"J.R.R. Tolkien more or less invented high fantasy as we know it, bringing the folk tales and fables of Europe into the realm of literature."
Sorry, but you're very wrong there. Tolkien may have legitimized fantasy, but as far as actual fantasy (defined as stories of magical creatures that the readers know are imaginary) goes, the genre has been around since the 16th century. The first fantasy novels were the "decadent" or "artificial" romances of the 16th century, such as Amandis of Gaul, which used fantasy tropes that are very familiar to us in the setting of the knightly romance. In England in the 18th and 19th century there was the gothic novel, which tended to be on the horror side, but still had many fantastic elements.
The first invented world appeared in 1856 in stories by William Morris, who drew heavily on Norse and Medieval sources. In England he was followed most notably by Lord Dunsany at the beginning of the 20th century, and by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the United States at the same time. Arguably, much of the important early 20th century development of the genre happened in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s, with H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard setting in stone most of the tropes of horror and heroic fantasy, respectively. They were not the only pulp writers doing this, but they were the ones with the most influence, and they survived the test of time for a reason.
What Tolkien did was legitimize the genre that had already formed and matured. Coming from an Oxford professor, and having the impact it did, the Lord of the Rings could be considered part of the literary canon, which elevated the entire genre, and to a large degree, has prevented it from being absorbed back into mainstream fiction as had happened with the artificial romance and the gothic novel.
(My source for this information is Wizardry and Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock.)
"Oh sheesh, I'm going to have to explain primary-school arithmetic, obviously.
"Assuming someone else had lousy genes, and no-one in their family lives over 60, but they also breed at 35. The life+70 years term gives 35 years to their children, and then another 35 years to their grandchildren. Whereas for you, it gives 35 years to your children, and then another 35 years to your grandchildren.
"So the difference in life expectancy (60 vs 90 in these examples) makes _precisely no difference_, not one iota, not even a fraction of a smidgen of an iota, difference to how many years of royalties your offspring will receive."
First of all, what is your point, exactly?
Second of all, if you're going to rant about my math, the least you can do is get yours right. In your example of the people who die at sixty or under, life +70 years would give 25 years to the children, 25 years to the grandchildren, and 20 years to the great-grand children, assuming all live to the age of 60.
"I sincerely hope everyone can see the completely innumerate idiocy of that statement."
Just because you don't agree with it, it doesn't make it stupid. Frankly, as a writer myself, I can see a great deal of merit in having a legacy for my children and grandchildren - the family members I will know in life. Assuming everybody in my family lives to be around 90 (and at 30, I have a full set of grandparents still, with one who just celebrated his 90th birthday, so I have good genes for that), and I have children at the age of 35, that gives 35 years to my children, and then another 35 years to my grandchildren.
"After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?"
Anybody who has done some research?
Ever since I started to do some research into this subject, I've noticed that this is a straw man argument that's brought up over and over again. And it's a straw man for a few reasons:
1. The United States has historically lagged behind the rest of the world in copyright terms. The Sonny Bono Act was brought into play to address this.
2. The European term of lifetime +70 years was put into play due to longer lifespans. The original Berne Convention term of lifetime +50 was to allow for the lifetime of the author plus children and grandchildren. With longer lifespans, 50 years was no longer considered enough.
3. In Europe, a policy decision had been made to consider all foreign copyrights to be expired upon their expiry in their home country. Therefore, American copyrights would expire 20 years before European copyrights did. This would impact not only American intellectual property, but also give European creative artists an advantage over American artists, as their copyrights would last longer, and therefore they would be more marketable. Therefore, a decision was made to harmonize with Europe to create a level playing field.
4. Retroactive copyright extensions were, as a rule, NOT granted in the United States. Material from the early part of the 20th century is under public domain in the United States. (http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_ Public_Domain.htm) Furthermore, the common copyright was abolished in the copyright term extensions, placing letters and unpublished works previously protected under perpetual copyright into the public domain.
5. It is one hell of a logical flaw to suggest that because a company supported a bill in public, it means that it was buying off congressmen. Particularly since the legislators were a bit more worried about harmonizing with Europe.
6. If this was an attempt to bring American Copyright Law into perpetual copyright, it failed miserably. Not only did American law simply harmonize to the MINIMUM European term, but the law also contains provisions for librarians and archivists to treat copyrighted material as public domain for archive purposes in the last 20 years of copyright protection.
So, the evil Sonny Bono act is simply...um...bringing American law up to an international standard that had existed for over twenty years or so. It's quite a far cry from Disney wanting to keep Mickey Mouse around (which, seeing as it's protected by trademark rather than copyright law, isn't an issue anyway).
I'm a pro writer, and it's not often that I'm short on words, but this is just a staggeringly bad idea.
Fan fiction is in the shadows for a reason - strictly speaking, it's illegal. It's pretty harmless, when it's all said and done, and some groups, such as the BBC when it comes to Doctor Who (where I got my start during my amateur writing years), support it so long as it doesn't go commercial. But, illegal and harmless means that it is sometimes tolerated - but this doesn't make it legal.
And this site wants to bring this material out into the open...and use it for financial gain...
Now, Showtime and a couple of the affiliates who are supporting it may not have a problem here, but a whole lot of other content owners will. I think the term "lawsuit magnet" may be a good one on this idea.
"His position is that the free sharing of information is the natural state of things, and in general is beneficial to society as a whole. Copyright therefore is unnatural and creates an aberration, and is only "wrong" because government has decided to step in and take more control."
Unfortunately for your, and his, case, copyright doesn't actually cover information. It covers created works, which are considerably different. Also, the free sharing of ideas is protected under copyright law, which does not allow for an idea to be copyrighted, and has fair use limitations on the control over the content that a creator can possess, ensuring the right for the creation of derivative works (a right that is enshrined in American law, which states that in an infringement case where the content is at issue, the judge must side for the party that provides a precedent allowing greater creative freedom - for more information, read "The Mythology of the Public Domain" at http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf).
A concept of copyright is perfectly natural in a society which has both the concept of one's creations being one's property and the ability to mass produce, and indeed, it develops right alongside the printing press and the rise of literacy in society.
"First, are you out of your mind? Speaking of bad logic... even comparing actual Theft (let alone copyright infringement) with murder and rape is outrageous. Murder and rape take something that can NEVER be restored."
I think you missed the point of what I was saying. I never suggested that copyright infringement was on the same level as rape and murder, or that they are the same. I was attacking the logic of the statement the original poster had made - and been modded up for.
The point is that you can't use that statement to justify murder, or rape, or theft. Therefore, you can't logically use it to justify a more minor infraction. "I believe I have to the right to" is not the same as "I have the right to." I moved the examples to the extreme to prove the point, not to suggest that uploading music is the same as murdering somebody.
