Posts by Lyndon Hood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
@ 3410
Yeah, I did know that. I was going to say that wasn't my point, but if you try to apply my analogy that is where you end up. Having a bad day for that. Is there a pill I can take?
The other sentences I'm standing by.
-
@ robbery
which is the common mistake a layperson makes. you're looking at the end result, not the resources effort time and skill that went into that end product. music isn't information, its entertainment. you use the information angle as an excuse to justify marginalizing its commercial value.
Layman? I'll have you know I'm a talent amateur.
I think you're changing horses here. I was just saying the fact they both involve legal rights isn't a reason things and IP should be treated the same.
And incidentally, saying something should have a commercial value because it was difficult to do, or saying people should pay for anything they benefit from - I believe these lead to unpalatable consequences.
As I said, I wasn't actually trying to answer your question but I'll have a go:
If its good enough for 70 years then why not forever?
(Just for kicks, my answers will also cover "If it expires, why not do away with it entirely?")
a) because people mostly think it shouldn't be that way.
b) because through either experience or judgment it seems the state thinks it's in everyone's interest - trying to maximise all those benefits people have cited on either side while still being fair on everyone - for it to be about this way.Since the whole thing basically an arbitrary balancing act, I think those reasons are sufficient.
More (or less, or different) may be better or worse, but we will need to argue from evidence rather than principle. I've enjoyed the brief moments here that involved actual examples.
Physical property works differently because the costs and benefits (and logistics and, yes, perceptions) of physical property are different. Which is why the state doesn't take a third of your net creative output into a copyright equivalent of the general fund every year.
-
Also not something that everyone can do 20/50 etc years after the swimming pool was built.
Perhaps that one wasn't durable enough to throw in at that point.
Anyway:
-
early elvis recordings... they're an actual thing
They way you describe them, the 'thing' they are is information. Information by definition is copied and transmitted. As they (not me so much) say, information wants to be free - that telling people not to use information they possess is silly and wrong.
Copyrights aren't treated like physical property because they aren't physical property. For starters, I can 'steal' your music, but you will still have your music. I will have violated whatever distribution rights you have, but that's not the same thing. It is a different thing, and is treated differently.
(You might still ask your question - why does the right expire? - but you can't argue from identity with physical property)
As I saud upthread, copyright violation is more like jumping the fence at the swimming pool than theft.
Somebody owns, for instance, the Elvis master tapes and can control their use. Up until the expiry date, they had (owned) rights over how the music was used.
Incidentally, one point I have sympathy with Richard Stallman (a man who will probably annoy you if you look him up) is the term "Intellectual Property" should be used with caution. Copyright is not trademarks is not patents.
No doubt Rowling, who often has her copyright infringed, and on occasion pursues legally those that do so...
Speaking of Stallman, he has a kind of passive boycott out on Harry Potter (just don't buy the books, he says) over the Canadian case where a bookseller accidentally (?) sold some of the books before the embargo and the publisher go a court order that any people who had bought the books should not read them.
-
why does a creative property lose its value after a certain period of time yet a physical property maintains it?
Good question, actually. I feel like it might be the nub of something and I've no idea what the answer is. Though I suspect it's very like the reason patents expire.
Incidentally, I assume the reason we've all been infuriating each other with the first principles is that if we can sort that out we can actually make proper arguments about why the law should be one way and not another. But there does seem to be more agreement than you'd think.
`Outdated'
I think traditionally it goes something like this:
Since the internet works by copying digital information, if your information is digital - say music, video or software - it will be copied.
This is of course a problem for people who sell that kind of thing.
I don't know that anybody assume that widespread copying won't be an issue anymore (though there's the question of how much actual harm it does them), but some people seem to devote a lot of energy to trying to stop it entirely and asking for bigger and more disproportionate sticks to try to stop the tide while making as many enemies as possible in the process.
They might be better to use those resources to come up with bright business (or perhaps legal) models to use the situation to their advantage (and no, I don't what that might be).
-
Well, I didn't say in the relevant respects.
-
Labour -- which has, as yet, released precisely zero policy
I think in some respects a complete Budget counts as fairly detailed policy, especially when the opposition is proposing to change it.
And offhand I think there are some other plan-to-do-going-forward that have built up.
Actual 'election policy' is a bit short though, yes.
-
like you know that thing you put garden waste in with a wheel and we used to play it as kids when someone took your legs and you had to ... a wheellbarrow!
A couple I met once (and I can't remember anything else about them) used to use 'hydrangea' as a generic noun for 'that thing I've forgotten the name of'.
Apparently one of them spent a good while trying to remember the word 'hydrangea' at some point.
-
Is eradicating political correctioness going to help law and order in NZ in any way
You misunderstand. It's in the law and order policy because they mean to make it a criminal offence.
Really?
To my mind if it's not diagnosable it's just a personality.
I can admit a prejudice that every time anyone associated in any way with computers does something remotely socially odd, I'm like, 'Is that aspergers-y?'.
I'm terrible with names. I'm not sure I try properly - perhaps if we all did that American repeating-peoples names back as often as possible thing it would help.
-
And I understand it's not retrospective in any respect.
Surely if that were the case they would have time to generate any extra prisoners by 2011?