On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Clayton Frank Helvey wrote: Disney's copyrights were about to expire. They couldn't bear to see anyone else use Mickey Mouse (a Disney rip-off of a prior character that was then in the public domain) in their own creations. They'd rather stifle the public's right to creative works and send our civilization into further decay than lose a dollar. Congress bent over, lubed themselves up, and moaned lovingly, extending copyrights 20 more years on top of whatever the previous limits were as of a year or so ago. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

In the US, since the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act went into effect a few years ago, the term is 70 years beyond the death of the author, or 95 years from creation for works of corporate authorship. However, over the last 40 years or so, Congress on average every year increased the term by a year. The Supreme Court has now ruled that they are allowed to retroactively increase the copyright term, so it is now effectively unlimited, as long as Disney et al. continue lobbying for increases. :-(

Jerome Fine replies: I think that in order to be really effective, the number of people doing what you suggest would need to be very large - i.e. at least 50% of the population. If only 1% of the population were involved, a small number could easily be prosecuted and the rest would fall into line. BUT, if 50% of the population were involved, there is a MUCH more effective solution - boycott Disney until they volunteer to give up all copyrights under the terms of the previous rules - i.e. what the old number of years was. No violence is required and very little organization is required. Another method would be to make it impossible for Disney enterprises to function by some method that is quite legal. That requires more organization but fewer people. Of course, it might be less satisfying than using violence, but think of the power it would give to the consumer. Imagine if every company was required to be truthful in all of their advertising? Any claims that were made would actually be enforced? But I don't think that will not happen. Based on what I observe, the more they are told stories that are "a blatant disregard for the truth", the more the enjoy it. That might not be true with this list, but my observations tend to confirm it with the majority of the population. After all, most people who gamble LOSE!!! What do Barnum Bailey say? Is that the correct spelling? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.

From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo(a)siconic.com> Apparently you don't truly own and value any intellectual property of your own. What you suggest is theft, as surely as if I were to break into your house and begin moving out computers on handtrucks while you were away. It doesn't matter if the property is owned by Disney or by me...it is property. Appropriating it because you feel you have some _right_ to it (even though you neither created it yourself nor paid for its creation) would put somebody firmly into the Bolshevik camp. If you want to make a statement, stop buying Disney products. Convince your friends to stop buying Disney products. That is how honest, decent men censor a company...not by hollow threats, even if they are weakly labeled as fiction. Neil

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Neil Carpenter wrote: You misunderstand me. I totally support intellectual property rights. I also totally support the copyright system. However, what I don't support is the abuse the system has suffered through major corporations over the last several decades. A lot of what the Founding Fathers committed this country to in our Constitution is either being perverted or ignored. One of those things is copyright law. The intent is to allow creative control to pass to the public domain after the original creator has enjoyed a monopoly and has been rewarded for it. The best argument for this is the fact that many products of the largest corporations today were derived from previous works that entered into the public domain. They took those works, built upon them and created yet more value and innovation (not unlike the patent system). The point is that if this free flow of creativity is stopped by holding up copyrights nearly indefinitely, creativity may suffer. Sure, people can always go out and produce their own characters or works of fiction or whatever. But the more corporations maintain control, the more power they will have to claim that other works are infringing on their copyrights. For example, I can never create a character called Dickey Mouse because Disney would have a shit fit and sue my ass off. A company can't call it's operating system "Lindows" without getting its ass sued off. This is a real problem. The intent is not to rip-off other people's work, but to use it as a basis for new creative invention. This is how we advance as a civilization. If you don't believe me, sit back and let the corproations maintain ownership of everything, and then let's see how far we progress in a generation. If language were copyrighted, we would still be talking like cavemen. Ok, the day you read in the paper that I blew up Disney's headquarters, I'll also be sending you a check for One Million Dollars!! Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

It was thus said that the Great Paul Berger once stated: But a public company is more or less forced to do such stupid things to fulfil it's fudiciary responsibility to the shareholders or they're then liable to be sued by said shareholders for not increasing the value of the company. Gee, one could ask what happened to the First Amendment ... -spc (But I suppose even that could get you into jail nowadays ... )

Often it simply isn't worth it to build upon something unless you enjoy exclusive rights. The restoration of old films is a good example. The studios that hold copyrights to old pictures spend huge amounts of money to restore the prints for issue in DVD format precisely because they hold exclusive rights and can make back what they spend. In the case of public domain films, this simply doesn't happen. As a result, you cannot obtain a decent quality copy of most public domain films because no one is willing to spend money on remastering when the public domain distributors are selling the film for $6.99 or less a pop. If you want an example, go on Amazon and read the DVD reviews for "Royal Wedding" a 1951 Fred Astaire/Jane Powell film that went public domain in 1979 when MGM neglected to renew the copyright.

