I believe the question was, what's the deal with the Hillary Clinton meme?
Your entire second argument is moot, since it fails to connect the question to a meaningful answer. The "evidence" doesn't support the conclusion, and the conclusion is no different than any other.
So yes, the topic was Hillary Clinton, and your answer was generalized. You can replace her name with Obama's in the exact same paragraph and reach the same conclusion. It therefore provides no insight into the original question, which is how Clinton is different.
I agree that that's simply the way it works, and it's lamentable, but cannot be addressed except by the voters deciding to care. I'd rather herd cats than try to get the electorate to pay attention to even a single sustained policy debate.
I have, actually, and I walk away every time less and less convinced of this meme.
I don't believe she says whatever it takes to win any more than any other candidate. She came to California and delicately delivered a talk on immigration reform that got multiple standing ovations, despite certain particulars which one would think would go over like a lead balloon.
It's also telling that you advance the position that she's a "backstabber" when Obama has been just as shady and underhanded--but he does it with a smile, so that's okay. They each have had their blunders, and Clinton doesn't benefit from a perception of a cold, calculating personality. But let's put it this way: anyone would look cold compared to Obama. He has all the charm and approachability that Edwards had last time around (did you notice Edwards was suddenly reborn into an aggressive candidate when he couldn't get 2004-style traction thanks to Obama?) In any case, it's an invalid argument, because it's the same kind of thing that happens in every election.
What's most fascinating to me is that taken together, all the arguments against her are essentially two sides of the same coin and cancel each other out. You say she panders to get votes; someone else here says she has her own agenda and the American people don't matter to her. Someone says she's an out-of-control socialist while someone else boils her down to a Republican in sheep's clothes. She is alternately criticized for being cold and standoffish, and then for being cloy and emotional (in fact, "emotional Clinton" has become a tag). Someone else will come along and say she's manipulative and calculating, but someone else will claim that she doesn't have the ability to handle the complex machinery of the American public, which is and always has been an exercise in skillful manipulation. She's dismissed as someone who pisses off the other side of the aisle and can't achieve a mandate to govern, but then accused of being "more of the same Washington machine." You accuse her of saying whatever it takes, when in fact she's the only candidate on either side of the aisle (with the recent exception of McCain and of course Ron Paul) that actually puts forward policy arguments complete with plans and an understanding of the system--Obama, for all his one-paragraph answers, has very few actual plans for, you know, getting things done and running the country.
On the balance, the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle, and Hillary Clinton simply isn't what she is most villified for. There's a lot to dislike about her politics and her positions, but unfortunately she simply isn't as outrageous as some people (and many Slashdotters) make her out to be. She's certainly no less disingenuous--Obama's "politics of hope" involve calling Clinton positions "basically the same as the Republicans" and playing up innocent, ambiguous language as the race card. Calling realism cynicism and strategic positioning of women in his campaign (playing the gender card at least as much as he accuses Clinton of coopting the race card), he is running a campaign like any other. This is perfectly fine--it's what a savvy candidate does. But spoonfeeding people a message that he's not pulling the same moves as any other person would is a load of crap.
Sure it can be. In the US, for example, there's usually no right to attribution,
One doesn't need a right to attribution, and that's outside the context of the statement--attribution is never by legal operation removed from the author. At no point do you assume a legal right to assert origination. Particularly salient here is the record of copyright marking the authorship of an expressive work. There is no legal right to attribution in the US largely because there is no need for one. While copyright is in play, it provides the protection necessary; after a work is released into the public domain, there is no longer any grounds to demonstrate injury.
What operation of law? Nowhere in the Copyright Act does it say that a person can have the right to read a book, for example.
You don't need an explicit right to read, since a right of possession already establishes the right to use. You came into that right by a rental license (e.g. a library) or by statutory license (e.g. purchasing a copy).
Simply put, if someone has lawful access to a work, then they are in possession of the full panoply of non-exclusive rights with regard to that work.
Absolutely incorrect, unless you count as non-exclusive rights the ones surrendered by the compulsory and statutory licensing of copyright law, in which case you advance a tautology. Lawful access does not entail ownership; indeed, it is a limited right to use, with all others reserved by the rightsholder. Upon the expiration of copyright, owners of legal copies still do not gain those ownership rights--the copyright holder merely loses the ability to enforce them.
We see this all the time, to step outside of copyright for a moment, in contracts--it is not that a contract did not form, but rather that there is no grounds to enforce it. This is entirely distinct from a finding that no contract exists.
Also, copyright as we know it didn't exist at all in Shakespeare's day.
Irrelevant. The state of technology didn't exist. Accommodations are a natural part of the evolution of law. The procedural mechanism by which copyright operates dates back to the 15th C., long before the Statute of Anne, which indeed itself is only a precursor to modern copyright.
No it is not, though it does contain some statutory royalty schemes here and there. Personally, I'm not terribly fond of them
Copyright law is nothing more than a set of statutory and compulsory licenses extended by force of law from authors to possessors of copies. It is a standard form around which to base commercial transactions. Your fondness is not relevant, but it does demonstrate a willingness to rewrite the fundamental framework around which the system is based. It is mildly disingenuous to do so--but it does bring quite a bit of light to your positions. But for a license, there is no non-contractual method of obtaining rights to something you did not yourself create.
Well, there is no license as far as the end viewer cares. The broadcaster who sent it to the viewer needs to have an appropriate license. A viewer who is engaging in a public performance not covered by an exception needs a license. But a viewer engaged in a non-public performance needs no license.
A viewer engaged in a non-public performance needs no license because he already has one. It is not salient what the end viewer cares about. Waffling about on the issue unnecessarily extends this discussion.
If you sued me for an unlicensed private performance of the work, the motion to dismiss still works
Straw man. No one is proposing any such absurdity, particularly because "unlicensed private performance" has no meaning whatsoever, since the use license granted imposes no particular restrictions. You seem to be confusing helpful shorthand with the fundamental subsurface operations in effect, along with confusing the act of licensing with the expli
"I got that "truly shocking idea" from friends - friends who happen to be black. They would love little better than to see somone of their own color elected President and aren't ashamed to say so."
