There is a good reason for there to be some posthumous copyright -- it enables authors to enjoy some of the future value their work will generate within their lifetime.
This argument is utterly untenable. Copyright is a legal protection mechanism used to prevent unauthorized copying as an incentive to promote the arts, e.g. to get authors to write more books. It was never intended as a crutch for authors to lean on as an excuse not to write more books. Furthermore, "future value", as you define it, can only be obtained in the future, not "during the author's lifetime". That clause doesn't make any logical sense.
Most people fail to understand that what they see on the TV screen does not control what their VCR records.
Most people do not understand that when they dial the phone, a bunch of computers are digitizing their voice and routing it around, converting back to sound, and playing to the person they called.
Most people do not understand why the refridgerator gets cold inside.
Most people do not understand that modern "Analog" clocks are also digital.
Most people have no idea how a thermus knows when to stay hot and when to stay cold.
Most people in places where snow is uncommon do not understand that it makes the roads slick.
Most people pay for expensive water when it is free at water fountains everywhere.
Most people do not understand that the Coke in the can costs less then the can itself.
Most people don't understand what is wrong with Microsoft software.
Most people don't understand the difference between a surge protector and an outlet strip.
Most people (in the USA) don't vote.
Most people don't understand that silica is not edible.
Most people don't understand that they should not touch hot surfaces.
Most people don't understand that coffee is served hot, unless the word "iced" appears in front of it.
Most people don't understand the game of chess.
No one can afford to get into space because the technology is too expensive.
System after JPL privatization:
No one can afford to get into space because the licensing fees for the technology are too expensive.
At least under the current system, NASA IP immediately enters the public domain. Which is why contests like the X Prize can even get "off the ground", so to speak. With this move, any new tech developed would almost immediately be patented, and you can kiss all your dreams of space goodbye, as the lawyers get involved and we argue for 50 years. What have we gained? New tech, but only for a few people, and that handful of people gets to decide the future of space exploration (or they sue you). Some plan.
In a perfect world, I'd take all of NASA private (along with a lot of the rest of the government bloat), but this isn't that world.
The way Ortho-K is used most often (the way you describe) is deemed unsafe by the FDA. Just something to keep in mind. The FDA has only approved one contact lens for Ortho-K, and it's a daywear lens. Anyone marketing any other use for this lens, or marketing any other Ortho-K lenses, is breaking the law.
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 purpose of Article 1 Section 8 is clearly to promote progress. The method chosen to encourage progress is to secure rights to authors and inventors. At issue here is whether or not the particulars of this method, as currently legislated, actually support the original purpose.
The theory of copyright is an economic one. The basic premise is that authors are encouraged to create by receiving monetary incentives in the form of an artifical, government-sponsored monopoly on their created works. Unfortunately, the economic value of said monopoly diminishes with time, and as a result there comes a time when the value of the public welfare is greater than the interest of the author. This is certainly true once the author is dead, hence in my opinion, copyright should never extend past the lifetime of the author.
TCEA needs to be repealed, but the Supreme Court is a very very bad place to do it. TCEA is a valid law by way of the Constitution, even if it is harmful.
The United States government operates on a principle of checks-and-balances. The purpose of the Legislative branch is to create the law (Article 1 Section 1), and the purpose of the Judicial branch is to interpret and validate the law (Article 3 Section 1). The purpose of the Supreme Court is to validate the constitutionality of laws passed by the Congress, hence is the proper (and only) venue in which to decide this issue.
>>Bad thing is, there is a 20% chance it could strike the moon sometime next year.
Why is this a bad thing? It's not like there's any lunar ecology to disturb, or lunar inhabitants to threaten. And if it hits Luna, that's one less piece of dangerous unguided space debris for future space travellers to keep track of.
You're forgetting the rabid, left-wing conspiracy (of which Timothy is obviously a member) to turn the Earth (and any other planet on which we can get our hands) into a tropical paradise, with bananas and monkeys, and no sign of human presence anywhere.
