Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 2:15pm
Re:
Copyright is what empowered you to demand that attribution, and you grabbed onto it with both hands.
Well I find myself completely unsurprised that you failed to read even the part you actually quoted. Or perhaps you deliberately misinterpreted...
and embedding a note about the CC BY-SA licensing makes it more likely that people won't lose the licensing information and feel they need to ask for permission.
The point Mr Michael seems to be making there is that copyright exists on everything and , as has been seen time and again, many publications are nervous to use content that might be copyrighted. His stated intent in attribution is not personal aggrandisement, but instead to help keep the information intact that would allow more people to use it without fear. That you would try and paint someone desperately trying to work as best he can within the mess that is copyright law as hypocritical is as predictable as it is dumb.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 23 Dec 2013 @ 2:35pm
Re: can we discuss the actual topic?
why do copyright/patent lobbyists get so much attention?
At an average of about $2M to get elected to congress, $8.5M to get into the senate and $2.5Bn to be president the answer is obvious and sad: Because money.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 23 Dec 2013 @ 4:41am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How can an "opt out" system be "defeated"?
When I was 12 or 13 back in the 60's My friends had a stash of Playboys one of them got from his older brother
Uh huh. And no doubt other, more hardcore titles. There was (is) always someone that can "get stuff" in a school. And even if pornography were suddenly and magically eliminated from schools, the main danger to children of it shaping their views on "real" sex, is likely to still be taken care of by other older children who claim to know. Either way, talking about it works way better than the pointless political moralising. Personally I find it hypocritical that our societies seem to feel no need to, for example, shield children from the increasingly violent images available on the news, but if there's a chance a teenager might see a picture of a naked body, or a depiction of a bodily function combined with (usually) pleasure... Shouting, arm-waving and politicians and every "moral guardian" group clamouring for the spotlight every single time.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 22 Dec 2013 @ 6:48am
Re: Re: Re: Tin-Pot Dictators.
we presume the President to be crazy, and we have a system of checks and balances to control his activities
How's that working out for you guys at the moment? Largely it looks like those "checks and balances" are about as fictional as the supposedly "cabinet government" of the UK.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 21 Dec 2013 @ 2:46pm
Re: Re: Re: Re: How can an "opt out" system be "defeated"?
the only computer with internet access was in the living room and access disabled
If that solution ever worked as a general solution (and I have my doubts - it's not like porn was hard to find as a teenager before there was internet access), it's not realistic today. There are too many devices and friends with internet access.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 21 Dec 2013 @ 2:29am
Re: Re: How can an "opt out" system be "defeated"?
Here is another very simple solution for parents who are concerned what their children can access:Let them install software themselves
And here is another suggestion actually from a parent for parents who are sensible enough to know that their children are smart enough to circumvent blocking software too: Actually talk to your children about the dangers and wonders of the internet and educate them correctly instead of trying to pretend all the ickyness out there doesn't exist.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 12:10pm
Re: True Democracy?
the only way for a true democracy is one person one vote on everything.
Very true and theoretically the technology now exists to enable this and in many respects could be considered desirable. However, as someone else pointed out, at least equally important to how voting is done is how to decide what is voted on. That bit, I think, while it desperately needs changing too, also definitely shouldn't be "every opinion carries equal weight" - that way madness lies...
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 11:53am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Online voting
I think you are overestimating how many people would want to vote that often.
And, pessimist that I usually am, I think you're underestimating the number of people that would engage if there was a feeling of actually being part of a real democratic process instead of just getting to pick the lesser of who-gives-a-f*ck every few years.
However, even if you're right and a significant number rarely vote at all and others vote only regarding things of real interest to them that doesn't make what I said any less true and in fact may well make any statistical anomalies even more glaring.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 7:18am
Gosh... really???
all sorts of non pornographic sites are being blocked, including important sex education sites and, more troubling, rape and sexual abuse information sites (while plenty of porn is getting through).
Well it's not like that was in any way a 100% certainty and open to any kind of prediction or anything...