Why should they be ashamed to have such a desire? Are you saying that the reason there hasn't been a woman or an ethnic minority in office is because there haven't been any qualified candidates? Out of 43 presidents, 17 chief justices, 60 speakers of the house, and 40-odd presidents of the Senate, there have been no blacks and no women, until Nancy Pelosi.
Are they due someone in one of these offices? Absolutely. Did you ever stop to think that their enthusiasm isn't because he's black, but because he's black and can win?
Perhaps your judgment is colored by bigotry. You "walked past" his office and saw black people. Shocking. Based on the makeup of his current staff, I sincerely doubt they were all black.
For the record, I'm not voting for Obama, either. But this is ludicrous.
On what planet is that a valid assertion? White racists don't vote on the Democratic ticket--they tend to hate Democrats for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which being that Democrats periodically try to take their guns. There are more registered Democrats than Republicans. Even if there are secret racists in the Democratic party, this is more than outweighed by the number of Independents and Republicans who AREN'T racist.
Second, there is no evidence whatsoever that Obama has "stolen" the black vote. Indeed, it is still breaking in Clinton's favor...and she's not black. Obama has a lot of momentum behind him, and should he get the nomination, then yes, black people will vote for him. But they would anyway--they're overwhelmingly Democrats.
Arguing that people will vote for someone just based on the color of their skin and calling it sad is just bigoted. OP didn't seem to imply that white people would vote for the white candidate, or that Mormons will vote for the Mormon candidate. Instead, he turned the truly shocking idea that Democrats will vote for a Democrat into something far more perverse.
First, this can be seen in the interplay between free speech and copyright. I think that we'd both agree that there is a natural right of free speech. This right must certainly include the right to repeat what others have already said.
Absolutely. But you're jumping ahead--"what others have already said" takes a step beyond where the origin lies. Total dominion over your private works is a basic right, and starting with a complete bundle of rights, you are in possession of every single one of them--no one can forcibly take your work. There is no natural right to the work of others, and even that final strand, attribution, may never be taken from the author, so every transition from private to public is incomplete.
Further, your Romeo and Juliet example does not have any elements of a natural right. You are not the originator of the work, and you did not have those rights at the creation of the work. You came into rights based on the operation of law as the author gradually shed those rights. It operated quite a bit differently in terms of mechanics in the Bard's day, but still fundamentally the same.
The basic right to "repeat" what others "have already said" is not at issue in terms of copyright, nor do the restrictions of copyright interfere with any natural right (RIAA allegations notwithstanding). You cannot claim a natural right to extract profit on the contemporaneous work of others, and this commercial protection is at the fundamental heart of copyright. There simply is no fundamental right to the work of others.
There's no license as far as the ordinary viewer need concern himself. Copyright law still applies, so if you're acting in some infringing fashion, then you would want a license.
Copyright law is a license. Without a license, there is no non-contractual mechanism to shared ownership. A statutory license limits the authority of both sides of the broadcast copy. If there were no license, there would be no restrictions on the action of the viewing party.
If you're not, then you don't need a license to begin with.
No, you don't need to make a license agreement. The license does exist to begin with. An unlicensed reproduction is what? It is a copy not permitted by copyright law and not permitted by a superseding license agreement. If copyright law were not a license, "unlicensed" simply could not have a substantive meaning.
If access were controlled, then there could be an argument made, but in this case, where it is freely broadcast
Access is controlled as to the scope of legal rights. The broadcast is still bounded by copyright law, as you've stated. "Freely broadcast" is a misnomer--it's free of charge, yes, but not actually free. One must look no further than the prohibition on public performance, the prohibitions on commercial reproduction, on resale, on preparation of derivative works (with notable exception).
the access argument is hilariously unfounded.
I take it, then, that you fundamentally believe that open source license requirements are unenforceable, then, as a matter of law. It is freely distributed with the intent that people download, access is not moderated in any way, and revocation of license is equally untenable. If that's your position, then I understand where you're coming from as a theoretical framework, but this is not something you can have both ways.
No, a copy is a tangible medium in which a work is fixed. A broadcast doesn't qualify.
A broadcast can't be reproduced without fixing it to a medium. I will concede that I, too, skipped a step there, but solely to simplify within the context of copyright as a whole. As pertains specifically to performances, the operative language is "licensed work"--which is bounded by use consistent with performance rights vested by copyright law.
I wouldn't actually need to. If you tried to assert a copyright beyond the limit o
The articles you reference have not even a tangential link with your assertions.
As far as I can tell, there are no liability issues for retailers regarding selling items that are also removed by having untrained checkstand operators looking at IDs. Then you're not looking very hard, or you're intentionally ignoring decades of tort law. The production of ID is a reasonable precaution to ensure that the cardholder is indeed the cardholder. Failure to take any steps to confirm the identity of the buyer means that the store is potentially liable when you, having lost your credit card, suddenly have a $3000 TV on it. The credit card companies today insure against this loss, once it is confirmed that you did not make said purchase, but that involves an expensive discovery process, as well as the potential loss of the $3000 TV on the part of the store, if the true individual is never tracked down.
So yes, they absolutely have a stake in ensuring that their customers aren't fraudulent, and no, as a private entity, it does not constitute "government permission" to buy your goods.
From my point of view, you are perpetuating obviously false claims while avoiding the larger picture. Well of course, because your point of view is untenable and not based in reality. You're continually avoiding the basic realities: the airport and the aircraft you're trying to board are private property. Federal regulations and Congressional mandates, having survived legal challenges up to and including SCOTUS, have authorized the screenings. No court has ever sustained a First or Fourth Amendment claim against the screenings on a systemic level.
Your argument simply does not hold water, so I fully understand why you don't want to engage it and seek to score sympathy points by pretending that "conspiracy theorist" is a personal attack, when all the essential elements are there: broad linkage of private action with government agents, refusal to support claims with evidence or a parsing of where rights are violated, asserting futility of individual action to stop this sinister plot, and generally advancing the notion that an ID check with no records made is part of a massive surveillance apparatus.