I thought maybe it was because I couldn't be impressed anymore with special effects and storylines and so on, but when I recall my reaction seeing LOTR, it proves to me that it's not true, that I can still be amazed. Problem is I can't point precisely what I didn't about harry potter... maybe it's the linearity of events, maybe it was the actors...
Could it be that Peter Jackson actually took the time to make a good movie? Could it be that the faster Hollywood churns out movies, the more money they make, so movie quality deteriorates as a result?
My wife said to stop being stupid and use my money to buy food for homeless people, but that seems like a waste to me. Any thoughts?
Yeah, it is a waste. If you are going to give them money, at least have them wash your car or shine your shoes or something. Giving away unearned money is a sin.
It seems that if we have discovered 100 'planets' and 95% of them really are planets, we have discovered an interesting occurance which happens to about 5% of the stars that are capable of supporting planets.
Actually, no. We've discovered that of the stars we thought had planets going around them, about 5% don't. We've learned nothing about which stars are capable of supporting planets.
MIT used the image for commercial gain. They're guilty. They have a right, I suppose, to the $50 million, but Horizon also have a right to a piece of that, which they can obtain through a lawsuit. It's an open-and-shut case, even their lawyers admit they broke the law.
Just because something is done often, because it has a catchy name, and "everyone understands it" doesn't make it legal. That's a weak argument. Don't candy-coat it: 'swiping' (unpermitted use of copyrighted material for commercial gain) is illegal, we know it's illegal, but since the other guy probably won't find out, and it's an industry standard, everyone does it anyway.
I don't buy your argument about dirty pool. It's like a card sharp calling the guy across the table a cheater. You're all guilty. Reasons like 'swiping' are why I don't trust most people.
How in the world can you argue that LOTR is destroying culture? Movies are just the medium, not the message. To say that the movie LOTR is destroying culture is like saying the book is destroying culture for the same reason. (For all you Tolkien purists, as far as message goes, LOTR:FOTR was a much better adaptation than Starship Troopers. Don't cry for JRR, cry for Heinlein.) And not all anime has a plot. Take Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, anything in that genre.
If you don't like movies with lots of CG and no message, don't watch them. I don't. I haven't seen AOTC, and I don't plan to. CG is also medium and not message, and I saw no message in the previews for AOTC. Lots of new anime is being done almost entirely in CG. Does that mean it's good or bad? No, the medium is irrelevant to my enjoyment.
It's RoboRally, published by WOTC. See here for an explanation of the rules, and compare to the ICFP rules here. Personally, I think RoboRally is more fun.
I agree that we give up freedom for security. I agree that we should be asking how much should we give up, and how long, and for what gain. But I have to ask, what is the threat, and how will we know when it has subsided? What threat suddenly sprung into existence on Sept 11 that wasn't there already?
The answer: none. The threat has been there for some time. The WTC was bombed in 1993. Was there any time between that bombing and the more recent one where there wasn't a threat? No -- witness the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania in August 1998, and the USS Cole attack in October 2000. I offer that the threat of terrorism has been with us for at least 10 years.
But with this piece of evidence in mind, how much freedom should we be willing to sacrifice now, as opposed to back in 1993, or 1998, or 2000? The answer: the same as we were willing back then, none. Any other answer is one of hypocracy.
Let's turn our attention elsewhere. These new laws, the USA Patriot Act only one among many, address only the effect of the attack, not the cause. We can only be sure that the threat has finally ended when our enemies have no more cause to attack us, or when we have no more enemies due to peace, or due to war. I prefer the first solution (or even better, the second), but apparently the Bush administration has embraced the third, the Vice President appearing recently on national TV openly endorsing an attack on Iraq. Our allies in Europe and throughout the rest of the UN seem to have more wits about them, and I pray that cooler heads prevail, but I am not holding out hope.
Apple is now using the law to stifle innovation. That gives them something in common with Disney. Yeah, you heard me, Disney.
Companies have every right to produce good products and innovate. They have no right to prevent someone else from making the next best thing. DVD Enabler gave people a choice they didn't have before, and now Apple is taking that choice away, restricting the freedoms of people who use those external DVD writers. The software may hurt their business, but Apple have no right to go after people that sell it. My advice: make something better, Apple. Remember your formative years! Don't turn into Disney.
