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To: Lizard_King
I'm just telling you that the present copyright law in this country is a necessary form of economic and social justice. Do you have a serious problem with that?
6 posted on 10/08/2002 3:57:47 PM PDT by RLK
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To: RLK
I don't have any personal problem with you thinking that, no. I do have a problem with the present state of copyright law and the direction in which it is headed. I think this article clearly delineates reasons to at least question the status quo, and I don't believe that amorphous issues of social and economic "justice" (especially when that word has so many meanings nowadays) is an effective counterpoint. I apologize if it sounded like I was attacking you personally, I just couldn't believe that you'd read the article and still felt that way without qualifications.

Is our present system superior to, say, the black market free for all in China? You bet...but that isn't saying a whole lot.
8 posted on 10/08/2002 6:53:19 PM PDT by Lizard_King
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To: RLK
Do you have a serious problem with that?

I do. As CS student who has been a hobbyist for ~7-7.5 years (I started monkeying around with original C) I do not support modern copyright law. I do not believe that you as a copyright holder, or I as a future copyright holder, have any right whatsoever to protect creative works at the expense of the rights of the public.

People have a right to use their property as they see fit. You do not have a right to determine how they use it, nor do you have a right to set a standard for how they will use it prior to selling it to them. Why? Because to enforce your views you have to call upon the almighty power of the state. You already use the state to artificially limit access to your goods beyond the mechanisms provided by the market. Ergo, you have no right whatsoever to determine how people will use your goods outside of the paremeters set forth by the law.

When you sell a copyrighted good, you have no right to call it a "license" unless you are selling someone the right to use your good in a way that would otherwise be illegal under copyright law. You sell a CD with software on it, Food Lion sells blocks of cheese. There should be no legal distinction between the two. Once you sell the CD, in a free society you would fully relinquish control over the right to determine the lawful usage of the CD. But as previously stated, the United States is anything but a free society in many areas. When it comes to IP law, the US is a banana republic that would bring shame to our founding generation.

I have frequently broke then encryption on DVDs to use them as I see fit because I didn't have a good DVD player, but I could play VCDs well. Technically I committed multiple serious violations of the DMCA. But you know who the real criminals are? The hacks in the IP industry who bribe members of Congress and the members of Congress themselves that get our votes and sell themselves like cheap whores to the highest bidder. I for one think that the best remedy for this problem is to round up all lobbyists, especially IP lobbyists, the heads of the organizations that represent them and establish a gulag in Alaska just for them. Then repeal these laws and get them inline with the US Constitution....

9 posted on 10/08/2002 7:18:06 PM PDT by dheretic
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To: RLK
I'm just telling you that the present copyright law in this country is a necessary form of economic and social justice. Do you have a serious problem with that?

      I do.  The present copyright law grants copyright for the life of the author plus 70 years.  The copyright law in effect before 1976 limited the term of copyright to 28 years, renewable to a total of 56 years. 
      I have no problem with the concept of copyright; in fact, I consider it to be important factor in encouraging innovation.  But the extension to life+70 is absurd.  Particularly for technical works, this is an unreasonable copyright period, and will extend long beyond the time when the work has any value at all except to historians. 
      You do deserve to profit from your own intellectual property.  No question. 
      But, I'm sorry, your great-great-grandchildren do not.  And, in fact, I suspect that they will be the poorer, as will the rest of society, because of the stifling effects of the present copyright law.
10 posted on 10/09/2002 1:35:14 AM PDT by Celtman
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