It's pretty basic: any time you're on a list that already identifies you, a party is free to seek assurances that you are who you say you are. This hugely predates the TSA's very existence, and in no way constitutes being stopped on the street or asked for identification for no reason or in violation of your privacy. You are trying to use John Smith's ticket and they want to see that you are John Smith, or at least a sufficiently sophisticated impostor that they would have no legal way to tell you apart. The fact that it is so slight as to not even be invasive, engaged in on the grounds of private parties and longstanding law, and is not absolutely mandatory puts your rant to bed entirely.
Well considering that he didn't address any of the points I made at all, it would seem that your critical reading skills are as well-honed as your admittedly poor analytical writing skills.
That is all well and good, but the issue is not whether natural law is the basis for copyright law. The point is that natural law is a basis for natural rights in my own work, not in anyone's rights to take any aspect of it from me.
Copyright law does not become involved until I decide to share it with others by making copies available. Natural (and more importantly, common) law does give creators the fundamental right to restrict access to their work--they have sole dominion over it if they're not making it available for public consumption. Only at the point where the process of making copies and distributing them does copyright law get involved.
Your comment is not on point, and I do not disagree with any particular point.
The Constitution most certainly does. Perhaps you're also of the type that argues that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution. I could care less whether you, AC, recognize anything. I'm perfectly fine with settled case law, a thousand years of legal tradition, and a robust crowd of scholars and philosophers, from Locke to Mills.
There is no natural right to take the personal work of others, not offered for public consumption. Such a theory would be an egregious privacy violation, not to mention in conflict with the very notion of authorship, and would render impotent the concept of attribution. A creator retains full and inalienable dominion over his work, right up until the point he offers copies for distribution. Then, and only then, is copyright law even on the table. Then, and only then, does anyone acquire any right to it. The transition from private to public begins with the act of making it available for public consumption, not before. A right which does not exist from creation cannot be a natural right, foreclosing your argument entirely.
In the assertion that "government permission" factors into anything. Plainly, Best Buy asking for ID is not in any way linked to "government permission to do anything" except through some convoluted conspiracy theory. The fact that you immediately interpret it as an attack confirms a sensitivity to challenging your conclusions.
To wit, see your comment: "The points you so eloquently omitted are the data gathering, filtering, and overt surveillance activities that the "named party" is now a-partyin' in because of this system"
What data gathering? They look at your ID, check the names and compare the picture to your face and put a highlighter mark on your boarding pass. There is no data collection, filtering, or surveillance.
The 4th amendment issue I have (above the problem of the current system) is the search I would receive when traveling without presenting an ID (and the one I get now even with an ID).
That's not an unlawful search. First and foremost, it is explicitly authorized by legislation which has survived legal challenges. Second, it is not an invasion into your personal space--you are on private property (neither public, nor your own). It is your pursuit of a voluntary action which involves a screening process to proceed.
How do you conclude that? They are obviously not part of the government, which is why their requirement for ID is wrong when offering private services to individuals.
You said "government permission" was involved. Showing ID at Best Buy at no point involves the government, for permission or otherwise.
Their "requirement" for ID is their own prerogative based on concerns over their liability. Say someone steals your credit card and uses it to buy a new TV. You're going to sue them for letting the thief get away with it. If they had checked ID, the ordeal could have been avoided. They don't ask you for ID if you're paying with cash.
And, in a final note, "talking to my representative" does not work: it is simply not a functional activity.
That's nonsensical. There are intentional checks on government action and on the efficacy of the legal system to resolve disputes. These directly stem from a distrust of government and a high burden of proof to prevent false positives (as an individual rights issue). You can't have it both ways.
It's further hysterical that you point the finger at representatives as a class and claim they've abrogated their duty, when it is the clear and unequivocal duty of the populace to choose candidates who will fulfill their duties. Unless you're claiming that the very existence of the office turns all people into "corrupt politicians" in the Slashdot-dismissive sense, exercise some restraint or start pointing fingers at the voters and the media. Vote someone different in. It's doable.
US federal governement does conduct searches in obvious violation of the 4th amendment for everyone who flies.
In obvious violation of nothing. You haven't demonstrated a single violation of your rights, nor can you find any controlling court case on a systemic level. It's a puzzling claim, and it might simply be that you've never actually read the Fourth Amendment and explored what the loaded terms of art in that one sentence mean.
my main points remain untouched:: 1) ID is not required to fly 2) The USA TSA agents at airports lie to your face about it
Hardly untouched. Your first point was never contested, except in the sense that identification isa requirement for passage through airport security. It is not, however, an absolute requirement to produce a government ID card, as there is a contingency for not having it: entrance as a selectee. This involves a higher search and more time, but since your privacy is valued over your convenience, this is clearly acceptable to you.
Second, the authority of Congress to make copyright legislation is not at issue.
Third, nothing in your plainly asinine comment contradicts the natural rights claim, backed by centuries of case law, that privately held works are held in toto by their creators. You don't get any rights whatsoever to something I create until I give them to you, either by contractual license or through the invocation of copyright (which occurs only at the point I start distributing copies).
I don't see any evidence of an intimate expression of copyright law there.
No qualified attorney dealing in copyright, regardless of persuasion as to the current status of copyright law, would so poorly execute a comment and try to assert First Amendment rights to the work of others.
it does grant to him an artificial right to prevent others from doing certain things with that work. No, it does not. The creator has a natural right to the entirety of the work. Copyright does not grant the creator exclusive control--that he already has. Copyright introduces protections for those creators who choose to produce copies, as well as protections for the buyers of those copies.
With regard to the viewer, the broadcast is not licensed at all. Without a license, there is no access to the content. Do not confuse this with a license agreement, which is what most Slashdotters tend to associate with the word "license." The end viewer comes into possession of a licensed copy, and as regards the performance, all such broadcasts are exclusive of public performance by default.
My rights guaranteed by the First Amendment permit me to make copies of the broadcast, distribute them, engage in public performances, etc. in precisely the same way that I can do so for works I create, or works which are in the public domain. What is your authority for this absurd claim? You don't have any rights to something I create, with the exception of the rights that I transfer to you. Copyright law specifies which parts of the rights "bundle" are encapsulated by the sale of a copy. The first amendment does not give you any rights to the work of others, nor does it guide the actions of nongovernmental powers. You cannot raise a First Amendment defense to a license from a private entity.