Not me, baby. I'm a *smart* hobbyist. :-) -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- Man fears Time, yet Time fears the Pyramids. -- Arab proverb ---------------

Wayne M. Smith wrote: Demonstrably false. UCLA has restored many films that the studios weren't willing to spend a penny on; some still in copyright but most expired. In general they've done a much better restoration job than the studios usually do.

Fred Cisin wrote: Interesting, but AFAIK their film archives don't do that.

I wrote: Wayne M. Smith wrote: If you're trying to argue that works entering the public domain don't get preserved, you can't simply choose to ignore academia on the basis that it's an inconvenient data point that doesn't fit your model.

Wayne M. Smith wrote: It seems to me that you were disputing the idea that works entering the public domain would be a good thing. Maybe I misremember what you wrote earlier. If so, I apologize. So it seems like your position is: 1) With the current perptual copyright system, there will never be a good "restored" version of Royal Wedding, because the studio doesn't believe it would make (sufficient) money from it. 2) If worked entered the public domain, there would never be a good "restored" version of them, because no one would have the original interpositives to work from, and no one would be willing to spend the money. Since the end result of both options is the same, this hardly seems to be a compelling argument for NOT allowing copyrights to expire. For software, where the cost of "remastering" an old release would be negligible, there's even less rationale for a copyright system that allows a copyright owner to suppress copying and distribution of old works.

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 01:53, Sellam Ismail wrote: I'm having fun watching companies as they use the DMCA for stopping competing products like universal garage door openers (Chamberlain vs skylink) and competing toner cartridges (Lexmark vs. Static Control Components). This is a totally wacked system with a runaway program. That would be an act of commercial terrorism ... even talking about it could land your ass in jail! :^) Paul

Ah, but why are you taking a copy? Is it perhaps because it has value to you? That it entertains? If so, then someone had to go through the process of creation to produce it. Not unlike building a house. They deserve something to compensate them. That seems to be the general argument of the recent and current generations... that just because they can't pay for something shouldn't preclude them having it... "they are entitled to it". WRONG! If it has value to you, then pay for it. This is not to say that I support the RIAA... they have been excessivly draconian in the measures they have taken. I don't think they should be able to get a greater amount of fees from internet stations which carry a song than a FM radio station would have to pay for the same song. It should be no different. The laws already exist to protect against copyright infringement, they don't need to add NEW laws to protect against specific forms of CI, just enforce the old ones. How physical is physical... an idea in your head which hasn't been realized isn't physical, but once you have realized it through generation of a song, like writing it on paper, you have a physical product (and the performance is physical). If you develop a computer program, it exists as magnetic domains on a disk, or as patterns of electrons in a bit stream... electrons are just as physical. You're entitled to your belief... but I won't shed a tear if you steal IP and are caught... Megan

Dan Wright wrote: The theft argument assumes *ONLY* that someone is taking something that doesn't belong to them without paying for it. Rationalizing theft by saying that copy wouldn't have been bought anyway has no bearing on the fact that it is *theft*. The "no lost sales" argument (probably on both sides of the issue) is just a tangent. The same arguments have been made for stealing software.

I believe that the commonly applied term is "piracy."

On Sat, 2003-01-18 at 12:39, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote: Since when does copying some data equate to boarding a ship, raping & killing the passengers and crew, and sinking it? I though that is the first use of the term in reference to copyright infringement. Paul piracy \Pi"ra*cy\, n.; pl. Piracies. [Cf. LL. piratia, Gr. ?. See Pirate.] 1. The act or crime of a pirate. 2. (Common Law) Robbery on the high seas; the taking of property from others on the open sea by open violence; without lawful authority, and with intent to steal; -- a crime answering to robbery on land.

I wrote: Wayne M. Smith wrote: Which term I refuse to use, because it isn't any more "piracy" than it is "theft". Copyright infringement is an entirely separate class of offense, both ethically and legally. In fact, the legal remedies for copyright infringement are substantially more severe than those for theft of physical objects. I'd love to hear a good explanation of why that should be.

