Re: Re: Having the right to assemble and protest doesn't mean . . .
Your response implies that, once having provided cell phone repeaters, BART can then NEVER turn them off or let them fall out of repair, because it would infringe the free speech rights of BART patrons.
That just doesn't make sense. By "acting affirmatively", I am referring to your apparent belief that BART is now OBLIGATED to provide and maintain cell phone repeaters.
Having the right to assemble and protest doesn't mean . . .
. . . that anybody needs to act affirmatively to faciliate your exercise of that right.
Turning off cell phone repeaters in stations doesn't prevent anybody from protesting. You still have exactly the same right to show up there to chant slogans and carry a sign as you did before. You can still take whatever photos/videos you could before (even with your cell phone), and can still send them out via your favorite social media service. Just, apparently, not from right there on the platform. Seems like plenty of people were able to express their views just fine - even from train stations - before cell phones came along, so it's not clear to me how turning off the repeaters is an abridgement of First Amendment rights.
Now, that doesn't mean I think BART is acting wisely. That's a completely different issue.
Actually, I would agree that "knowledge" is, for these purposes, essentially the same as an "idea". Nobody controls what you know. Even if you are prohibited by patent law from building the Neurtrino Mouse Zapper, nobody can take whatever knowledge you have of it away from you. I'm not sure what to make of "pattern" (like a sewing pattern?), and propose we put that aside.
Regarding justification, that's been clear for over 200 years (though not agreed by everybody, especially here) - by granting a patent to the first invetor of a new doohickey, we provide incentive for inventors to create more and/or better doohickeys than they would if such incentive did not exist. Similar justification (again, not all consider it to be necessary) exists for copyright.
But the line is drawn at expression - not ideas. Anybody can write a comedic story about the relationship of a neat freak and a slob. But you can't copy "When Harry Met Sally" or "The Odd Couple". Create your own that is a different expression of that idea.
For patents, yes, "expression" is perhaps a bit more fuzzy, but the concept of a patented invention is that you have taken the idea ("hmm , what if we used neutrinos to zap mice?") and boiled it down to a specific embodiment that is arguably capable of being converted to an actual working device.
There is an old Twilight Zone episode in which the main character travels back in time and starts throwing out ideas to a machinist, with the idea of "inventing" them first and raking in a fortune. To this character's chagrin, the machinist tells him he can't build what is being described without more substance and instruction. Perhaps that serves as an example of the idea-expression dichotomy of patents (though it's actually a copyright concept).
While others may point to what they consider to be attempts by so-called copyright/IP "maximalists" to the contrary, IP law is not about ideas. It is about specific expressions of those ideas.
So, you can produce any number of romantic comedies, but you should not copy "When Harry Met Sally".
And you can produce any number of better mousetraps to sell, but not if they embody the specific configuration patented by your competitor.
One might argue that patents do have some aspect of an idea, in that it's not likely someone has actually built a device that embodies each and every claim of his patent, but the concept of a patent is that it protects a very specific set of claim elements, and not the general idea of "a better mousetrap."
This is somewhat simplistic, but, as a direct answer to your question, the answer is "no".
1. Copies of content do not occur spontaneously in nature, unlike the water in the analogy that eventually recovers from pollution;
2. DVDs and CDs are luxury items, not a necessity like water;
3. One can assume that the fictional laws against drinking water from rivers were instituted to protect citizens from injury, not (at least not primarily) to protect the water company from competition. In today's world, filesharing is not related to any harm to consumers from which they once needed protection, but no longer.
There are way better arguments to make than by trying to compare content owners to completely imaginary water monopolists. Stooping to these sorts of attacks does nothing to help the copyleft cause.
Your newspaper analogy might work better if the printing press were owned by a car dealer, and the printing press was used to print a newsletter about the cars he's got for sale now and then. The court rightly called "bullshit" on the claim that a movie/TV download/streaming site was engaged in important First Amendment activity merely because there was an online forum as part of the web site. Should every web site now just slap up a forum and therefore be able to defeat on First Amendment grounds any interference with the operation of their site?
Personally, I think the lost business argument is much stronger than the First Amendment argument, though the court pretty quickly dispensed with that, too.
The court pointed out not only that the service COULD go elsewhere online, but actually HAD DONE SO, and, at least in the view of the court (which may have been wrong factually, but nobody's claiming the facts are wrong here), seemed to be plugging along, albeit perhaps not as strongly as before.