Well, no, it's not. It's just ignored, since it is outside the ambit of copyright altogether. Copyright regulates private performances exactly as much as it regulates interstate highway speed limits: not at all. That is quite simply not the case. Copyright law does not permit public performance. Accordingly, the restrictions and rights granted by having possession of a legal copy includes a right to unlimited private performance. Copyright is the source of that right. To say it is "unregulated" is a non sequitur.
mistakenly claimed that private performances fell under copyright. They don't. They most certainly do. After dispensing with public performance rights, which are explicitly not granted in the conveyance of a copy, the balance of copyright law pertains to private, individual use. A private performance does not engender any specific conditions, but it is private performance that is among the chief reasons to acquire a copy; indeed, it is a core part of the very purpose of copyright.
she confirmed, (only on being pressed) that photo id is NOT REQUIRED to fly in the US. Not required in the US, by the US. Airlines are allowed to require adults show ID before giving you a boarding pass if they choose (easy solution: e-ticket).
But I pressed. I said, "what if I don't have one, I lost it, or left it at home? Then you fly as a selectee, a contingency for this situation. You can announce your intent to fly as a selectee and then be searched as such. To proceed through the normal security checkpoint, ID is required.
What if I'm a foreigner from a place without government IDs? 1. Such as? 2. How did you get here legally in the first place?
At first I left out the obvious privacy and search issues. Requirements to present ID are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. No federal court has allowed such a challenge to succeed. Airline policy to show ID does not violate Amends. I or IV. See Gilmore v. Gonzales(2006).
"You gotta go talk to your government representative" not realizing that with a big TSA badge on, she WAS representing the government. That's a nice little play on "representative" but you know damn well that's not what she meant. She meant go talk to your representative, someone constitutionally charged to set limits on TSA's powers. At the very least, you should take your complaints directly to TSA, which as an executive agency, writes a number of its own regulations where Congress has given them leave to do so. Just as you don't demand your letter carrier change Post Office policy, a TSA screener has no authority to do anything about that policy.
Once that becomes the norm, we'll need government permission to do anything. So Best Buy, the grocery store, hotels, and bars are part of the government now? I must have missed the passage of that bill.
Fly as a selectee if that's what you choose, but it's just throwing away even more of your time for a victory that is meaningless--all they're doing is checking your ticket against your ID, not logging your drivers license number, ticket information, and briefcase contents. They do this for the same reason the bank asks for ID and the same reason that Slashdot has passwords--to show that you are the party authorized to represent yourself as the named party.
In any case, you seem woefully uninformed, so your conspiracy theories will forever crumble on that single point.
Copyright law doesn't give any rights to the copyright holder with regard to private performances, so the copyright holder has nothing to license. Sure it does. Copyright law doesn't "give" any rights to the copyright holder at all. It takes them away.
I'm not entirely sure where you're going with your attempt to parse, but the prohibition on public performance on a broadcast license goes hand in hand with "private home viewing" as the GP stated. While his language may have been imprecise, yours is no superior in that regard.
The broadcast is not licensed for public performance on screen sizes larger than 55". The Church is in the wrong. This article comes up every year around Super Bowl time. It is not news, nor is it anyone entering your home and taking away "your" rights.
You don't possess any rights to the broadcast, except by the operation of copyright law, which is only engaged by the act of releasing the recording for broadcast. Those entities that own various rights in the Super Bowl and its broadcast are free to limit the 'public performance' as rightsholders. The counterpart to this is private performance, which is protected by copyright for the users. This is not a private performance, and if the church wants to do it on a 50" plasma, they can go for it--which by all means is not a requirement--it's still a public performance and therefore would otherwise be prohibited without their "blessing."
Let's try that again. First, you include actions that are not strictly necessary in the iPhone procedure, while ignoring similar actions that might be configured on typical phones. Second, you use as a point of reference input dialing--who does that?
On an iPhone, it can be as quick as wake/sleep, double tap home button, select contact. Other phones have a puttering contacts list that takes just as long to handle as completing the whole process on an iPhone.
Alternatively, you can disable autolock and leave the phone in the keypad, at which point the process becomes: 1. Press sleep/wake 2. Dial number 3. Press call
Compare to: 1. Flip open phone (or press unlock sequence for a brick phone) 2. Dial number 3. Press dial.
No. They'll still use your IP to sue you, just like they'd use your license plate to find you if you ran someone over with your car, or the registered customer of your cell phone if you made threatening calls.
This has potential implications for how easy it will be for them to get your IP and may legitimize some obfuscation methods.
Just like Target doesn't keep a list of all the phone numbers of customers that come in or out, websites you visit will now have to use a higher standard of care with your IP. They'll have to treat it like the other personal information they use--your name, address, phone number, and now your machine address.
What the before-the-chair-agains are, I don't know, though (you're looking for repercussions).
All of them. Every last one. And if she can't meet the standards Unfortunately, God isn't available. As long as there is a constituency of two, it's impossible to do as you require.
The problem is, your republic is a piece of shit Actually, it's working exactly as designed.
What you need is a representative democracy. Yeah, because that is not only (a) realistic and (b) would fix anything...oh, haha, I forgot we lived in the real world for a minute there. It's much simpler than that. What we "need" is informed participation. Without that, no government system is going to make any difference.
You are unspeakably naive. On the contrary, you're simply a vacuous sophist.
In short, you're [sic] entire way of thinking is part of the very problem we face. Have some ambition. It's not a question of ambition. I participate. My phone calls are returned. I have no problem making my influence count. It's people like you with scrap-it mentalities (speaking of "defeatist"...moron), "call-them-corrupt" blame assignment(I'm the cynic?), and unrealistic expectations that cause the greatest institutional drag. Instead of doing something, you just bitch. Throwing stones is easier than building houses though, so I understand.
*Normal* mail programs like thunderbird have these "weird" functions Yeah, they do. The problem is that people don't use them or don't know they exist. It won't fix a mangled response.
If you look at the message source, Bzzzt. You've already stepped out of "the user zone."