It was thus said that the Great Dan Wright once stated: From my "The Lie that copying hurts sales" file: http://www.counterpunch.org/flint0419.html ("Sell-through" refers to the percentage of copies shipped which are actually sold, as opposed to being returned to the publisher.) As of today, according to Baen Books-a year and a half after being available for free online to anyone who wants it, no restrictions and no questions asked-Mother of Demons has sold about 18,500 copies and now has a sell-through of 65%. I would like someone to explain to me how almost doubling the sales and improving the sell-through by 11% has caused me, as an author, any harm? http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle Let's take it from my personal experience. My site (www.janisian.com) gets an average of 75,000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in 1975. When Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a month from people who'd downloaded _Society's Child_ or _At Seventeen_ for free, then decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But ... that translates into $2700, which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought the CDs in stores, or who came to my shows. Or take author Mercedes Lackey, who occupies entire shelves in stores and libraries. As she said herself: "For the past ten years, my three 'Arrows' books, which were published by DAW about 15 years ago, have been generating a nice, steady royalty check per pay-period each. A reasonable amount, for fifteen-year-old books. However ... I just got the first half of my DAW royalties ... And suddenly, out of nowhere, each Arrows book has paid me three times the normal amount! ... And the _only_ change during that pay-period was that I had Eric put the first of my books on the Free Library. There's an increase in all of the books on that statement, actually, and what it looks like is what I'd expect to happen if a steady line of people who'd never read my stuff encountered it on the Free Library-a certain percentage of them liked it, and started to work through my backlist, beginning with the earliest books published. The really interesting thing is, of course, that these aren't Baen books, they're DAW-another publisher-so it's 'name loyalty' rather than "brand loyalty." I'll tell you what, I'm sold. Free works." I've found that to be true myself; every time we make a few songs available on my website, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot. And I don't know about you, but as an artist with an in-print record catalogue that dates back to 1965, I'd be thrilled to see sales on my old catalogue rise. http://www.janisian.com/article-fallout.html Change in merchandise sales after article posting (previous sales averaged over one year): Up 25% Change in merchandise sales after beginning free downloads: Up 300% Emails received: 1268 as of 07-30-02 Number of emails disagreeing with my position: 9 Number of people who reconsidered their disagreement after further discussion: 5 -spc (Now isn't *that* interesting ... )

From: "Wayne M. Smith" &lt;wmsmith(a)earthlink.net&gt; To: &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Subject: RE: (no subject) Send reply to: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk-request@classiccmp.org?subject=unsubscribe> <mailto:cctalk-request@classiccmp.org?subject=subscribe> Date sent: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 00:29:53 -0800 Perhaps I'm in a tiny minority here, but if such a work did get posted for free download, I would eventually buy the hard copy anyway. Afterall, I frequently like to take a book or magazine outside with me to read when I step out to smoke (and an American Spirit or Dunhill can take 10 minutes or so to go through.) It would be very impractical and silly to try to haul my PC out to the yard in order to read an e-document during these downtimes. Likewise, reading in bed or in the bathtub, or on the bus, or on the ferry, or at the laundromat requires hardcopy as well. :) I've been mentally compiling some other thoughts on this topic over the past few days, and may post them later. :p -- Scarletdown

On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Wayne M. Smith wrote: This is a bad example because old computer collectors are notorious for being cheap ;) Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

The bottom line here is that with intellectual property, the only moral choice is that if the author wishes to be paid for the USE of their creation, they should be. Whether you'd have bought it if you couldn't have gotten it for free or not is irrelevant, it's like sneaking into a movie theater and sitting in an empty seat. You acquired some benefit domain, you are morally obligated to pay for it. As someone who is in the process of writing his first novel (revising, really, the original draft was a NaNoWriMo creation) I can assure you that I am not doing this for free. Granted, if I choose to make the novel publicly available online as well as publishing (I hope, I hope), it may increase my sales, but it was still MY choice. It is immoral for anyone else to make that choice for me by simply stealing the work, even if it benefits me in the end. Furthermore, I think that copyrights should be extended to permanence so long as the work in question is available for purchase by the public. eg: If Disney wants to keep SteamBoat Willie copyrighted for eternity, they have to sell you a copy at will. I have far greater problems with companies that take a copyright and sit on it and make it unavailable to the public than I do with those who want to protect their revenue stream. The flip side of this is that IMHO there need to be a lot more restrictive guidelines on how and who can be sued (in general, but specifically for copyright infringement). IMHO it's perfectly fair for Disney to sic lawyers on anyone using clips from SteamBoat Willie who didn't pay for it. But if I make a movie called SteamBoat Bob, starring Bob the Chicken, they shouldn't be able to sue and win, and they shouldn't be able to sue just to force me out of business from the expense of fighting them off. Anyway, that's my two rubles worth. Megan said it more directly anyway. -Jim On Friday, January 17, 2003, at 11:19 AM, Dan Wright wrote:

