivated to create with longer royalty periods - the only problem: I haven't heard any new creations from George and Ira Gershwin - the lazy bastards (ok, they're dead). The real reason to extend and extend these terms is to allow the corporate assignees to continue to profit. Disney was a strong backer because Mickey was about to become public domain - and that mouse is worth millions to its corporate masters.
The RIAA has been raking in the loot for 10-15 years now - and it is about time to put a stop to this kind of bs. I think that Monday will be the beginning of the end of the RIAA's tactics.