Posts by Lyndon Hood
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Why can't it just be a fixed term
Actually, I'd always assumed that was administrative convenience.
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it exists to benefit the creator and to benefit society
I'd have said it exists to benefit society by benefiting creators (and the 'creation' industries). One bit you miss is that the social benefit isn't just from having the work in the public domain, it's from having it exist at all.
In fact the first can't happen without the last either.
So for me whether it these legal right should be heritable - like every other aspect of copyright - is between the extra work and production it encourages makes up for the imposition of everyone not being able to use it as they like.
If we all sound like IP dinosaurs to you, speaking for myself it's because you've found a rather odd area to fixate on.
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The issue for copyright now is similar to the major problem with DRM.
Copyright protects people who make a living selling certain kinds of information (keeping it secret is obviously not an option). Computers work by copying information. It will be copied. I don't really know what the new model is, but all the machinery of the old model used to its full power will not prevent this.
Unauthorised copies have always happened, just not so easily. Font designers have had it since the invention of type and might have lessons - AFAIK they've learned to - mostly - lump it.
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For any who may not have seen it, The Onion:
U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV
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Oh and whatever copyright is, it's a civil matter. It certainly isn't up to the entirity of the rest of society to enforce it (and the penalty form making a copy shouldn't be more than actually stealing a real CD). The bod from the RIA was quoted saying it was "unacceptable" for them to have to go to court. That might just be because the keep losing cases, but either way - lump it.
And seeing as this has been said in public, illegal downloading is not like stealing. The best analogy I've seen is it's like jumping the fence to a swimming pool.
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Oh, and the other recent development is authors get paid for books in libraries.
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Not quite first principles, but I've been thinking lately in the context of a proposed review on an explicit satire and parody exception for copyright (the implication is it might be needed to help clarify what an infringement is for notice-and-takedown purposes... sigh).
It occurs to me that many arguments that would justify parody or satire would also apply to collage (another subject dear to my heart) and ultimately to remixes.
Anyway, it seems hard to say how the people who did the original work(s) suffer any damage. Not even the consequential sort of loss when someone else exploits direct copies of your work commercially. Which incidentally, the fashion industry seems to cope with.
So anyway as a sometime exploiter and an 'author' (in the legal sense) and relative of a rather determined author I've got a bit of a mixed perspective on the right approach for core copyright. Though as a human and a citizen I worry find the legal escalation alarming.
On the more general point, someone at boingboing pointed to a short story based around the idea there was only a finite number of pleasant combinations of music notes and if they were all registered and enforced you'd eventually run out.
Can't think what to search for, or of the name of the legal guy's book Cory Dottrow was recommending more recently. Sorry.
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I wonder if you've embarrassed him with this.
Haven't had a look, but in my experience he's happy to be argued with viguorously. Another point in his favour.
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People want to believe that crime is on the rise
There was some research recently indicating people who were more easily alarmed by various shocking pictures were mor elikely to vote republican.
The researcher considered it might help people recognise that sincere people can differ.
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During the election all candidates have to be dropped down a stairwell to determine density.
If we're showing they're less dense than the Media they're floating in, that won't tell you much.
BTW I had it explained to me that what Galileo should have done was taken a cannonball and a hollow cannonball the same size and dropped them off the leaning tower to see. Same wind resistance, different weights.
Which leads the Labour media office to conclude that if John Key falls at the same rate as Helen Clark, then he's hollow.