"You don't have the right to make a living. You only have the right to try."
You're right - that's my typo. I only realized the words "to try" were missing after I hit submit. My bad.
As for the rest of that stuff, your comments on copyright are not very informed. If you want a much better idea of what copyright is and what the issues are, I'd suggest checking out the resources at the Copyright Alliance (http://www.copyrightalliance.org/), which has quite a bit of good information, as well as a number of papers on both sides of the debate in their Documents and Research pages. They do a far better job than I can on short notice when it comes to explaining all of this.
Second, I was attacking the logic, not suggesting that killing and copying are the same thing. In order to attack that logic, I took it to the extreme. I could have used collecting komodo dragons if I wanted, but that has a bit less impact than murder, theft, and rape.
Wow...this is just too easy to refute. Seriously. Just because you CAN do a thing, it has never followed that you have a right to do that thing. Your ability to do whatever the hell you want does not take away my right to make a living off my labour, artistic or otherwise. But, the wrongness of your statement is exposed the moment you try to apply that logic to another situation. So, let's apply your logic to a couple of other scenarios, shall we?
We'll start with killing things:
"Ha! I believe killing whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and the criminal code is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more people, if that's the choice to be made.
"Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "murderer"."
And then there's theft:
"Ha! I believe taking whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and the anti-burglary law is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more belongings, if that's the choice to be made.
"Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "thief"."
I know - let's try it with sex!
"Ha! I believe having sex with whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and anti-rape legislation is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more security for our daughters, if that's the choice to be made.
"Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "rapist"."
Somehow, your logic just fails on a fundamental level...
"First, as the author of the EverQuest Companion (if it's the same one I had when playing Everquest oh so many years ago), thank you for providing me with plenty of bad information that helped me leave the game. Afterward I found Asheron's Call and had a wonderful time there."
Well, if what you were looking at was a strategy guide, then it wasn't mine. If it was a book about the history of the game and its genre, the community around it, and the social issues, then that's the one I wrote.
"Your, and many others', misconceptions about my views on copyright are wrong."
Well, reading this post, which is quite coherent and grounded, sent me back to your original post, which was...um...not all that coherent and grounded. You started off with an implied declaration that this new group was going to destroy democracy (in retrospect, you didn't say it specifically, but it was implied by the context). You then followed it up with a comment that our culture was being taken away from us (which isn't actually happening - copyright extensions in the United States were not applied to work already in the public domain, and new material is, well, new material - you can't take away something that was not there to be owned in the first place). And then you finished up by saying that we weren't able to incorporate new material like Star Wars into our culture, which flies in the face of the numerous Star Wars rip-offs, references in popular culture, and the fact that "Jedi" is now a recognized religion on certain census forms. And as a published writer like myself, you must know that copyright law does not allow you to copyright an idea, and that it protects fair use when it comes to excerpts and other such reproductions.
So, I'm sorry if I misread your views, but the picture you painted was a bit on the unbelievable side.
As far as what you've written here, you've raised a very interesting point:
"It works like this: Marginal costs of distributing information include publication costs, fixed costs include publishing equipment and original research. Ideally, we would like to see the creators of new information compensated, because we would like to subject the creation of new information to the benefecial forces of competition. It should mean better entertainment, more scientific innovation, and cheaper/faster distribution. The internet DOES change this. Publishing equipment means a small share of a $3000 machine. Marginal costs of distribution come out to fractions of a penny per reader. The problem is that with cheap distribution, the costs of original research and creator compensation can no longer ride on the distribution costs."
Well, first of all, new information is not created, it is collected (after quite some time, I finally came up with this definition of the difference between information and art - information is present prior to collection regardless of what people do, and art is created by somebody). It may seem semantic, but a lot of people would deny creative artists their rights based on the argument that what they create is information, and therefore must be free. But, to deal with the point I actually want to raise, I'm not sure that what you've mentioned changes the situation at all.
Think of it this way - a writer writes, a sculptor sculpts, and a painter paints. The end result will be a work of writing, a sculpture, or a painting, regardless of if the Internet is involved. It certainly makes research easier, but does it affect the end product or its distribution in a way that would affect copyright?
I'm actually going to fly in the face of the DMCA and say "no, it doesn't." Ultimately, if somebody downloads an e-book or a painting, they are reading a book or looking at a painting - the very same thing they would be doing if they had gotten it through more traditional sources. The cost of distribution is much lower, but that cost is affected by all of the costs involved with getting that work of art ready. If a book has to be edited and typeset, tha
"Freedom of expression and speech. Google 2600 and DECSS for a good example."
Okay, I've looked. I remember this case vaguely - a magazine had published an open source program that ran it into trouble with the DMCA (although my memory may be a bit hazy here).
But to say that copyright is taking away the right of expression and free speech is quite a stretch:
1. Copyright law does not allow you to copyright an idea. So, if I have an idea and say it in a copyrighted article, there is nothing stopping you from expressing the same idea, so long as you don't use my exact words.
2. The right of free speech and freedom of expression deals with your ability to publish or otherwise express yourself on any subject you wish without the government or a government agency engaging in censorship. This does not, however, include unauthorized publication of somebody else's work under copyright, and it is one hell of a stretch to even suggest that it does. To suggest that free speech allows you to do that is like saying that my right to go where I choose gives me the right to break into your living room whenever I feel like it.
Now, this is not to say that copyright law can't be abused in such a way that it can curtail free speech - and the 2600 and DECSS case appears to be a good example of this abuse. However, abuse of a law is not the same as the letter and spirit of a law, and for any discussion about copyright we must take all factors into account - not neglect the two biggest (the letter and spirit of the law) whenever it suits our argument to do so.
To answer the question in your title, an extreme position is one that does not recognize the other possibilities in the debate. So, "copyright is evil" is extreme, as is "all copyright should be under perpetual protection and be protected with an iron fist."
"From your post, you seem to think that legally protected rights to access data are "extreme". You refer to the alliance as "balanced" and I say there's no such thing when there's not even the acknowledgement of my information access rights."
Aside from which, I never mentioned access rights one way or the other. I simply said that they had good information on their site, and that if they can provide a balanced and informed view of both sides, they can do a lot of good. So, I would ask that you not put words in my mouth.
You know, there is so much wrong with what you've said here that it ranges from conspiracy theories to a view of the creative artist that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with reality, but I'm not going to shoot it down myself. I'm going to let somebody else, with far more knowledge and evidence do it for me: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf
And, as far as that wonderful, cliched paranoia goes, what are you on, and where can I get some?
Speaking as a full-time writer and an author, and having taken a close look at the website for this new organization, I think it can be a very good thing.