Nobody was saying the users of the site were prohibted from engaging in their discussions. They just weren't able to do so at a place that was shut down because of a criminal investigation. If someone was running an illegal gambling operation in a building, and the cops shut it down, should the operator be able to raise a First Amendment defense against the shut-down, arguing that his patrons liked to gather in his building to discuss aspects of the horse races they were betting on?
I'm not likely to have a lot of patience for interrogation, and would likely stick to "name, rank and serial number" sort of answers.
I'm not looking to date anybody on the plane, so am not interestd in having to sit through some sort of personality profile.
Do I have a ticket? Does my stated destination match my ticket? Does my ID match my stated identity, and the identity on the ticket? Not sure what else I should be requrired to answer or demonstrate.
Yeah, from a sentimental perspective, it is unfortunate that the market hasn't worked out in a way that will make a copy of the show she wrote available.
However, that's beside the point.
The point is that her experience doesn't debunk copyright usefulness at all. She was a creator. She chose to sell her creation (as part of her employment arrangement) to her employer, and now she's effectively got buyer's (seller's?) remorse. She didn't lose anything by operation of evil copyright laws. She voluntarily sold it. In fact, if anything, it was copyright law that enabled her to have that paying job 15 years ago.
It's like giving a child up for adoption. You may regret it years later, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and now it's done.
I'm not sure of your math re groping. If you opt out of the naked scanner, your chances of being groped are 100%. If you strike your submissive pose for the camera, your chances of being groped likely approach zero.
And to the poster who noted that you have three choices (i.e., backscatter scanner, pat-down or metal detector), the availability of just the metal detector is being reduced, and you have no control over being directed through the naked scanner, at which point your choices are reduced to two: naked pictures or groping.
I'm not sure of your math re groping. If you opt out of the naked scanner, your chances of being groped are 100%. If you strike your submissive pose for the camera, your chances of being groped likely approach zero.
And to the poster who noted that you have three choices (i.e., backscatter scanner, pat-down or metal detector), the availability of just the metal detector is being reduced, and you have no control over being directed through the naked scanner, at which point your choices are reduced to two: naked pictures or groping.
Absolutely, I don't want to discount that EVERYBODY is benefitting from the work of others throughout history. However, I don't think you'd likely see the large-scale evolution of technology we see today without a patent system that makes it worthwhile for the investment of substantial resources.
Yes, there would still be garage inventors, but you'd probably not have an iPad in your bag today if that's what we'd been relying on for the past few centuries.
Well, Japan and South Korea seem to be part of "the whole of Asia", but they generally see value in patents.
The open source movement has certainly done some good work, but is standing on the shoulders of those who, under a patent system, developed PCs and the Internet as we know it today and all sorts of other things without which there would be no open source movement.
And the fact (I'm not aware of it, but I'll take your word for it) that the government turned to crowdsourcing to develop a military vehicle does nothing to demonstrate that there are problems with the patent system. Nobody is required to patent their inventions. However, it does seem unlikely that we'd have the various tools we use today (smartphones, tablets, PCs, 4G wireless, etc., etc., etc.) without a patent system to make it worthwhile to devote substantial resources to developing such technologies and products which implement them.
Seems like you're assuming that only patent system supporters are unreasonably fixed in their position. Of course, it just can't possibly be the case that other people can look at the same set of facts and come to a different conclusion.
... we usually call them "sculptures". If I free a statue formerly trapped in a block of stone, then some industrious chap comes along and makes plaster knockoff to sell for lame landscapers to put in suburban front yards, that's copyright infringement.
Not sure why using a 3D printer, rather than a plaster mold, would be any different, and not sure why it makes a difference that the object is a movie prop (assuming it otherwise meets the criteria for copyright protection), rather than a half-naked chick with no arms.
I mean, excpet for Rebecca's mom & dad, who would pay to view it? I mean, good for her (and by "her", I mean along with whoever showered her with money) to do what every little girl loves to do - playing dress-up with Mom's clothes & jewelry and putting a on a show with her friends in the backyard - and turning her little fantasy into something a bit more substantial.
If you look at it the right way, you can enjoy it the same way you can enjoy watching kids playing make-believe.
Granted, some parts (like where d's and t's get intentionally silenced, so you get words like "di'n't", and that whole nasal voice thing she's got going on) really grate on my nerves, but she's just a kid, right?