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 16:12, Jim Strickland wrote: Should the umpteenth ancestor of Bach, Shakespeare, Mozart, et. all be able to hold their work hostage forever? These works are part of our culture and our culture is better for them being freely usable. I think we should go back to the way things were before the 1973 copyright extension. This was a 28 years with an additional 28 years if the copyright holder filed for an extension and registered a copy with the library of congress. As it stands now it can be impossible to find who owns copyright on say an old software package, and so even if you want to do the right thing and get permission to distribute it it's almost certainly not possible since the company has probably gone out of business and there are no records of who owns the rights. The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act was supposed to normalize US copyrights with the European Union making things more consistent (this was also the reasoning for the 1973 CEA). Of course it did not do that since when the act was pasted it retroactively whereas in most of Europe the old term was left in effect. The net result of the 1998 SBCEA was that some things are in the public domain in Europe, but still under copyright protection here. This has muddied the waters considerably with the possibility of stuff being imported into the USA, this is forcing the RIAA & MPAA to pressure congress to limit imports of European content product and them pressuring Europe to change their copyrights to "harmonize" them with the US. Regards, Paul P.S. My congressmen, wife and co-workers are tired of me ranting about this subject too! :^D

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 13:51, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: Add to the list their latest "Treasure Island" errr make that "Treasure Planet". I like that story, and I think we are there already. Regards, Paul

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 02:24, Megan wrote: Apparently you did not read my whole comment, I said that if you find something of value that the author deserves compensation. What about if the author no-longer makes the thing I copied available, the author apparently does not want compensation. If I perform a service cheaper than you and some of your customers *may* not be using your services then that's THEFT? That is basically what the "Intellectual Property" industry is claiming if you follow there arguments to their complete conclusion. As I said at the end of my message, if you find value in a program/music/story that somebody else made they deserve some form of compensation. <snip> Every time a new technology has come out the copyright holders have sought additional controls beyond what they already have. This last bit was worse that than the previous 150years because of the rise of media cartels and congress basically letting them write the laws without opposing input. By definition "natural property" is limited to one physical manifestation, even if you and I have identical cars, yours does not belong to me, even if I built it. This is different that "intellectual property" which is not limited to one physical manifestation. If we both have identical CDs and I happen to own the copyright on it I basically own your CD and get to tell you what you can do with it. If you convert your CD to an MP3 file I still own the copyright on it music and can control what you can do with it. Re-read what I said, I consider "Intellectual Property" BS because it is not property and is not something you an own. Knowledge is by it's nature the property of the community at large, it just that government has granted the original creator a limited right to control reproduction of a work to encourage production of new works. Once this time period is over giving the author the *opportunity* profit from the work (they are not guaranteed profit), it falls into the public domain where all may take advantage of it, at least that was the original theory in the U.S.A. What we have now is a bunch of feudal lords controlling the majority of our current culture and letting the majority of their "property" molder & decay just to protect a few "strategic" resources with Serfs giving up their freedom just to gain some possible protection by pledging fealty to them. If copyrights had been always treated as property the way they are now, our society would be much poorer for it. If copyright suddenly disappeared, people would still write stories, sing songs, program computers and society at-large would continue. The generally quality of works would probably be lower so copyright in general is probably good for society. I think we can agree on the following two points: 1. Creators deserve recognition & compensation for adding to society. 2. The current is weighted in favor of copyright holders at the expense of the rest of society. Regards, Paul P.S. to the best of my knowledge I am not liable of any illegal copyright infringement and probably have compensated copyright holders more than average.

On Sat, 2003-01-18 at 18:10, Sellam Ismail wrote: I think we both know that creativity has always existed, the only thing that copyright does is provide a slight incentive. :^) There is a very large body in the public domain ... though I remember reading a study that show of all the works that have been resisted to the library of congress 90%+ have been registered in the last 70 years, but this does not really cover *old* works. The stuff that has survived hundred or thousands of years is of course better quality than most the stuff produced today because of a form of "natural selection" were people naturally protect works that are compelling in some way. Regards, Paul

Whether they have explicitly chosen not to make something available, or by lack of action have implicitly caused it not to be available, they still own the property and the rights to do with it as they please, at least until such time as the rights expire. And I have to say that I am entirely against the recent vote to increase the length of time of copyright. Megan

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Doc Shipley wrote: Doc, A resounding FUCK YOU ya Texas hick. The message is decidedly ON-TOPIC as it refers to my main point, which is that old software will remain copyrighted for years to come, without any logic. You need to keep deleting and moving on, as I'm sure many others have done. Next time you have a problem then take it private and don't litter the list with your drivel. Or better yet, just filter my messages out, OK? Ya dick. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Sellam Ismail wrote: Oww! Oww! Oww! The objection had nothing to do with the relevance of the post, but that it was without substance, useful information, or anything but rant. So you *enjoy* being ClassicCmp's resident jerk? I know, and I'm sure you know, that I'm not the only list-member that objects to your style. Had I thought that I was, I would have objected in private. Your behavior on-list *is* a common irritant, and could use a common discussion. Oww! Owww! Owww!!! Doc