I am a moderate - I understand the need for fair use (indeed, I've used it myself), the public domain, and the need for copyright, and what it does (some of the most important uses of which are not obvious unless you're in the creative business yourself, as it affects the relationship between the creator and distributer). And, where possible, I try to get good, accurate information.
And, having taken a close look at the website, that's what they're delivering. Their information is accurate, and having looked at a few of the research papers they provide, they seem to be pretty balanced, with both pro and con positions represented. And that's what the copyright debate should be.
If they can get good, accurate information out there, in opposition to the noise that you get from both sides of extremists, who have no objections to twisting facts and just making stuff up (for example, I found out recently that the Sonny Bono Act was actually passed to bring American copyright law up to a European standard - the idea that it was pushed through just to save Mickey Mouse is pure fiction), I think they can do a LOT of good, and bring balance back to the debate.
I have to wonder, though, just how many of the detractors here have actually taken a decent look at their website...
"WE ARE NOT TO STAND BY WHILE THEY TAKE OUR RIGHTS AWAY!"
Polemic aside, what rights exactly are you talking about?
One of the biggest problems in this debate is that both sides have extremists who have little objection to stretching the truth, and just plain making stuff up when it suits them. Frankly, there are a lot of reformers who don't have the first inkling of what copyright actually is and does. I still remember getting into a debate with somebody who I challenged to tell me what was wrong with copyright law - and he raised several objections, all of which were based in patent or trademark law. He couldn't raise a single point that was based in copyright law itself.
Perfect example of extremists making stuff up: the Sonny Bono law, known to the reformers as the Mickey Mouse act - the problem being, of course, that the law was supported by Disney, but actually put into place to bring American copyright law in line with the current European standard, so that American intellectual property would have the same length of protection in Europe as European intellectual property. And that does make logical sense, when it comes down to it. The idea that Disney pushed it through in the middle of the night just to protect Mickey Mouse is fiction. (A great deal of information on this can be found here: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf )
So, I have to ask - what rights are being taken away here?
That is a very good question, and it deserves an answer from an actual author. The short answer is that it may seem as though we authors are the hardest advocates of strict copyright, we're actually not.
There are two things to consider in this answer. The first, and least important, is that unlike the music or film industries, authors for the most part are able to retain the copyrights for their work. So, when there is a dispute, the author speaks for themself, rather than having an industry organization speak for them. (Compare, for example, the numerous RIAA lawsuits versus the handful of author copyright disputes - the RIAA alone produces far more than the entire literary community combined.) So, when Harlan Ellison goes after AOL and some newsgroup pirates, it is Harlan Ellison himself involved, not an author union of some sort.
And this brings me to the second point - part of being an author is learning how copyright law works, and what it does. We need to, or else we get screwed over by the first bad contract that comes along. So, when we speak out, or take legal action, we don't do it frivolously. Looking at the Harlan Ellison case, for example, it is important to note that he went after two groups - the first was the people uploading the work, and the second was the organizations allowing the uploads to happen. The downloaders weren't even touched. And, as I recall, he won. Compare that to the RIAA, which launches suits without proper grounds to terrify.
So, there is a perception there, between the fact that the authors are speaking for themselves, and the fact that when authors do take action, they tend to be successful. But you really don't see authors taking action often at all.
There is one last thing that works into this perception, and that is that a lot of the copyright reform movement just doesn't know what they're talking about (hell, a lot of the vocal abolitionists wouldn't know copyright law if it hit them in the face), and so when an author (like myself) keeps pointing out that the issue of ideas is unimportant (as an example), they take it as a monopolistic move, rather than a recognition that copyright law doesn't allow an author to copyright an idea, or plotline, for that matter, which WAS brought up as an objection in the rebuttal, in the first place.
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, being informed and telling people who are spouting bullshit that they are spouting bullshit, is taken as being hard-nosed rather than knowledgeable.
"Well, that type of example of the violability of rights is oft cited, and it doesn't quite apply. Rights are not inviolable; they are inalienable, which is very different. Removing from someone the freedom to exercise a right doesn't remove the right, which is where I think we're having a basic semantics problem. The right is fundamental, and exists whether or not it is exercised, permitted, or prohibited. One cannot remove a right from a person any more than one can remove the quality of being a goat from a goat. It's intrinsic. (Does that make any sense?)"
The way you've explained it makes perfect sense. I don't agree with it, but that's the historian in me, I guess.
"The freedom to exercise a right can be denied, which is true of the examples you point out, and continues to be the state of things in much of the world today. However, it is my contention that those rights still exist -- it is the rights that are inseparable from humanity, and the freedom to exercise them that can be denied or granted by the state."
I have a feeling there's not much more we can do with this discussion before it starts running in circles. What you call a "right" here, I call a "freedom." The concepts are similar but slightly different, and based on different views of philosophy as far as I can tell, but regardless of how we got there, both of us, I think, would defend the rights we have now as best as we are able.
"but some would say that the revolutionary change in the philosophy of society (in the 18th-19th centuries) represents a complete shift that invalidates prior philosophies..."
I would argue that while there is a shift, it doesn't necessarily invalidate what came before. Indeed, the thought of the 21st century is very different than the thought of the 12th, but to forget the thought of the 12th is a mistake, even if the world has changed. After all, there is an old saying: "those who forget history are condemned to repeat it." Knowing where you came from is as important as knowing where you are.
"Exactly -- but at what point can we consider what is to invalidate what was? As Hegel wrote, "The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom..." Progess here implies that new understanding supercedes old understanding, and that this is what we take from history. Can the Pandora's Box of natural personal rights be closed? If not, then surely in this case, we can't view modern society through the lessons learned in ancient society."
This is hard for me to write, because this is one of those issues where you are absolutely right, and yet may be wrong on a different level - or perhaps we're both wrong, as will be proven 500 years from now by some philosopher who will change the world. Certainly, we are living in the 21st century, and our laws, mores, and philosophies must meet the needs of the present, regardless of what was in the past.
But, we must also be keenly aware of the past. I rather like to look at it in terms of a story about Samuel Johnson, who when asked to refute Bishop Berkeley's statement that the world was an illusion, went and kicked a large rock, declaring "I refute it thus!" There's a lot of wisdom there - logic and reason must ultimately answer to reality itself. When we look back at the past, it's important to recognize that the inalienable civil rights that we find to be obvious have not always been so, and are not so even now in many parts of the world - and therefore the injustices that occurred in the past and the present should be fought against. People seem to think that when I say that there are "no such things as natural rights," I am declaring that these rights are worthless. In fact, it is far from it - the fact that they are so easily taken away, and so rare in the world even today makes them more precious to me than any right that might be granted in nature.