Anyway, even in my most charitable mood, there's no way in Hell I'd pay money to watch that thing. The $2.99 price must have been some sort of mistake, as I can't see anyone REALLY thinking she'd make more than $9.00 once she, her mom and her dad paid up.
The Constitution doens't prohibit reasonable controls. That's why, for example, you often need a permit to hold large events or parades, etc.
This was a group who held an organized demonstration. Sure, this time it was silent dancing, but why should that be treated differently from a group waving signs and chanting slogans? For those who have been critical of comments regaridng determining which demonstrations are acceptable and which aren't, it works both ways. If you feel the need to regulate larger, noisier demonstrations, fairness may require regulating smaller, less-noisy ones as well.
And, in any case, I still question whether this group tried anything less melodramatic (and more constructive) before launching into a narcissistic exercise. I sorta doubt it.
Frankly, I'd find it perfectly reasonable to require that each public place have a designated spot for those wanting to exercise First Amendment rights that is close enough so interested passersby can listen, but not so close that it's going to cause a disturbance. You want to dance silently? Gyrate as much as you want, just over here, off to the side, so that people who are NOT interested in your message don't have to deal with it if they don't want to.
We don't grant enough protection to that part of the public who does NOT want to hear your exercise of your First Amendment rights. It's not always that "the government" doesn't want you speaking out. Quite often, it's the public itself that's not particularly interested in such demonstrations, so why should they have to step around the speakers? Make the speakers get out of the way.
In any case, I really question the value of such demonstratoins. They're WAY overused. I'm not aware of a single issue EVER in which blocking traffic changed anybody's mind on an issue. "Well, I had given thtis issue quite a bit of thought and came out on Side A. However, a hundred screaming people who blocked the street and made me late to work seemed to think Side B was the better way to go, so I'm reversing my position!" I don't think so.
My takeaway from the videos was that it was "demonstrating" that was a problem at the Jefferson Memorial, not merely "dancing". There was no need to determine whether this particular dancing protest was childish (though it was). If the rules do not permit protesting at a national monument, then the protest that is not OK is the one that doesn't break up when the cops direct the protesters to do so.
On the post: BART Turns Off Mobile Phone Service At Station Because It Doesn't Want Protestors To Communicate
Re: Provide transportation or serve as a meeting place?
HM
On the post: BART Turns Off Mobile Phone Service At Station Because It Doesn't Want Protestors To Communicate
Re: Re: Having the right to assemble and protest doesn't mean . . .
That just doesn't make sense. By "acting affirmatively", I am referring to your apparent belief that BART is now OBLIGATED to provide and maintain cell phone repeaters.
HM
On the post: BART Turns Off Mobile Phone Service At Station Because It Doesn't Want Protestors To Communicate
Having the right to assemble and protest doesn't mean . . .
Turning off cell phone repeaters in stations doesn't prevent anybody from protesting. You still have exactly the same right to show up there to chant slogans and carry a sign as you did before. You can still take whatever photos/videos you could before (even with your cell phone), and can still send them out via your favorite social media service. Just, apparently, not from right there on the platform. Seems like plenty of people were able to express their views just fine - even from train stations - before cell phones came along, so it's not clear to me how turning off the repeaters is an abridgement of First Amendment rights.
Now, that doesn't mean I think BART is acting wisely. That's a completely different issue.
HM
On the post: It's Not About 'Free,' It's About Sharing
Re: Re: Re: Are ideas ownable?
Regarding justification, that's been clear for over 200 years (though not agreed by everybody, especially here) - by granting a patent to the first invetor of a new doohickey, we provide incentive for inventors to create more and/or better doohickeys than they would if such incentive did not exist. Similar justification (again, not all consider it to be necessary) exists for copyright.
But the line is drawn at expression - not ideas. Anybody can write a comedic story about the relationship of a neat freak and a slob. But you can't copy "When Harry Met Sally" or "The Odd Couple". Create your own that is a different expression of that idea.
For patents, yes, "expression" is perhaps a bit more fuzzy, but the concept of a patented invention is that you have taken the idea ("hmm , what if we used neutrinos to zap mice?") and boiled it down to a specific embodiment that is arguably capable of being converted to an actual working device.