Apple is using the law to prevent people from modifying it's software with a third-party patch that enables the software to do something it wasn't intended to do.
What's wrong with that?
Apple is stifling innovation. Period. Ever heard of an invention or creative solution which used hardware or software exactly as it was intended? That wouldn't really be innovative, now would it?
or they're fools. Money is only as good as those who wield it. $150K in and $5.6M out: the money is talking, and it's saying "These guys don't know how to treat me right, I'm going somewhere else". They should shut down immediately, and take what they can, or they aren't the greedy bastards they should be.
Gutenberg's second book, after the Bible, was erotic stories.
Where in the world did you get that from? Gutenberg's second book, published in 1457, was a Psalter. Links here, here, and here. Next time, do your homework.
The people with profiling turned on would have some interesting powers too. For example, if the profiling revealed that 90% of people are willing to pay 1c to skip the Mazda Zoom-Zoom kid ad, that #%)*&#% 'Buck-a-day' or similar computer sale ads, the Dell Kid ads, etc, you would essentially be telling the advertisers to change their tune.
Um no, you'd be encouraging them to do exactly the opposite. They'd feed you so many filthy ads that you'd pay to skip every ad they threw at you. Multiply by 100 million households. The advertisers could make more money from people skipping their ads than they could from companies buying the ads in the first place! Great strategy...
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This argument is utterly untenable. Copyright is a legal protection mechanism used to prevent unauthorized copying as an incentive to promote the arts, e.g. to get authors to write more books. It was never intended as a crutch for authors to lean on as an excuse not to write more books. Furthermore, "future value", as you define it, can only be obtained in the future, not "during the author's lifetime". That clause doesn't make any logical sense.
- No one can afford to get into space because the technology is too expensive.
System after JPL privatization:- No one can afford to get into space because the licensing fees for the technology are too expensive.
At least under the current system, NASA IP immediately enters the public domain. Which is why contests like the X Prize can even get "off the ground", so to speak. With this move, any new tech developed would almost immediately be patented, and you can kiss all your dreams of space goodbye, as the lawyers get involved and we argue for 50 years. What have we gained? New tech, but only for a few people, and that handful of people gets to decide the future of space exploration (or they sue you). Some plan.In a perfect world, I'd take all of NASA private (along with a lot of the rest of the government bloat), but this isn't that world.
The way Ortho-K is used most often (the way you describe) is deemed unsafe by the FDA. Just something to keep in mind. The FDA has only approved one contact lens for Ortho-K, and it's a daywear lens. Anyone marketing any other use for this lens, or marketing any other Ortho-K lenses, is breaking the law.
The purpose of Article 1 Section 8 is clearly to promote progress. The method chosen to encourage progress is to secure rights to authors and inventors. At issue here is whether or not the particulars of this method, as currently legislated, actually support the original purpose.
The theory of copyright is an economic one. The basic premise is that authors are encouraged to create by receiving monetary incentives in the form of an artifical, government-sponsored monopoly on their created works. Unfortunately, the economic value of said monopoly diminishes with time, and as a result there comes a time when the value of the public welfare is greater than the interest of the author. This is certainly true once the author is dead, hence in my opinion, copyright should never extend past the lifetime of the author.
TCEA needs to be repealed, but the Supreme Court is a very very bad place to do it. TCEA is a valid law by way of the Constitution, even if it is harmful.
The United States government operates on a principle of checks-and-balances. The purpose of the Legislative branch is to create the law (Article 1 Section 1), and the purpose of the Judicial branch is to interpret and validate the law (Article 3 Section 1). The purpose of the Supreme Court is to validate the constitutionality of laws passed by the Congress, hence is the proper (and only) venue in which to decide this issue.