As you can guess, I still have severe problems with obvious civil rights being labeled as "natural," precisely because "natural" suggests that they are from nature, and since nature has always been there, these rights must have always been there. But, as I showed in a previous post, they haven't been. The historical legacy that "natural" suggests simply isn't present. To take the Johnson story to the ridiculous, if somebody with "natural" rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness steps into a lion cage with a hungry lion, they'll very quickly discover that the very natural lion very quickly disregards those rights and eats him.
"One is the hoarding of books and knowledge by the church during the middle ages - only a privileged few was allowed access to them. The industrial revolution started when knowledge became freely shared."
Um, no. Sorry, that's not how it played out.
In the Middle Ages there had been an economic and social collapse after the fall of the Roman Empire, with most of Europe living on a subsistence level. The books were being held in the monasteries for two main reasons - first, churchmen and the occasional noble were the only people who could read; and second, there was no printing press, so the only places where books could be reproduced, painstakingly by hand, I might add, was in the monasteries. The church spent plenty of time enforcing dogma and suppressing heresy, but a conspiracy to hoard knowledge was not one of their sins.
Even before Gutenberg invented the printing press, there was a movement of knowledge and learning into the secular world with the first universities, where textbooks were copied by the students in lectures (that was how the lectures worked in the early universities - the professor would read the textbook he had written, and the students would copy it down). Again, though, copying books was slow and painful.
With the invention of the printing press, literature can now move into the secular world, it is affordable, and that means that people of all classes are now able to learn how to read. So, society slowly begins to become literate, and the publishing industry grew alongside. Knowledge, as you put it, was freely shared by the time Shakespeare came onto the scene in the 16th century, and society had become very secular with a strong progression of secular science (there's a reason that the Renaissance was followed by the ENLIGHTENMENT). The Industrial Revolution began with the invention of the steam engine - it had nothing to do with a shift of knowledge from being shared to being hoarded, simply because knowledge had never been hoarded.
"The basis for IP is in fact based in Article 1 of the constitution:
"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""
Sorry, but that's not historically accurate. The first copyright law was the Statute of Anne in 1709:
"An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.
"I. Whereas printers, booksellers, and other persons have of late frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing, or causing to be printed, reprinted, and published, books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families: for preventing therefore such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books;"
Please look beyond the borders of the United States for history - there really is a world out there, and they really did come up with some concepts first.
Wow - this is quite a day - two discussions of this intellectual level on Slashdot - I wish it was like this more often.
I think the keystone here is this question:
"I'm also not sure if when you refer to history, you're referring to philosophical history, or to the actions of historical states. If the latter, how does that fit into modern philosphy of freedom and rights? Does one say that feudal states simply didn't recognize the rights of man, or does one say that revolutionary governments granted those rights to man? Do we view them through the lens of contemporary philosophy (that the rights of man were nonexistant, in the Hobbesian view, only but granted at the will of the rights of the divine), or through the lens of modern philosophy?"
I get the feeling that you are approaching this as a philosopher, while I am approaching it as a historian - in short, I am referring to the actions of historical states, rather than the philosophical model of interpreting those actions. One of the most fascinating things I learned during my studies is that the idea of the individual right is actually a fairly recent one, and that is why I place freedoms first, and define a right as a freedom protected under law.
Early societies tended to view the place of a human being in the world as defined by obligation, rather than individual rights. To use ancient Athens as an example (mainly because I'm co-writing a book about ancient Greek humour, and this is foremost in my mind right now), every individual functioned as a cog in society. If you violated the societal mores in a minor way, such as eating by yourself, you would be laughed at, shaming you, and forcing you to correct your actions. Those who had greater privileges didn't so much have the right to make use of them, but more the obligation to - there were people in Athens whose job was to wander around the marketplace with a rope covered in wet red paint, and stain the robes of any citizen caught outside when they should be voting - and the consequences for not being present during a vote could be severe.
Now, if you go forward a few centuries to the 6th century AD/CE/whatever you want to call it, you see the Barbarian kingdoms, which are something different (my actual specialty, if I can be said to have one at this point, is Old English and Old Norse, so this is something I know a fair bit about). These kingdoms are only just developing a sense of society - under the law, they are a collection of individuals, each of whom has a monetary value (we know this because we have many of their law codes). So, if I was to go to person X and kill them, I have not committed a crime against society (as we have it), but committed a crime against that person. Their family can then demand settlement from me, or pursue a blood feud. Now, this is a "society" that has a code of laws, but a very lax sense of society, and while there are a number of freedoms in that culture, those laws really don't convey a sense that they had a concept of rights. If you did something to somebody, you had an obligation towards them or their family, and that's where it ended. So, plenty of freedom, but there really isn't any place (at least that I could find) in the law codes that demonstrate the concept of the individual right - just obligations that somebody has to meet.
(Now, Tacitus earlier paints a slightly different picture, and in some cases they line up, but in some they don't - Tacitus does paint them as having a king who gets a share of any blood payment, which is not matched in codes like the Salic Laws - but, at the same time, he is interpreting this through Roman eyes, and when looking at primary sources, I prefer to go with the actual laws themselves rather than a second-hand interpretation.)
In Europe (I specify because ancient Persia had the first human rights code, but we're not talking about a culture descended from them), the idea of individual rights protected by society begin to emerge around the 12th century, and it's quite nascent. My i
"Except, of course, that semantically your statement is incorrect. A right is not a freedom that has been protected by the state. Furthermore, freedom is a state of being, not an individual method of acting with freedom -- there is no such thing as "a freedom".
"Freedom is the state of not having restrictions placed upon exercise of your rights."
Well, first of all, history bears out my definition of a right in relation to a freedom.
However, your statement is also true - freedom (the state of being free) is indeed being free to exercise your rights, which are protected freedoms (the object of being free to do X).
There are times that I think the English language needs more words to describe these concepts...
"As a human, you have rights. The constitution was created to guarantee your rights are not trampled on. The constitution does not grant anything, it protects right you alredy had from being violated by a government."
Well, that's close, but not quite right. It would be more accurate to say this:
As a human being, you are born with freedoms. These freedoms can be protected by the state, or taken away, or ignored. When a freedom is protected, it becomes a right. When a freedom is taken away, it becomes a crime. So, for example, my freedom to speak my mind is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (I'm a Canadian), but my freedom to murder the people around me has been taken away by the state (hence the criminal code).
So, the US Constitution protects certain freedoms you already had by turning them into rights. And, that semantics lesson concluded, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashdot discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
"J.R.R. Tolkien more or less invented high fantasy as we know it, bringing the folk tales and fables of Europe into the realm of literature."