BTW, the blah is from original email and there are 2 responses there. Now figure it out. That merely proves the point that plain text is inadequate. Treat an email like written correspondence...which shouldn't be difficult, because that's what it is. Restate the question and answer the question. Don't bring everything to a grinding halt with midstream comments and angle brackets and crap.
Is it annoying that people use stationery and weird fonts? Maybe. That's a problem with you though, unless there is an office policy to the contrary. Making more work for everyone else is just as obnoxious as the Comic Sans crowd.
Write it like a letter. Don't quote the entire previous message. That is our email policy. Amazingly, the problems are gone. Short emails are clear: "Yes, we can do that." Long emails are focused and professional, organized as memoranda. There is no formatting to worry about, no line break mess, no pile of useless angle brackets, and no tangles of text from multiple individuals.
The only representative that shares your policy positions on all the issues is yourself. The chances of finding an "ideal" candidate are slim to none. Candidates will seek the broadest base of support they can find, both to maximize fundraising and to seek an electoral mandate. As a result, the issues candidates take positions on are the ones most important to the electorate mixed with those most important to the nation (insert your own conspiracy theory about what guides government hot-button issues: Illuminati, media cabal, Germans, greedy politicians).
The only way to get a candidate to take a position on the issue is if "the people" think it should be discussed. Not just some people, or a few people...especially on something as unsexy as copyright. "Copyright reform" frankly is a non-issue. There's no real, serious debate in this country (or any other) about fundamentally changing the nature of copyright. There are debates around the periphery, about scope and privacy and DRM to some extent, but those are issues for legal professionals and policymakers. Validity of copyright isn't a question; commercial importance of copyright is certain. It's not fodder for a campaign.
The issues only serve as guidance about the values of a candidate. They are not dispositive. You should vote for those who share your values, as you're more likely to be satisfied with their performance than if you choose based solely on the issues.
Really. Which one of the 670,000 people she represents is she supposed to dance for? Seriously, I want to know.
If you think that you put people in office to do what you would do, then you're sorely missing the point of a republic. They're in place because we (theoretically) value their (hypothetical) decisionmaking abilities and they best reflect the () values of those electing said representative. We send people to Washington as trustees, not as mouthpieces, because the people rarely speak with one voice and the Framers were deathly afraid of the masses.
If you don't like the values of the representative, get a different representative. Don't whine about media control or interest groups or the "myth of two different parties"--if the people wanted something else, they'd have it. The fact that they don't generally give a crap is just part of the reality of our society, and in true democratic fashion, they get an equal voice for their apathy, pound for pound.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe the question was, what's the deal with the Hillary Clinton meme?
Your entire second argument is moot, since it fails to connect the question to a meaningful answer. The "evidence" doesn't support the conclusion, and the conclusion is no different than any other.
So yes, the topic was Hillary Clinton, and your answer was generalized. You can replace her name with Obama's in the exact same paragraph and reach the same conclusion. It therefore provides no insight into the original question, which is how Clinton is different.
I agree that that's simply the way it works, and it's lamentable, but cannot be addressed except by the voters deciding to care. I'd rather herd cats than try to get the electorate to pay attention to even a single sustained policy debate.
I have, actually, and I walk away every time less and less convinced of this meme.
I don't believe she says whatever it takes to win any more than any other candidate. She came to California and delicately delivered a talk on immigration reform that got multiple standing ovations, despite certain particulars which one would think would go over like a lead balloon.
It's also telling that you advance the position that she's a "backstabber" when Obama has been just as shady and underhanded--but he does it with a smile, so that's okay. They each have had their blunders, and Clinton doesn't benefit from a perception of a cold, calculating personality. But let's put it this way: anyone would look cold compared to Obama. He has all the charm and approachability that Edwards had last time around (did you notice Edwards was suddenly reborn into an aggressive candidate when he couldn't get 2004-style traction thanks to Obama?) In any case, it's an invalid argument, because it's the same kind of thing that happens in every election.
What's most fascinating to me is that taken together, all the arguments against her are essentially two sides of the same coin and cancel each other out. You say she panders to get votes; someone else here says she has her own agenda and the American people don't matter to her. Someone says she's an out-of-control socialist while someone else boils her down to a Republican in sheep's clothes. She is alternately criticized for being cold and standoffish, and then for being cloy and emotional (in fact, "emotional Clinton" has become a tag). Someone else will come along and say she's manipulative and calculating, but someone else will claim that she doesn't have the ability to handle the complex machinery of the American public, which is and always has been an exercise in skillful manipulation. She's dismissed as someone who pisses off the other side of the aisle and can't achieve a mandate to govern, but then accused of being "more of the same Washington machine." You accuse her of saying whatever it takes, when in fact she's the only candidate on either side of the aisle (with the recent exception of McCain and of course Ron Paul) that actually puts forward policy arguments complete with plans and an understanding of the system--Obama, for all his one-paragraph answers, has very few actual plans for, you know, getting things done and running the country.
On the balance, the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle, and Hillary Clinton simply isn't what she is most villified for. There's a lot to dislike about her politics and her positions, but unfortunately she simply isn't as outrageous as some people (and many Slashdotters) make her out to be. She's certainly no less disingenuous--Obama's "politics of hope" involve calling Clinton positions "basically the same as the Republicans" and playing up innocent, ambiguous language as the race card. Calling realism cynicism and strategic positioning of women in his campaign (playing the gender card at least as much as he accuses Clinton of coopting the race card), he is running a campaign like any other. This is perfectly fine--it's what a savvy candidate does. But spoonfeeding people a message that he's not pulling the same moves as any other person would is a load of crap.
Sure it can be. In the US, for example, there's usually no right to attribution,
One doesn't need a right to attribution, and that's outside the context of the statement--attribution is never by legal operation removed from the author. At no point do you assume a legal right to assert origination. Particularly salient here is the record of copyright marking the authorship of an expressive work. There is no legal right to attribution in the US largely because there is no need for one. While copyright is in play, it provides the protection necessary; after a work is released into the public domain, there is no longer any grounds to demonstrate injury.
What operation of law? Nowhere in the Copyright Act does it say that a person can have the right to read a book, for example.