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 6:48am
Re: Re: Re: Online voting
In terms of traceability it is absolutely possible to solve, but many of the current solutions are in conflict with other safety-requirements or uncoercion measures
I suspect this is because the thinking starts from the constraint "This is how elections are done, make it electronic now." It's like saying "Tables are only made out of wood, make me a table that doesn't burn". It's a lot harder unless you start further back with "what properties does it have to have to be a table and what can we change?"
In terms of coercion, social engineering is a far more serious problem in online voting.
And again a far less serious one if the stakes aren't so high and the window of tampering so narrow. Imagine if the average citizen voted on something once a week, or once a month as part of overall decision making. Think of how much harder it would be to effect a significant shift in overall direction by coercion of tens of thousands or more on a regular basis than it is if the decision is to select the one decision maker you can then influance subsequently. Think also how much harder it would be to continually hide evidence of that tampering from analysis.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 6:26am
Re: Re: Re: Not convinced
Politicians are, at least, smart, capable, and motivated to ensure the system feeding them remains functional, regardless of whether or not it satisfies their "constituents".
Which is pretty much what I said. "Democracies" as we have them today seem set up to attract the more power hungry, opportunistic and self-centred instead of any kind of altruism. If the "good of the country" happens it usually turns out there was an ulterior motive for it.
The democratic ideal is that people are stupid enough to require governing, while being intelligent and capable enough to govern themselves
That's not the democratic ideal, merely a cynical version of the quote, "Democracy is absolutely the worst form of government - except for all the others." I'd agree that the most likely reason for democracies being as they are is because those who grasped the power want to keep and expand it, but perhaps a more optimistic viewpoint might be found. Until relatively recently, societies had no tools capable of involving any significant portion of society in decision making that wouldn't hopelessly stall any decision. We can hope, at least, that now generations are growing up intimitely familiar with tools that are capable of this, a way may be found to use them... that is closer to the "democratic ideal"
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 5:01am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It adds to our culture.
A writer rights a story and creates a character. Years later someone wants to make a film based on his story. Then toys are made....maybe an amusement park ride...who knows.
OK, let's take that example... a writer writes a story. The story is based on his life experiences, public domain works and copyrighted works he (or she) has seen, heard, read, smelt, tasted etc. It just so happens that this idea re-hashing existing ideas is different enough to fall within the arbitrary definition "new work" under law. Let's assume his book sells (far from a given). Great, he gets money for work he's done. Seems fair to me. There are other ways to monetise ephemeral creations like writing, but being able to stop anyone but you selling it for a while is certainly one way. Now, years later as you say, along comes a screenwriter. He takes the ideas and perhaps dialog of the book and uses his own work and creative talent to change a written story into something suitable for screen. Perhaps the end product is quite close to the book, but likely not. Either way, the author of the book has done no additional work to create his screenplay and the only difference in what the screenplay writer has done to the what the author did is that the new work has a more obvious connection to one origin rather than many. (Unless we're talking about a Hollywood "book adaptation", where the only obvious connection may be the title...). I can't see in that any innate or moral "right" of the original author to any profits from someone else's additional work when they have done none themselves so if you do I'd love you to explain how? Also, assuming the screenplay becomes a popular film, without copyright in the picture the original author is able to use the work of others to make more money for himself by doing additional work himself to cash in on the popularity of the film. To me this method of reward for someone else's work seems rather fairer than "give me money you worked for because I did some work years ago". Perhaps the author could stretch his creative talents to create those toys you mentioned - doing work to turn a mental picture created by words into a visual 3d form. I'd be right alongside him being paid for that. Being paid because someone else did that piece of work many years afterwards, not so much.
I feel the creator should be able to profit from that idea as opposed to someone else.
But the author's profited from many other people's ideas, so how is that different? I feel a creator should be able to profit from his work, assuming there is profit to be had in it at all. Sadly, while the theory of copyright agrees with me (as I understand it copyright is supposed to protect specific expression not ideas), the practice of it goes even further than you seem to want to.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 4:06am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It adds to our culture.
copyright should never last so much as a single day beyond the death of the creator.