- Stifling technology through political means is morally unacceptable, because
- Technology is a tool, not an end in itself. If you want to stifle something politically, go after the people that would misuse the tech. But,
- There is nothing wrong with current analog technology, it's worked fine for almost 100 years
Basically, the FCC is tampering with something over which they have no moral rights. For that reason, I choose to remain, as you say, alarmist.Why is this a bad thing? It's not like there's any lunar ecology to disturb, or lunar inhabitants to threaten. And if it hits Luna, that's one less piece of dangerous unguided space debris for future space travellers to keep track of.
You're forgetting the rabid, left-wing conspiracy (of which Timothy is obviously a member) to turn the Earth (and any other planet on which we can get our hands) into a tropical paradise, with bananas and monkeys, and no sign of human presence anywhere.
Actually, from Network (1976), which is an excellent movie. And it's perpetually misquoted. The actual quote is:
Could it be that Peter Jackson actually took the time to make a good movie? Could it be that the faster Hollywood churns out movies, the more money they make, so movie quality deteriorates as a result?
Yeah, it is a waste. If you are going to give them money, at least have them wash your car or shine your shoes or something. Giving away unearned money is a sin.
Actually, no. We've discovered that of the stars we thought had planets going around them, about 5% don't. We've learned nothing about which stars are capable of supporting planets.
I think it's absolutely pitiful that they have to use Shakespeare as the example of copyright terms expiring.
MIT used the image for commercial gain. They're guilty. They have a right, I suppose, to the $50 million, but Horizon also have a right to a piece of that, which they can obtain through a lawsuit. It's an open-and-shut case, even their lawyers admit they broke the law.
I don't buy your argument about dirty pool. It's like a card sharp calling the guy across the table a cheater. You're all guilty. Reasons like 'swiping' are why I don't trust most people.
If you don't like movies with lots of CG and no message, don't watch them. I don't. I haven't seen AOTC, and I don't plan to. CG is also medium and not message, and I saw no message in the previews for AOTC. Lots of new anime is being done almost entirely in CG. Does that mean it's good or bad? No, the medium is irrelevant to my enjoyment.
Stop trolling with bad examples.
It's RoboRally, published by WOTC. See here for an explanation of the rules, and compare to the ICFP rules here. Personally, I think RoboRally is more fun.
I agree that we give up freedom for security. I agree that we should be asking how much should we give up, and how long, and for what gain. But I have to ask, what is the threat, and how will we know when it has subsided? What threat suddenly sprung into existence on Sept 11 that wasn't there already?
The answer: none. The threat has been there for some time. The WTC was bombed in 1993. Was there any time between that bombing and the more recent one where there wasn't a threat? No -- witness the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania in August 1998, and the USS Cole attack in October 2000. I offer that the threat of terrorism has been with us for at least 10 years.
But with this piece of evidence in mind, how much freedom should we be willing to sacrifice now, as opposed to back in 1993, or 1998, or 2000? The answer: the same as we were willing back then, none. Any other answer is one of hypocracy.
Let's turn our attention elsewhere. These new laws, the USA Patriot Act only one among many, address only the effect of the attack, not the cause. We can only be sure that the threat has finally ended when our enemies have no more cause to attack us, or when we have no more enemies due to peace, or due to war. I prefer the first solution (or even better, the second), but apparently the Bush administration has embraced the third, the Vice President appearing recently on national TV openly endorsing an attack on Iraq. Our allies in Europe and throughout the rest of the UN seem to have more wits about them, and I pray that cooler heads prevail, but I am not holding out hope.
Companies have every right to produce good products and innovate. They have no right to prevent someone else from making the next best thing. DVD Enabler gave people a choice they didn't have before, and now Apple is taking that choice away, restricting the freedoms of people who use those external DVD writers. The software may hurt their business, but Apple have no right to go after people that sell it. My advice: make something better, Apple. Remember your formative years! Don't turn into Disney.
I hadn't seen it yet, so here's a link to the caffeine MSDS. Note especially the toxicity data.
or they're fools. Money is only as good as those who wield it. $150K in and $5.6M out: the money is talking, and it's saying "These guys don't know how to treat me right, I'm going somewhere else". They should shut down immediately, and take what they can, or they aren't the greedy bastards they should be.