You don't need an explicit right to read, since a right of possession already establishes the right to use. You came into that right by a rental license (e.g. a library) or by statutory license (e.g. purchasing a copy).
Simply put, if someone has lawful access to a work, then they are in possession of the full panoply of non-exclusive rights with regard to that work.
Absolutely incorrect, unless you count as non-exclusive rights the ones surrendered by the compulsory and statutory licensing of copyright law, in which case you advance a tautology. Lawful access does not entail ownership; indeed, it is a limited right to use, with all others reserved by the rightsholder. Upon the expiration of copyright, owners of legal copies still do not gain those ownership rights--the copyright holder merely loses the ability to enforce them.
We see this all the time, to step outside of copyright for a moment, in contracts--it is not that a contract did not form, but rather that there is no grounds to enforce it. This is entirely distinct from a finding that no contract exists.
Also, copyright as we know it didn't exist at all in Shakespeare's day.
Irrelevant. The state of technology didn't exist. Accommodations are a natural part of the evolution of law. The procedural mechanism by which copyright operates dates back to the 15th C., long before the Statute of Anne, which indeed itself is only a precursor to modern copyright.
No it is not, though it does contain some statutory royalty schemes here and there. Personally, I'm not terribly fond of them
Copyright law is nothing more than a set of statutory and compulsory licenses extended by force of law from authors to possessors of copies. It is a standard form around which to base commercial transactions. Your fondness is not relevant, but it does demonstrate a willingness to rewrite the fundamental framework around which the system is based. It is mildly disingenuous to do so--but it does bring quite a bit of light to your positions. But for a license, there is no non-contractual method of obtaining rights to something you did not yourself create.
Well, there is no license as far as the end viewer cares. The broadcaster who sent it to the viewer needs to have an appropriate license. A viewer who is engaging in a public performance not covered by an exception needs a license. But a viewer engaged in a non-public performance needs no license.
A viewer engaged in a non-public performance needs no license because he already has one. It is not salient what the end viewer cares about. Waffling about on the issue unnecessarily extends this discussion.
If you sued me for an unlicensed private performance of the work, the motion to dismiss still works
Straw man. No one is proposing any such absurdity, particularly because "unlicensed private performance" has no meaning whatsoever, since the use license granted imposes no particular restrictions. You seem to be confusing helpful shorthand with the fundamental subsurface operations in effect, along with confusing the act of licensing with the expli
"I got that "truly shocking idea" from friends - friends who happen to be black. They would love little better than to see somone of their own color elected President and aren't ashamed to say so."
Why should they be ashamed to have such a desire? Are you saying that the reason there hasn't been a woman or an ethnic minority in office is because there haven't been any qualified candidates? Out of 43 presidents, 17 chief justices, 60 speakers of the house, and 40-odd presidents of the Senate, there have been no blacks and no women, until Nancy Pelosi.
Are they due someone in one of these offices? Absolutely. Did you ever stop to think that their enthusiasm isn't because he's black, but because he's black and can win?
Perhaps your judgment is colored by bigotry. You "walked past" his office and saw black people. Shocking. Based on the makeup of his current staff, I sincerely doubt they were all black.
For the record, I'm not voting for Obama, either. But this is ludicrous.
On what planet is that a valid assertion?
White racists don't vote on the Democratic ticket--they tend to hate Democrats for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which being that Democrats periodically try to take their guns. There are more registered Democrats than Republicans. Even if there are secret racists in the Democratic party, this is more than outweighed by the number of Independents and Republicans who AREN'T racist.
Second, there is no evidence whatsoever that Obama has "stolen" the black vote. Indeed, it is still breaking in Clinton's favor...and she's not black. Obama has a lot of momentum behind him, and should he get the nomination, then yes, black people will vote for him. But they would anyway--they're overwhelmingly Democrats.
Arguing that people will vote for someone just based on the color of their skin and calling it sad is just bigoted. OP didn't seem to imply that white people would vote for the white candidate, or that Mormons will vote for the Mormon candidate. Instead, he turned the truly shocking idea that Democrats will vote for a Democrat into something far more perverse.
First, this can be seen in the interplay between free speech and copyright. I think that we'd both agree that there is a natural right of free speech. This right must certainly include the right to repeat what others have already said.
Absolutely. But you're jumping ahead--"what others have already said" takes a step beyond where the origin lies. Total dominion over your private works is a basic right, and starting with a complete bundle of rights, you are in possession of every single one of them--no one can forcibly take your work. There is no natural right to the work of others, and even that final strand, attribution, may never be taken from the author, so every transition from private to public is incomplete.
Further, your Romeo and Juliet example does not have any elements of a natural right. You are not the originator of the work, and you did not have those rights at the creation of the work. You came into rights based on the operation of law as the author gradually shed those rights. It operated quite a bit differently in terms of mechanics in the Bard's day, but still fundamentally the same.
The basic right to "repeat" what others "have already said" is not at issue in terms of copyright, nor do the restrictions of copyright interfere with any natural right (RIAA allegations notwithstanding). You cannot claim a natural right to extract profit on the contemporaneous work of others, and this commercial protection is at the fundamental heart of copyright. There simply is no fundamental right to the work of others.
There's no license as far as the ordinary viewer need concern himself. Copyright law still applies, so if you're acting in some infringing fashion, then you would want a license.
Copyright law is a license. Without a license, there is no non-contractual mechanism to shared ownership. A statutory license limits the authority of both sides of the broadcast copy. If there were no license, there would be no restrictions on the action of the viewing party.
If you're not, then you don't need a license to begin with.
No, you don't need to make a license agreement. The license does exist to begin with. An unlicensed reproduction is what? It is a copy not permitted by copyright law and not permitted by a superseding license agreement. If copyright law were not a license, "unlicensed" simply could not have a substantive meaning.
If access were controlled, then there could be an argument made, but in this case, where it is freely broadcast
Access is controlled as to the scope of legal rights. The broadcast is still bounded by copyright law, as you've stated. "Freely broadcast" is a misnomer--it's free of charge, yes, but not actually free. One must look no further than the prohibition on public performance, the prohibitions on commercial reproduction, on resale, on preparation of derivative works (with notable exception).
the access argument is hilariously unfounded.