Mmm, not exactly a hard-and-fast time. What happens when, in say 20 or 30 years, the average lifespan is 150+ years? Also, the whole "life of creator" argument strikes me as spurious anyway as well as being yet another thing biased in favour of the few big artists vs the many little artists. For a start, few works have any direct monetary value beyond a couple of decades at most and more than this, exactly how long is a reasonable time to be paid for doing nothing further? I know I would love to still be being paid for work I did when I was 20, but I'm not arrogant enough to expect anyone to actually do so, even though I've got a good idea that some of it is still being used today.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 3:34am
Re: Online voting
Traceability of votes can make it impossible to hide who you vote for.
That's a logistics problem, I can think of several ways to make it at least harder to trace, which would make it as good as the current system, which is hardly incorruptible in this respect. Granted if you're thinking in terms of simply tacking e-voting on to the current systems I'd agree it's much much harder, but if you're starting from democratic principles and designing from the ground up I think you could do better than currently.
Incoercibility has beeen on the wishlist for democracies around the world for centuries.
Indeed, which makes me wonder why the bar seems to be being set at "perfect, no less" for e-voting instead of "at least as good as we have now".
but using it in the most important elections in a representative democracy is a huge concern at the moment.
Perhaps, though I still maintain that it could be made "at least as good". Ideally, though, it should be as the article says a part of a fundamental change to citizen participation in democratic process. In that case, any single vote would inevitably become less important, removing some of the motivation for tampering with, say, a "general election" as well as well as making it harder to cover up long-term tampering with many more votes being scrutinised.
And real results from these kinds of research have been lacking for a very long time!
Indeed, and again I am given to wonder why? The cynic in me suggests this is likely because career politicians and those with the money and wide influence to direct effective research have exactly zero interest in reducing their hold on power. Major electoral reform in any of the big democracies seems likely only at the point of a very large "gun" (whether literally or in the form of a true grass-roots demand that carries a significant portion of the population all screaming for it in unison)
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 3:07am
Re: Not convinced
because while they are elected to have our best interests at heart (haha), they can see beyond individual needs to that of the country. (emphasis mine)
Seriously? I'm sure such politicians exist, plus a number egotistical enough to think they are saviours of the country, but the outcomes strongly suggest that on average career politicians understand little beyond their own prejudices, personal interests or where their next large block of (corporate) funding is coming from.
If you think about how "democracies" actually work and the sorts of people that setup is most likely to attract, this is unsurprising...
As for online voting vs "in person" voting, it seems to me that it could be little worse. Physical voting systems have been corrupted from time immemorial and can hardly be held up as a model of incorruptibility. Florida in the 2000 US presidential election to name but one famous example...
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 19 Dec 2013 @ 5:01pm
Re: Re: It adds to our culture.
The problem with that is that you then end up with a bunch of book series where the author loses the copyright on the first books while they're still releasing new books.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 19 Dec 2013 @ 4:12am
Ooooh! Vicious! (not!)
The European Commission has fined Johnson & Johnson (J&J) just under 10.8 million euros and Novartis 5.49 million euros,
Gosh, I'm so impressed. With Johnson & Johnson's net worth around $65BN that 11 million is a real disincentive to stop ripping off consumers and killing people... yes siree, that 0.017% of net worth fine is really gonna show them and make them change their ways....
On the post: Cost-Benefit Analysis On Why We Should Just Do Away With The TSA Completely
Re:
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
That you would try and paint someone desperately trying to work as best he can within the mess that is copyright law as hypocritical is as predictable as it is dumb.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re: can we discuss the actual topic?
Because money.
On the post: UK's New Mandatory Porn Filter Already Defeated By A Single Chrome Extension
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How can an "opt out" system be "defeated"?
And even if pornography were suddenly and magically eliminated from schools, the main danger to children of it shaping their views on "real" sex, is likely to still be taken care of by other older children who claim to know. Either way, talking about it works way better than the pointless political moralising.
Personally I find it hypocritical that our societies seem to feel no need to, for example, shield children from the increasingly violent images available on the news, but if there's a chance a teenager might see a picture of a naked body, or a depiction of a bodily function combined with (usually) pleasure... Shouting, arm-waving and politicians and every "moral guardian" group clamouring for the spotlight every single time.
