Re: Copyrights and Wrongs, from The Netly News
At 09:46 AM 11/23/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
At 5:32 AM -0700 11/23/97, Mikhael Frieden wrote:
It is interesting that while almost the entire body of copyright law deals with materials other then what is to be covered, the industry has enough clout to get their's singled out for the first criminal penalties for violation.
This leaves the bulk of copyrighted material, printed material, photographs and the like open to being stolen as does nizkor for example.
I mentioned this point back when I was on the Cyberia-l list a few years ago.
Some of the law professors on the list were complaining that their copyright rights were being violated by the quoting or forwarding of articles.
And the major newspapers were sending out threatening letters, which were generally heeded by the "offenders."
Well, what about _my_ stuff? (More generally, anybody's stuff.)
Why does Professor Joe Shmoe or "The New Attleboro Times" have a greater claim to "copyright violations" than Fred Nobody?
This is a semi-rhetorical question, as it mostly involves who is willing to hire a lawyer to enforce such property claims. But, as M. Frieden notes, the deck is stacked in favor of large newspapers, publishers, and even professional authors, and is stacked against private individuals and lesser authors gaining access to the courts.
"Some copyrights are more equal than others."
(Personally, I don't really believe in copyrights.)
Perhaps but there is something particularly obnoxious to the rule of law when scum like McVay being able to say to the effect, 'I know I am stealing from you. Sue me.' It is most clearly a mockery of the law to find his pack of drooling toadies such as McC using the theft as a juvenile taunt, that some may set themselves above the law solely upon the grounds of the cost of civil action. That is something simply not done in civilized society. -=-=- The 2nd guarantees all the rest.
On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Mikhael Frieden wrote:
Perhaps but there is something particularly obnoxious to the rule of law when scum like McVay being able to say to the effect, 'I know I am stealing from you. Sue me.'
It is most clearly a mockery of the law to find his pack of drooling toadies such as McC using the theft as a juvenile taunt, that some may set themselves above the law solely upon the grounds of the cost of civil action.
That is something simply not done in civilized society.
I'll mention something else that is simply not done in civilized society: forcefully preventing someone from peacefully using information that they have, simply because someone else supposedly "owns" that information. I'm not making any comment about the people that were referred to above. I'm making a comment about copyright laws. You cannot *own* an idea. ______________________________________________________________________ Jon Galt e-mail: jongalt@pinn.net website: http://www.pinn.net/~jongalt/ PGP public key available on my website. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. ______________________________________________________________________
Jon Galt wrote:
On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Mikhael Frieden wrote:
Perhaps but there is something particularly obnoxious to the rule of law when scum like McVay being able to say to the effect, 'I know I am stealing from you. Sue me.'
I'll mention something else that is simply not done in civilized society: forcefully preventing someone from peacefully using information that they have, simply because someone else supposedly "owns" that information.
I'm not making any comment about the people that were referred to above. I'm making a comment about copyright laws.
You cannot *own* an idea.
Copyright is one of those ideas which seems to have more benefits than downsides until it actually comes into common use in a wide variety of areas. As always, the thieves and scum at the top of the food chain manage to mark the legislative trail so that all roads lead to their own hungry mouths. Thanks to copyright, instead of listening to the spritit of the muse, we end up listening to the canned muzak in the supermarket, and the shrink-wrapped former musicians on the radio. Copyright invariably ends up being 'Corporationright.' The standard argument for Copyright is that it encourages creative people to produce and share ideas, etc. Bullshit. It encourages Record Companies to pay songwriters a hundred bucks a week to live in a shack at the back of the parking lot and crank out ten or twenty bullshit tunes a day. It also encourages the companies to promote dogs that they have heavy (cocaine up the nose) investments in, and add a lot of flash to the packaging so nobody notices their 'artists' are just barking. The same applies to drug and pharmaceutical copyrights. All of a sudden, Madam Curie's grandaughter can't experiment with titanium, because it sounds like uranium, and the corporate lawyers are worried. Marcus Polo can't work on a cure for Polio, because the bean counters have determined that there is more money in treating Polo injuries, and they get a kickback from the gypsum companies that provide cast materials. Copyright, in the end, leads to labor and products being priced, not according to their usefulness, but according to what level of restriction there is as to who is 'allowed' to produce or use the ideas inherent in the labor or product. Copyright is an excellent example of a legislative construct which is not dripping with inherent evilness, having no redeeming value, but is actually a rather innocuous little wart which has been legislated into becoming a giant cancer by those who have positioned themselves to make money off its treatment. Be wary of legislators who propose legislation which contains fine print saying, "Except for me and my pals..." TruthMonger
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