I take it, then, that you fundamentally believe that open source license requirements are unenforceable, then, as a matter of law. It is freely distributed with the intent that people download, access is not moderated in any way, and revocation of license is equally untenable. If that's your position, then I understand where you're coming from as a theoretical framework, but this is not something you can have both ways.
No, a copy is a tangible medium in which a work is fixed. A broadcast doesn't qualify.
A broadcast can't be reproduced without fixing it to a medium. I will concede that I, too, skipped a step there, but solely to simplify within the context of copyright as a whole. As pertains specifically to performances, the operative language is "licensed work"--which is bounded by use consistent with performance rights vested by copyright law.
I wouldn't actually need to. If you tried to assert a copyright beyond the limit o
So yes, they absolutely have a stake in ensuring that their customers aren't fraudulent, and no, as a private entity, it does not constitute "government permission" to buy your goods. From my point of view, you are perpetuating obviously false claims while avoiding the larger picture. Well of course, because your point of view is untenable and not based in reality. You're continually avoiding the basic realities: the airport and the aircraft you're trying to board are private property. Federal regulations and Congressional mandates, having survived legal challenges up to and including SCOTUS, have authorized the screenings. No court has ever sustained a First or Fourth Amendment claim against the screenings on a systemic level.
Your argument simply does not hold water, so I fully understand why you don't want to engage it and seek to score sympathy points by pretending that "conspiracy theorist" is a personal attack, when all the essential elements are there: broad linkage of private action with government agents, refusal to support claims with evidence or a parsing of where rights are violated, asserting futility of individual action to stop this sinister plot, and generally advancing the notion that an ID check with no records made is part of a massive surveillance apparatus.
It's pretty basic: any time you're on a list that already identifies you, a party is free to seek assurances that you are who you say you are. This hugely predates the TSA's very existence, and in no way constitutes being stopped on the street or asked for identification for no reason or in violation of your privacy. You are trying to use John Smith's ticket and they want to see that you are John Smith, or at least a sufficiently sophisticated impostor that they would have no legal way to tell you apart. The fact that it is so slight as to not even be invasive, engaged in on the grounds of private parties and longstanding law, and is not absolutely mandatory puts your rant to bed entirely.
Well considering that he didn't address any of the points I made at all, it would seem that your critical reading skills are as well-honed as your admittedly poor analytical writing skills.
That is all well and good, but the issue is not whether natural law is the basis for copyright law. The point is that natural law is a basis for natural rights in my own work, not in anyone's rights to take any aspect of it from me.
Copyright law does not become involved until I decide to share it with others by making copies available. Natural (and more importantly, common) law does give creators the fundamental right to restrict access to their work--they have sole dominion over it if they're not making it available for public consumption. Only at the point where the process of making copies and distributing them does copyright law get involved.
Your comment is not on point, and I do not disagree with any particular point.
The Constitution most certainly does. Perhaps you're also of the type that argues that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution. I could care less whether you, AC, recognize anything. I'm perfectly fine with settled case law, a thousand years of legal tradition, and a robust crowd of scholars and philosophers, from Locke to Mills.
There is no natural right to take the personal work of others, not offered for public consumption. Such a theory would be an egregious privacy violation, not to mention in conflict with the very notion of authorship, and would render impotent the concept of attribution. A creator retains full and inalienable dominion over his work, right up until the point he offers copies for distribution. Then, and only then, is copyright law even on the table. Then, and only then, does anyone acquire any right to it. The transition from private to public begins with the act of making it available for public consumption, not before. A right which does not exist from creation cannot be a natural right, foreclosing your argument entirely.
Where, exactly, was there a conspiracy theory?
In the assertion that "government permission" factors into anything. Plainly, Best Buy asking for ID is not in any way linked to "government permission to do anything" except through some convoluted conspiracy theory. The fact that you immediately interpret it as an attack confirms a sensitivity to challenging your conclusions.
To wit, see your comment: "The points you so eloquently omitted are the data gathering, filtering, and overt surveillance activities that the "named party" is now a-partyin' in because of this system"
What data gathering? They look at your ID, check the names and compare the picture to your face and put a highlighter mark on your boarding pass. There is no data collection, filtering, or surveillance.
The 4th amendment issue I have (above the problem of the current system) is the search I would receive when traveling without presenting an ID (and the one I get now even with an ID).
That's not an unlawful search. First and foremost, it is explicitly authorized by legislation which has survived legal challenges. Second, it is not an invasion into your personal space--you are on private property (neither public, nor your own). It is your pursuit of a voluntary action which involves a screening process to proceed.
How do you conclude that? They are obviously not part of the government, which is why their requirement for ID is wrong when offering private services to individuals.
You said "government permission" was involved. Showing ID at Best Buy at no point involves the government, for permission or otherwise.
Their "requirement" for ID is their own prerogative based on concerns over their liability. Say someone steals your credit card and uses it to buy a new TV. You're going to sue them for letting the thief get away with it. If they had checked ID, the ordeal could have been avoided. They don't ask you for ID if you're paying with cash.
And, in a final note, "talking to my representative" does not work: it is simply not a functional activity.
That's nonsensical. There are intentional checks on government action and on the efficacy of the legal system to resolve disputes. These directly stem from a distrust of government and a high burden of proof to prevent false positives (as an individual rights issue). You can't have it both ways.
It's further hysterical that you point the finger at representatives as a class and claim they've abrogated their duty, when it is the clear and unequivocal duty of the populace to choose candidates who will fulfill their duties. Unless you're claiming that the very existence of the office turns all people into "corrupt politicians" in the Slashdot-dismissive sense, exercise some restraint or start pointing fingers at the voters and the media. Vote someone different in. It's doable.
US federal governement does conduct searches in obvious violation of the 4th amendment for everyone who flies.
In obvious violation of nothing. You haven't demonstrated a single violation of your rights, nor can you find any controlling court case on a systemic level. It's a puzzling claim, and it might simply be that you've never actually read the Fourth Amendment and explored what the loaded terms of art in that one sentence mean.
my main points remain untouched:: 1) ID is not required to fly
2) The USA TSA agents at airports lie to your face about it
Hardly untouched. Your first point was never contested, except in the sense that identification is a requirement for passage through airport security. It is not, however, an absolute requirement to produce a government ID card, as there is a contingency for not having it: entrance as a selectee. This involves a higher search and more time, but since your privacy is valued over your convenience, this is clearly acceptable to you.