Sorry, but you're very wrong there. Tolkien may have legitimized fantasy, but as far as actual fantasy (defined as stories of magical creatures that the readers know are imaginary) goes, the genre has been around since the 16th century. The first fantasy novels were the "decadent" or "artificial" romances of the 16th century, such as Amandis of Gaul, which used fantasy tropes that are very familiar to us in the setting of the knightly romance. In England in the 18th and 19th century there was the gothic novel, which tended to be on the horror side, but still had many fantastic elements.
The first invented world appeared in 1856 in stories by William Morris, who drew heavily on Norse and Medieval sources. In England he was followed most notably by Lord Dunsany at the beginning of the 20th century, and by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the United States at the same time. Arguably, much of the important early 20th century development of the genre happened in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s, with H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard setting in stone most of the tropes of horror and heroic fantasy, respectively. They were not the only pulp writers doing this, but they were the ones with the most influence, and they survived the test of time for a reason.
What Tolkien did was legitimize the genre that had already formed and matured. Coming from an Oxford professor, and having the impact it did, the Lord of the Rings could be considered part of the literary canon, which elevated the entire genre, and to a large degree, has prevented it from being absorbed back into mainstream fiction as had happened with the artificial romance and the gothic novel.
(My source for this information is Wizardry and Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock.)
"Oh sheesh, I'm going to have to explain primary-school arithmetic, obviously.
"Assuming someone else had lousy genes, and no-one in their family lives over 60, but they also breed at 35.
The life+70 years term gives 35 years to their children, and then another 35 years to their grandchildren.
Whereas for you, it gives 35 years to your children, and then another 35 years to your grandchildren.
"So the difference in life expectancy (60 vs 90 in these examples) makes _precisely no difference_, not one iota, not even a fraction of a smidgen of an iota, difference to how many years of royalties your offspring will receive."
First of all, what is your point, exactly?
Second of all, if you're going to rant about my math, the least you can do is get yours right. In your example of the people who die at sixty or under, life +70 years would give 25 years to the children, 25 years to the grandchildren, and 20 years to the great-grand children, assuming all live to the age of 60.
"I sincerely hope everyone can see the completely innumerate idiocy of that statement."
Just because you don't agree with it, it doesn't make it stupid. Frankly, as a writer myself, I can see a great deal of merit in having a legacy for my children and grandchildren - the family members I will know in life. Assuming everybody in my family lives to be around 90 (and at 30, I have a full set of grandparents still, with one who just celebrated his 90th birthday, so I have good genes for that), and I have children at the age of 35, that gives 35 years to my children, and then another 35 years to my grandchildren.
So the numbers actually work.
"After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?"
_ Public_Domain.htm) Furthermore, the common copyright was abolished in the copyright term extensions, placing letters and unpublished works previously protected under perpetual copyright into the public domain.
i nal1.pdf)
Anybody who has done some research?
Ever since I started to do some research into this subject, I've noticed that this is a straw man argument that's brought up over and over again. And it's a straw man for a few reasons:
1. The United States has historically lagged behind the rest of the world in copyright terms. The Sonny Bono Act was brought into play to address this.
2. The European term of lifetime +70 years was put into play due to longer lifespans. The original Berne Convention term of lifetime +50 was to allow for the lifetime of the author plus children and grandchildren. With longer lifespans, 50 years was no longer considered enough.
3. In Europe, a policy decision had been made to consider all foreign copyrights to be expired upon their expiry in their home country. Therefore, American copyrights would expire 20 years before European copyrights did. This would impact not only American intellectual property, but also give European creative artists an advantage over American artists, as their copyrights would last longer, and therefore they would be more marketable. Therefore, a decision was made to harmonize with Europe to create a level playing field.
4. Retroactive copyright extensions were, as a rule, NOT granted in the United States. Material from the early part of the 20th century is under public domain in the United States. (http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle
5. It is one hell of a logical flaw to suggest that because a company supported a bill in public, it means that it was buying off congressmen. Particularly since the legislators were a bit more worried about harmonizing with Europe.
6. If this was an attempt to bring American Copyright Law into perpetual copyright, it failed miserably. Not only did American law simply harmonize to the MINIMUM European term, but the law also contains provisions for librarians and archivists to treat copyrighted material as public domain for archive purposes in the last 20 years of copyright protection.
So, the evil Sonny Bono act is simply...um...bringing American law up to an international standard that had existed for over twenty years or so. It's quite a far cry from Disney wanting to keep Mickey Mouse around (which, seeing as it's protected by trademark rather than copyright law, isn't an issue anyway).
(Note - my source for much of this material is http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-orig
Boy...this is just, um...
I'm a pro writer, and it's not often that I'm short on words, but this is just a staggeringly bad idea.
Fan fiction is in the shadows for a reason - strictly speaking, it's illegal. It's pretty harmless, when it's all said and done, and some groups, such as the BBC when it comes to Doctor Who (where I got my start during my amateur writing years), support it so long as it doesn't go commercial. But, illegal and harmless means that it is sometimes tolerated - but this doesn't make it legal.
And this site wants to bring this material out into the open...and use it for financial gain...
Now, Showtime and a couple of the affiliates who are supporting it may not have a problem here, but a whole lot of other content owners will. I think the term "lawsuit magnet" may be a good one on this idea.
"His position is that the free sharing of information is the natural state of things, and in general is beneficial to society as a whole. Copyright therefore is unnatural and creates an aberration, and is only "wrong" because government has decided to step in and take more control."
i nal1.pdf).
Unfortunately for your, and his, case, copyright doesn't actually cover information. It covers created works, which are considerably different. Also, the free sharing of ideas is protected under copyright law, which does not allow for an idea to be copyrighted, and has fair use limitations on the control over the content that a creator can possess, ensuring the right for the creation of derivative works (a right that is enshrined in American law, which states that in an infringement case where the content is at issue, the judge must side for the party that provides a precedent allowing greater creative freedom - for more information, read "The Mythology of the Public Domain" at http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-orig
A concept of copyright is perfectly natural in a society which has both the concept of one's creations being one's property and the ability to mass produce, and indeed, it develops right alongside the printing press and the rise of literacy in society.
I suggest you do some more research.
"First, are you out of your mind? Speaking of bad logic... even comparing actual Theft (let alone copyright infringement) with murder and rape is outrageous. Murder and rape take something that can NEVER be restored."
I think you missed the point of what I was saying. I never suggested that copyright infringement was on the same level as rape and murder, or that they are the same. I was attacking the logic of the statement the original poster had made - and been modded up for.
The point is that you can't use that statement to justify murder, or rape, or theft. Therefore, you can't logically use it to justify a more minor infraction. "I believe I have to the right to" is not the same as "I have the right to." I moved the examples to the extreme to prove the point, not to suggest that uploading music is the same as murdering somebody.
"You don't have the right to make a living. You only have the right to try."