On the post: ISP Blocks For Copyright And Porn Denying Access To All Sorts Of Important Information
Re: Re: Re: Tin-Pot Dictators.
Largely it looks like those "checks and balances" are about as fictional as the supposedly "cabinet government" of the UK.
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: Online voting is a bad idea
On the post: UK's New Mandatory Porn Filter Already Defeated By A Single Chrome Extension
Re: Re: Re: Re: How can an "opt out" system be "defeated"?
On the post: UK's New Mandatory Porn Filter Already Defeated By A Single Chrome Extension
Re: Re: How can an "opt out" system be "defeated"?
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: True Democracy?
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Online voting
However, even if you're right and a significant number rarely vote at all and others vote only regarding things of real interest to them that doesn't make what I said any less true and in fact may well make any statistical anomalies even more glaring.
On the post: ISP Blocks For Copyright And Porn Denying Access To All Sorts Of Important Information
Re: Tin-Pot Dictators.
On the post: ISP Blocks For Copyright And Porn Denying Access To All Sorts Of Important Information
Gosh... really???
Oh, wait... never mind.
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: Re: Re: Online voting
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: Re: Re: Not convinced
We can hope, at least, that now generations are growing up intimitely familiar with tools that are capable of this, a way may be found to use them... that is closer to the "democratic ideal"
On the post: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town... And EMI Is Keeping The Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It adds to our culture.
Let's assume his book sells (far from a given). Great, he gets money for work he's done. Seems fair to me. There are other ways to monetise ephemeral creations like writing, but being able to stop anyone but you selling it for a while is certainly one way.
Now, years later as you say, along comes a screenwriter. He takes the ideas and perhaps dialog of the book and uses his own work and creative talent to change a written story into something suitable for screen. Perhaps the end product is quite close to the book, but likely not. Either way, the author of the book has done no additional work to create his screenplay and the only difference in what the screenplay writer has done to the what the author did is that the new work has a more obvious connection to one origin rather than many. (Unless we're talking about a Hollywood "book adaptation", where the only obvious connection may be the title...).
I can't see in that any innate or moral "right" of the original author to any profits from someone else's additional work when they have done none themselves so if you do I'd love you to explain how? Also, assuming the screenplay becomes a popular film, without copyright in the picture the original author is able to use the work of others to make more money for himself by doing additional work himself to cash in on the popularity of the film. To me this method of reward for someone else's work seems rather fairer than "give me money you worked for because I did some work years ago".
Perhaps the author could stretch his creative talents to create those toys you mentioned - doing work to turn a mental picture created by words into a visual 3d form. I'd be right alongside him being paid for that. Being paid because someone else did that piece of work many years afterwards, not so much.But the author's profited from many other people's ideas, so how is that different? I feel a creator should be able to profit from his work, assuming there is profit to be had in it at all. Sadly, while the theory of copyright agrees with me (as I understand it copyright is supposed to protect specific expression not ideas), the practice of it goes even further than you seem to want to.
On the post: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town... And EMI Is Keeping The Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It adds to our culture.
Also, the whole "life of creator" argument strikes me as spurious anyway as well as being yet another thing biased in favour of the few big artists vs the many little artists. For a start, few works have any direct monetary value beyond a couple of decades at most and more than this, exactly how long is a reasonable time to be paid for doing nothing further? I know I would love to still be being paid for work I did when I was 20, but I'm not arrogant enough to expect anyone to actually do so, even though I've got a good idea that some of it is still being used today.
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: Online voting
On the post: Time To Rethink Democracy In A Digital Age
Re: Not convinced
If you think about how "democracies" actually work and the sorts of people that setup is most likely to attract, this is unsurprising...
As for online voting vs "in person" voting, it seems to me that it could be little worse. Physical voting systems have been corrupted from time immemorial and can hardly be held up as a model of incorruptibility. Florida in the 2000 US presidential election to name but one famous example...
On the post: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town... And EMI Is Keeping The Copyright
Re: Re: It adds to our culture.
On the post: Two Pharma Companies Fined Over 'Pay For Delay'; Novartis Unrepentant About Suffering Caused
Ooooh! Vicious! (not!)
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