You
First, there is no such thing as an "ammendment".
Second, the authority of Congress to make copyright legislation is not at issue.
Third, nothing in your plainly asinine comment contradicts the natural rights claim, backed by centuries of case law, that privately held works are held in toto by their creators. You don't get any rights whatsoever to something I create until I give them to you, either by contractual license or through the invocation of copyright (which occurs only at the point I start distributing copies).
I don't see any evidence of an intimate expression of copyright law there.
No qualified attorney dealing in copyright, regardless of persuasion as to the current status of copyright law, would so poorly execute a comment and try to assert First Amendment rights to the work of others.
Fly as a selectee if that's what you choose, but it's just throwing away even more of your time for a victory that is meaningless--all they're doing is checking your ticket against your ID, not logging your drivers license number, ticket information, and briefcase contents. They do this for the same reason the bank asks for ID and the same reason that Slashdot has passwords--to show that you are the party authorized to represent yourself as the named party.
In any case, you seem woefully uninformed, so your conspiracy theories will forever crumble on that single point.
I'm not entirely sure where you're going with your attempt to parse, but the prohibition on public performance on a broadcast license goes hand in hand with "private home viewing" as the GP stated. While his language may have been imprecise, yours is no superior in that regard.
The broadcast is not licensed for public performance on screen sizes larger than 55". The Church is in the wrong. This article comes up every year around Super Bowl time. It is not news, nor is it anyone entering your home and taking away "your" rights.
You don't possess any rights to the broadcast, except by the operation of copyright law, which is only engaged by the act of releasing the recording for broadcast. Those entities that own various rights in the Super Bowl and its broadcast are free to limit the 'public performance' as rightsholders. The counterpart to this is private performance, which is protected by copyright for the users. This is not a private performance, and if the church wants to do it on a 50" plasma, they can go for it--which by all means is not a requirement--it's still a public performance and therefore would otherwise be prohibited without their "blessing."
The resolutions are standard for the panel sizes, since the same companies manufacture the panels for everyone.
1680x1050 is standard for 20" LCDs
1920x1200 is standard for 23" LCDs
2560x1600 is the only native resolution for 30" LCDs.
You're quite simply mistaken.
Let's try that again. First, you include actions that are not strictly necessary in the iPhone procedure, while ignoring similar actions that might be configured on typical phones. Second, you use as a point of reference input dialing--who does that?
On an iPhone, it can be as quick as wake/sleep, double tap home button, select contact. Other phones have a puttering contacts list that takes just as long to handle as completing the whole process on an iPhone.
Alternatively, you can disable autolock and leave the phone in the keypad, at which point the process becomes:
1. Press sleep/wake
2. Dial number
3. Press call
Compare to:
1. Flip open phone (or press unlock sequence for a brick phone)
2. Dial number
3. Press dial.
Complexity, my ass.
No. They'll still use your IP to sue you, just like they'd use your license plate to find you if you ran someone over with your car, or the registered customer of your cell phone if you made threatening calls.
This has potential implications for how easy it will be for them to get your IP and may legitimize some obfuscation methods.
Just like Target doesn't keep a list of all the phone numbers of customers that come in or out, websites you visit will now have to use a higher standard of care with your IP. They'll have to treat it like the other personal information they use--your name, address, phone number, and now your machine address.
What the before-the-chair-agains are, I don't know, though (you're looking for repercussions).
Yeah.
That's exactly what's going on. Your phone number is personal data, too.
I don't understand the source of your disappointment, unless you think that personal data is private information. It's not.
Is it annoying that people use stationery and weird fonts? Maybe. That's a problem with you though, unless there is an office policy to the contrary. Making more work for everyone else is just as obnoxious as the Comic Sans crowd.
Write it like a letter. Don't quote the entire previous message. That is our email policy. Amazingly, the problems are gone. Short emails are clear: "Yes, we can do that." Long emails are focused and professional, organized as memoranda. There is no formatting to worry about, no line break mess, no pile of useless angle brackets, and no tangles of text from multiple individuals.
You're still missing the point.
The only representative that shares your policy positions on all the issues is yourself. The chances of finding an "ideal" candidate are slim to none. Candidates will seek the broadest base of support they can find, both to maximize fundraising and to seek an electoral mandate. As a result, the issues candidates take positions on are the ones most important to the electorate mixed with those most important to the nation (insert your own conspiracy theory about what guides government hot-button issues: Illuminati, media cabal, Germans, greedy politicians).
The only way to get a candidate to take a position on the issue is if "the people" think it should be discussed. Not just some people, or a few people...especially on something as unsexy as copyright. "Copyright reform" frankly is a non-issue. There's no real, serious debate in this country (or any other) about fundamentally changing the nature of copyright. There are debates around the periphery, about scope and privacy and DRM to some extent, but those are issues for legal professionals and policymakers. Validity of copyright isn't a question; commercial importance of copyright is certain. It's not fodder for a campaign.
The issues only serve as guidance about the values of a candidate. They are not dispositive. You should vote for those who share your values, as you're more likely to be satisfied with their performance than if you choose based solely on the issues.
37 million constituents. Hundreds of thousands of letters. You do the math.
Really. Which one of the 670,000 people she represents is she supposed to dance for? Seriously, I want to know.
If you think that you put people in office to do what you would do, then you're sorely missing the point of a republic. They're in place because we (theoretically) value their (hypothetical) decisionmaking abilities and they best reflect the () values of those electing said representative. We send people to Washington as trustees, not as mouthpieces, because the people rarely speak with one voice and the Framers were deathly afraid of the masses.
If you don't like the values of the representative, get a different representative. Don't whine about media control or interest groups or the "myth of two different parties"--if the people wanted something else, they'd have it. The fact that they don't generally give a crap is just part of the reality of our society, and in true democratic fashion, they get an equal voice for their apathy, pound for pound.