You're right - that's my typo. I only realized the words "to try" were missing after I hit submit. My bad.
As for the rest of that stuff, your comments on copyright are not very informed. If you want a much better idea of what copyright is and what the issues are, I'd suggest checking out the resources at the Copyright Alliance (http://www.copyrightalliance.org/), which has quite a bit of good information, as well as a number of papers on both sides of the debate in their Documents and Research pages. They do a far better job than I can on short notice when it comes to explaining all of this.
Second, I was attacking the logic, not suggesting that killing and copying are the same thing. In order to attack that logic, I took it to the extreme. I could have used collecting komodo dragons if I wanted, but that has a bit less impact than murder, theft, and rape.
Wow...this is just too easy to refute. Seriously. Just because you CAN do a thing, it has never followed that you have a right to do that thing. Your ability to do whatever the hell you want does not take away my right to make a living off my labour, artistic or otherwise. But, the wrongness of your statement is exposed the moment you try to apply that logic to another situation. So, let's apply your logic to a couple of other scenarios, shall we?
We'll start with killing things:
"Ha! I believe killing whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and the criminal code is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more people, if that's the choice to be made.
"Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "murderer"."
And then there's theft:
"Ha! I believe taking whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and the anti-burglary law is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more belongings, if that's the choice to be made.
"Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "thief"."
I know - let's try it with sex!
"Ha! I believe having sex with whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and anti-rape legislation is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more security for our daughters, if that's the choice to be made.
"Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "rapist"."
Somehow, your logic just fails on a fundamental level...
"First, as the author of the EverQuest Companion (if it's the same one I had when playing Everquest oh so many years ago), thank you for providing me with plenty of bad information that helped me leave the game. Afterward I found Asheron's Call and had a wonderful time there."
Well, if what you were looking at was a strategy guide, then it wasn't mine. If it was a book about the history of the game and its genre, the community around it, and the social issues, then that's the one I wrote.
"Your, and many others', misconceptions about my views on copyright are wrong."
Well, reading this post, which is quite coherent and grounded, sent me back to your original post, which was...um...not all that coherent and grounded. You started off with an implied declaration that this new group was going to destroy democracy (in retrospect, you didn't say it specifically, but it was implied by the context). You then followed it up with a comment that our culture was being taken away from us (which isn't actually happening - copyright extensions in the United States were not applied to work already in the public domain, and new material is, well, new material - you can't take away something that was not there to be owned in the first place). And then you finished up by saying that we weren't able to incorporate new material like Star Wars into our culture, which flies in the face of the numerous Star Wars rip-offs, references in popular culture, and the fact that "Jedi" is now a recognized religion on certain census forms. And as a published writer like myself, you must know that copyright law does not allow you to copyright an idea, and that it protects fair use when it comes to excerpts and other such reproductions.
So, I'm sorry if I misread your views, but the picture you painted was a bit on the unbelievable side.
As far as what you've written here, you've raised a very interesting point:
"It works like this: Marginal costs of distributing information include publication costs, fixed costs include publishing equipment and original research. Ideally, we would like to see the creators of new information compensated, because we would like to subject the creation of new information to the benefecial forces of competition. It should mean better entertainment, more scientific innovation, and cheaper/faster distribution. The internet DOES change this. Publishing equipment means a small share of a $3000 machine. Marginal costs of distribution come out to fractions of a penny per reader. The problem is that with cheap distribution, the costs of original research and creator compensation can no longer ride on the distribution costs."
Well, first of all, new information is not created, it is collected (after quite some time, I finally came up with this definition of the difference between information and art - information is present prior to collection regardless of what people do, and art is created by somebody). It may seem semantic, but a lot of people would deny creative artists their rights based on the argument that what they create is information, and therefore must be free. But, to deal with the point I actually want to raise, I'm not sure that what you've mentioned changes the situation at all.
Think of it this way - a writer writes, a sculptor sculpts, and a painter paints. The end result will be a work of writing, a sculpture, or a painting, regardless of if the Internet is involved. It certainly makes research easier, but does it affect the end product or its distribution in a way that would affect copyright?
I'm actually going to fly in the face of the DMCA and say "no, it doesn't." Ultimately, if somebody downloads an e-book or a painting, they are reading a book or looking at a painting - the very same thing they would be doing if they had gotten it through more traditional sources. The cost of distribution is much lower, but that cost is affected by all of the costs involved with getting that work of art ready. If a book has to be edited and typeset, tha
I wouldn't fuck you on a bet.
"Freedom of expression and speech. Google 2600 and DECSS for a good example."
Okay, I've looked. I remember this case vaguely - a magazine had published an open source program that ran it into trouble with the DMCA (although my memory may be a bit hazy here).
But to say that copyright is taking away the right of expression and free speech is quite a stretch:
1. Copyright law does not allow you to copyright an idea. So, if I have an idea and say it in a copyrighted article, there is nothing stopping you from expressing the same idea, so long as you don't use my exact words.
2. The right of free speech and freedom of expression deals with your ability to publish or otherwise express yourself on any subject you wish without the government or a government agency engaging in censorship. This does not, however, include unauthorized publication of somebody else's work under copyright, and it is one hell of a stretch to even suggest that it does. To suggest that free speech allows you to do that is like saying that my right to go where I choose gives me the right to break into your living room whenever I feel like it.
Now, this is not to say that copyright law can't be abused in such a way that it can curtail free speech - and the 2600 and DECSS case appears to be a good example of this abuse. However, abuse of a law is not the same as the letter and spirit of a law, and for any discussion about copyright we must take all factors into account - not neglect the two biggest (the letter and spirit of the law) whenever it suits our argument to do so.
To answer the question in your title, an extreme position is one that does not recognize the other possibilities in the debate. So, "copyright is evil" is extreme, as is "all copyright should be under perpetual protection and be protected with an iron fist."
a rch/research
"From your post, you seem to think that legally protected rights to access data are "extreme". You refer to the alliance as "balanced" and I say there's no such thing when there's not even the acknowledgement of my information access rights."
You didn't look at the research section on their page, did you? As I recall, they have at least one article there talking about the DMCA and how well it has fared: http://www.copyrightalliance.org/documentsandrese
Aside from which, I never mentioned access rights one way or the other. I simply said that they had good information on their site, and that if they can provide a balanced and informed view of both sides, they can do a lot of good. So, I would ask that you not put words in my mouth.
What wonderful paranoia!
i nal1.pdf
You know, there is so much wrong with what you've said here that it ranges from conspiracy theories to a view of the creative artist that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with reality, but I'm not going to shoot it down myself. I'm going to let somebody else, with far more knowledge and evidence do it for me: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-orig
And, as far as that wonderful, cliched paranoia goes, what are you on, and where can I get some?
