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posted by LaminatorX on Friday April 24 2015, @02:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the useful-progress dept.

It's election season in the UK, and the Green Party's policy document has been coming under scrutiny recently. In it is a desire to reduce copyright term to 14 years (not life + 14 years, but 14 years from publication).

Unsurprisingly, this has received a bit of a backlash from various parties.

There's no chance the Green Party will form the next government, so this is all academic, but is this a sensible idea? Are people overreacting?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 25 2015, @11:18PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday April 25 2015, @11:18PM (#175191) Homepage Journal

    How can you attach value to something that has no value?

    If you think art, music, and literature have no value I feel sorry for you.

    What exactly is an exclusive right? What does that mean? How can you attach value to something that has no value? Can I copyright 142857? Then anyone who does division by 7 will have to owe me a royalty.

    You have no concept of how copyright works, kid. If you saw my laughter you'd be embarrassed.

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    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
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  • (Score: 2) by hash14 on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:58AM

    by hash14 (1102) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:58AM (#175280)

    If you think art, music, and literature have no value I feel sorry for you.

    Strawman fallacy - there is value in the art, music and literature (hence why I'm actually trying to think of a reasonable way to compensate their creators, rather than relying on the obsolete systems built around around "intellectual property"). But there is no value in their digital representations because they are of infinite supply.

    You have no concept of how copyright works, kid. If you saw my laughter you'd be embarrassed.

    Enlighten me then.

    First, the Constitution states that "the authors and inventors have _exclusive right_" to their works - to me, this is an uninterpretably vague statement. What exactly is this fantasmal right that they have?

    Second, the purpose of my analogy is to demonstrate: if copyright can be imposed on a digital file (or a patent on an algorithm/implementation, a trademark on a .png), then you have effectively just censored what is nothing more than a number. And you are not permitted to share these numbers or use them without permission or in a way that the "author" doesn't like. So why shouldn't I be able to do the same for other numerical operations on numbers? I'll just create a file with my number in it, say it's my "property" and take collections from people who use it without my permission.

    The more I think about it, the more I feel that people arguing in favour of ownership of digital data (or more basically, just information) are severely out of touch with reality. Nothing makes physical sense in a system where ideas and information and numbers can be restricted from being shared, expressed and thought about.

    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday April 27 2015, @03:13PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday April 27 2015, @03:13PM (#175730) Homepage Journal

      there is value in the art, music and literature (hence why I'm actually trying to think of a reasonable way to compensate their creators, rather than relying on the obsolete systems built around around "intellectual property"). But there is no value in their digital representations because they are of infinite supply.

      I certainly agree with that, which is why I give electronic versions of my books away for free. I don't think there's any monetary value in digits. They were mentioning on KSHE this morning that Alice Cooper postulated that the rise in vinyl sales were because "people were tired of buying air." He may be right; I've never "bought" any digital work that didn't come in physical form and the only way I will is if I get stupid.

      BTW, if you like rock and roll, KSHE plays six full albums in their entirety every Sunday night. Capturing the internet stream is trivial (it's built into Windows but disabled and hidden). Monday is "burn CDs day" for me. I have nothing but disdain for those who only sell air.

      Interestingly, I put a version of Mars, Ho on Amazon as a $2 e'book as an experiment. More people have bought hardcover copies, most have bought paperbacks which kind of backs up Cooper's theory somewhat. Of course, far more people download free versions, just like most bibliophiles have read far more library books than they've bought.

      Reading and listening to music has always been free. I'm disgusted by people who now want to monetize it.

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      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org