Speaking as a full-time writer and an author, and having taken a close look at the website for this new organization, I think it can be a very good thing.
I am a moderate - I understand the need for fair use (indeed, I've used it myself), the public domain, and the need for copyright, and what it does (some of the most important uses of which are not obvious unless you're in the creative business yourself, as it affects the relationship between the creator and distributer). And, where possible, I try to get good, accurate information.
And, having taken a close look at the website, that's what they're delivering. Their information is accurate, and having looked at a few of the research papers they provide, they seem to be pretty balanced, with both pro and con positions represented. And that's what the copyright debate should be.
If they can get good, accurate information out there, in opposition to the noise that you get from both sides of extremists, who have no objections to twisting facts and just making stuff up (for example, I found out recently that the Sonny Bono Act was actually passed to bring American copyright law up to a European standard - the idea that it was pushed through just to save Mickey Mouse is pure fiction), I think they can do a LOT of good, and bring balance back to the debate.
I have to wonder, though, just how many of the detractors here have actually taken a decent look at their website...
"WE ARE NOT TO STAND BY WHILE THEY TAKE OUR RIGHTS AWAY!"
i nal1.pdf )
Polemic aside, what rights exactly are you talking about?
One of the biggest problems in this debate is that both sides have extremists who have little objection to stretching the truth, and just plain making stuff up when it suits them. Frankly, there are a lot of reformers who don't have the first inkling of what copyright actually is and does. I still remember getting into a debate with somebody who I challenged to tell me what was wrong with copyright law - and he raised several objections, all of which were based in patent or trademark law. He couldn't raise a single point that was based in copyright law itself.
Perfect example of extremists making stuff up: the Sonny Bono law, known to the reformers as the Mickey Mouse act - the problem being, of course, that the law was supported by Disney, but actually put into place to bring American copyright law in line with the current European standard, so that American intellectual property would have the same length of protection in Europe as European intellectual property. And that does make logical sense, when it comes down to it. The idea that Disney pushed it through in the middle of the night just to protect Mickey Mouse is fiction. (A great deal of information on this can be found here: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-orig
So, I have to ask - what rights are being taken away here?
That is a very good question, and it deserves an answer from an actual author. The short answer is that it may seem as though we authors are the hardest advocates of strict copyright, we're actually not.
There are two things to consider in this answer. The first, and least important, is that unlike the music or film industries, authors for the most part are able to retain the copyrights for their work. So, when there is a dispute, the author speaks for themself, rather than having an industry organization speak for them. (Compare, for example, the numerous RIAA lawsuits versus the handful of author copyright disputes - the RIAA alone produces far more than the entire literary community combined.) So, when Harlan Ellison goes after AOL and some newsgroup pirates, it is Harlan Ellison himself involved, not an author union of some sort.
And this brings me to the second point - part of being an author is learning how copyright law works, and what it does. We need to, or else we get screwed over by the first bad contract that comes along. So, when we speak out, or take legal action, we don't do it frivolously. Looking at the Harlan Ellison case, for example, it is important to note that he went after two groups - the first was the people uploading the work, and the second was the organizations allowing the uploads to happen. The downloaders weren't even touched. And, as I recall, he won. Compare that to the RIAA, which launches suits without proper grounds to terrify.
So, there is a perception there, between the fact that the authors are speaking for themselves, and the fact that when authors do take action, they tend to be successful. But you really don't see authors taking action often at all.
There is one last thing that works into this perception, and that is that a lot of the copyright reform movement just doesn't know what they're talking about (hell, a lot of the vocal abolitionists wouldn't know copyright law if it hit them in the face), and so when an author (like myself) keeps pointing out that the issue of ideas is unimportant (as an example), they take it as a monopolistic move, rather than a recognition that copyright law doesn't allow an author to copyright an idea, or plotline, for that matter, which WAS brought up as an objection in the rebuttal, in the first place.
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, being informed and telling people who are spouting bullshit that they are spouting bullshit, is taken as being hard-nosed rather than knowledgeable.
"Well, that type of example of the violability of rights is oft cited, and it doesn't quite apply. Rights are not inviolable; they are inalienable, which is very different. Removing from someone the freedom to exercise a right doesn't remove the right, which is where I think we're having a basic semantics problem. The right is fundamental, and exists whether or not it is exercised, permitted, or prohibited. One cannot remove a right from a person any more than one can remove the quality of being a goat from a goat. It's intrinsic. (Does that make any sense?)"
The way you've explained it makes perfect sense. I don't agree with it, but that's the historian in me, I guess.
"The freedom to exercise a right can be denied, which is true of the examples you point out, and continues to be the state of things in much of the world today. However, it is my contention that those rights still exist -- it is the rights that are inseparable from humanity, and the freedom to exercise them that can be denied or granted by the state."
I have a feeling there's not much more we can do with this discussion before it starts running in circles. What you call a "right" here, I call a "freedom." The concepts are similar but slightly different, and based on different views of philosophy as far as I can tell, but regardless of how we got there, both of us, I think, would defend the rights we have now as best as we are able.
"but some would say that the revolutionary change in the philosophy of society (in the 18th-19th centuries) represents a complete shift that invalidates prior philosophies..."
I would argue that while there is a shift, it doesn't necessarily invalidate what came before. Indeed, the thought of the 21st century is very different than the thought of the 12th, but to forget the thought of the 12th is a mistake, even if the world has changed. After all, there is an old saying: "those who forget history are condemned to repeat it." Knowing where you came from is as important as knowing where you are.
"Exactly -- but at what point can we consider what is to invalidate what was? As Hegel wrote, "The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom..." Progess here implies that new understanding supercedes old understanding, and that this is what we take from history. Can the Pandora's Box of natural personal rights be closed? If not, then surely in this case, we can't view modern society through the lessons learned in ancient society."
This is hard for me to write, because this is one of those issues where you are absolutely right, and yet may be wrong on a different level - or perhaps we're both wrong, as will be proven 500 years from now by some philosopher who will change the world. Certainly, we are living in the 21st century, and our laws, mores, and philosophies must meet the needs of the present, regardless of what was in the past.
But, we must also be keenly aware of the past. I rather like to look at it in terms of a story about Samuel Johnson, who when asked to refute Bishop Berkeley's statement that the world was an illusion, went and kicked a large rock, declaring "I refute it thus!" There's a lot of wisdom there - logic and reason must ultimately answer to reality itself. When we look back at the past, it's important to recognize that the inalienable civil rights that we find to be obvious have not always been so, and are not so even now in many parts of the world - and therefore the injustices that occurred in the past and the present should be fought against. People seem to think that when I say that there are "no such things as natural rights," I am declaring that these rights are worthless. In fact, it is far from it - the fact that they are so easily taken away, and so rare in the world even today makes them more precious to me than any right that might be granted in nature.
As you can guess, I still have severe problems with obvious civil rights being labeled as "natural," precisely because "natural" suggests that they are from nature, and since nature has always been there, these rights must have always been there. But, as I showed in a previous post, they haven't been. The historical legacy that "natural" suggests simply isn't present. To take the Johnson story to the ridiculous, if somebody with "natural" rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness steps into a lion cage with a hungry lion, they'll very quickly discover that the very natural lion very quickly disregards those rights and eats him.
"One is the hoarding of books and knowledge by the church during the middle ages - only a privileged few was allowed access to them. The industrial revolution started when knowledge became freely shared."
Um, no. Sorry, that's not how it played out.
In the Middle Ages there had been an economic and social collapse after the fall of the Roman Empire, with most of Europe living on a subsistence level. The books were being held in the monasteries for two main reasons - first, churchmen and the occasional noble were the only people who could read; and second, there was no printing press, so the only places where books could be reproduced, painstakingly by hand, I might add, was in the monasteries. The church spent plenty of time enforcing dogma and suppressing heresy, but a conspiracy to hoard knowledge was not one of their sins.
Even before Gutenberg invented the printing press, there was a movement of knowledge and learning into the secular world with the first universities, where textbooks were copied by the students in lectures (that was how the lectures worked in the early universities - the professor would read the textbook he had written, and the students would copy it down). Again, though, copying books was slow and painful.
With the invention of the printing press, literature can now move into the secular world, it is affordable, and that means that people of all classes are now able to learn how to read. So, society slowly begins to become literate, and the publishing industry grew alongside. Knowledge, as you put it, was freely shared by the time Shakespeare came onto the scene in the 16th century, and society had become very secular with a strong progression of secular science (there's a reason that the Renaissance was followed by the ENLIGHTENMENT). The Industrial Revolution began with the invention of the steam engine - it had nothing to do with a shift of knowledge from being shared to being hoarded, simply because knowledge had never been hoarded.
"The basis for IP is in fact based in Article 1 of the constitution:
"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""
Sorry, but that's not historically accurate. The first copyright law was the Statute of Anne in 1709:
"An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.
"I. Whereas printers, booksellers, and other persons have of late frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing, or causing to be printed, reprinted, and published, books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families: for preventing therefore such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books;"
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
Please look beyond the borders of the United States for history - there really is a world out there, and they really did come up with some concepts first.
Wow - this is quite a day - two discussions of this intellectual level on Slashdot - I wish it was like this more often.
I think the keystone here is this question:
"I'm also not sure if when you refer to history, you're referring to philosophical history, or to the actions of historical states. If the latter, how does that fit into modern philosphy of freedom and rights? Does one say that feudal states simply didn't recognize the rights of man, or does one say that revolutionary governments granted those rights to man? Do we view them through the lens of contemporary philosophy (that the rights of man were nonexistant, in the Hobbesian view, only but granted at the will of the rights of the divine), or through the lens of modern philosophy?"
I get the feeling that you are approaching this as a philosopher, while I am approaching it as a historian - in short, I am referring to the actions of historical states, rather than the philosophical model of interpreting those actions. One of the most fascinating things I learned during my studies is that the idea of the individual right is actually a fairly recent one, and that is why I place freedoms first, and define a right as a freedom protected under law.
Early societies tended to view the place of a human being in the world as defined by obligation, rather than individual rights. To use ancient Athens as an example (mainly because I'm co-writing a book about ancient Greek humour, and this is foremost in my mind right now), every individual functioned as a cog in society. If you violated the societal mores in a minor way, such as eating by yourself, you would be laughed at, shaming you, and forcing you to correct your actions. Those who had greater privileges didn't so much have the right to make use of them, but more the obligation to - there were people in Athens whose job was to wander around the marketplace with a rope covered in wet red paint, and stain the robes of any citizen caught outside when they should be voting - and the consequences for not being present during a vote could be severe.
Now, if you go forward a few centuries to the 6th century AD/CE/whatever you want to call it, you see the Barbarian kingdoms, which are something different (my actual specialty, if I can be said to have one at this point, is Old English and Old Norse, so this is something I know a fair bit about). These kingdoms are only just developing a sense of society - under the law, they are a collection of individuals, each of whom has a monetary value (we know this because we have many of their law codes). So, if I was to go to person X and kill them, I have not committed a crime against society (as we have it), but committed a crime against that person. Their family can then demand settlement from me, or pursue a blood feud. Now, this is a "society" that has a code of laws, but a very lax sense of society, and while there are a number of freedoms in that culture, those laws really don't convey a sense that they had a concept of rights. If you did something to somebody, you had an obligation towards them or their family, and that's where it ended. So, plenty of freedom, but there really isn't any place (at least that I could find) in the law codes that demonstrate the concept of the individual right - just obligations that somebody has to meet.
(Now, Tacitus earlier paints a slightly different picture, and in some cases they line up, but in some they don't - Tacitus does paint them as having a king who gets a share of any blood payment, which is not matched in codes like the Salic Laws - but, at the same time, he is interpreting this through Roman eyes, and when looking at primary sources, I prefer to go with the actual laws themselves rather than a second-hand interpretation.)
In Europe (I specify because ancient Persia had the first human rights code, but we're not talking about a culture descended from them), the idea of individual rights protected by society begin to emerge around the 12th century, and it's quite nascent. My i
"Except, of course, that semantically your statement is incorrect. A right is not a freedom that has been protected by the state. Furthermore, freedom is a state of being, not an individual method of acting with freedom -- there is no such thing as "a freedom".
"Freedom is the state of not having restrictions placed upon exercise of your rights."
Well, first of all, history bears out my definition of a right in relation to a freedom.
However, your statement is also true - freedom (the state of being free) is indeed being free to exercise your rights, which are protected freedoms (the object of being free to do X).
There are times that I think the English language needs more words to describe these concepts...
"As a human, you have rights. The constitution was created to guarantee your rights are not trampled on. The constitution does not grant anything, it protects right you alredy had from being violated by a government."
Well, that's close, but not quite right. It would be more accurate to say this:
As a human being, you are born with freedoms. These freedoms can be protected by the state, or taken away, or ignored. When a freedom is protected, it becomes a right. When a freedom is taken away, it becomes a crime. So, for example, my freedom to speak my mind is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (I'm a Canadian), but my freedom to murder the people around me has been taken away by the state (hence the criminal code).
So, the US Constitution protects certain freedoms you already had by turning them into rights. And, that semantics lesson concluded, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashdot discussion.
I think taking it to email would be a good idea - I've just sent you a brief one to open up the lines of communication, and we'll continue it there...