There is an old Twilight Zone episode in which the main character travels back in time and starts throwing out ideas to a machinist, with the idea of "inventing" them first and raking in a fortune. To this character's chagrin, the machinist tells him he can't build what is being described without more substance and instruction. Perhaps that serves as an example of the idea-expression dichotomy of patents (though it's actually a copyright concept).
HM
On the post: It's Not About 'Free,' It's About Sharing
Re: Re: Not really an apt analogy
HM
On the post: It's Not About 'Free,' It's About Sharing
Re: Are ideas ownable?
So, you can produce any number of romantic comedies, but you should not copy "When Harry Met Sally".
And you can produce any number of better mousetraps to sell, but not if they embody the specific configuration patented by your competitor.
One might argue that patents do have some aspect of an idea, in that it's not likely someone has actually built a device that embodies each and every claim of his patent, but the concept of a patent is that it protects a very specific set of claim elements, and not the general idea of "a better mousetrap."
This is somewhat simplistic, but, as a direct answer to your question, the answer is "no".
HM
On the post: It's Not About 'Free,' It's About Sharing
Not really an apt analogy
1. Copies of content do not occur spontaneously in nature, unlike the water in the analogy that eventually recovers from pollution;
2. DVDs and CDs are luxury items, not a necessity like water;
3. One can assume that the fictional laws against drinking water from rivers were instituted to protect citizens from injury, not (at least not primarily) to protect the water company from competition. In today's world, filesharing is not related to any harm to consumers from which they once needed protection, but no longer.
There are way better arguments to make than by trying to compare content owners to completely imaginary water monopolists. Stooping to these sorts of attacks does nothing to help the copyleft cause.
HM
On the post: Judge Says Making It Harder To Exercise Free Speech Does Not Create Substantial Hardship
Yeah, not really . . . .
Personally, I think the lost business argument is much stronger than the First Amendment argument, though the court pretty quickly dispensed with that, too.
The court pointed out not only that the service COULD go elsewhere online, but actually HAD DONE SO, and, at least in the view of the court (which may have been wrong factually, but nobody's claiming the facts are wrong here), seemed to be plugging along, albeit perhaps not as strongly as before.
Nobody was saying the users of the site were prohibted from engaging in their discussions. They just weren't able to do so at a place that was shut down because of a criminal investigation. If someone was running an illegal gambling operation in a building, and the cops shut it down, should the operator be able to raise a First Amendment defense against the shut-down, arguing that his patrons liked to gather in his building to discuss aspects of the horse races they were betting on?
HM
On the post: TSA May Announce New Behavior Screening Plans Soon
I'm screwed
I'm not looking to date anybody on the plane, so am not interestd in having to sit through some sort of personality profile.
Do I have a ticket? Does my stated destination match my ticket? Does my ID match my stated identity, and the identity on the ticket? Not sure what else I should be requrired to answer or demonstrate.
HM
On the post: Writer Explains How Copyright Has Prevented Her From Ever Seeing TV Shows She Wrote
She got paid...
However, that's beside the point.
The point is that her experience doesn't debunk copyright usefulness at all. She was a creator. She chose to sell her creation (as part of her employment arrangement) to her employer, and now she's effectively got buyer's (seller's?) remorse. She didn't lose anything by operation of evil copyright laws. She voluntarily sold it. In fact, if anything, it was copyright law that enabled her to have that paying job 15 years ago.
It's like giving a child up for adoption. You may regret it years later, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and now it's done.
HM
On the post: Woman Arrested For Not Letting TSA Grope Her Daughter
Re: Re: You play the lotto?
And to the poster who noted that you have three choices (i.e., backscatter scanner, pat-down or metal detector), the availability of just the metal detector is being reduced, and you have no control over being directed through the naked scanner, at which point your choices are reduced to two: naked pictures or groping.
HM
On the post: Woman Arrested For Not Letting TSA Grope Her Daughter
Re: Re: You play the lotto?
And to the poster who noted that you have three choices (i.e., backscatter scanner, pat-down or metal detector), the availability of just the metal detector is being reduced, and you have no control over being directed through the naked scanner, at which point your choices are reduced to two: naked pictures or groping.
HM
On the post: Debunking Some Big Myths About Patents
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, there would still be garage inventors, but you'd probably not have an iPad in your bag today if that's what we'd been relying on for the past few centuries.
HM
On the post: Debunking Some Big Myths About Patents
Re:
The open source movement has certainly done some good work, but is standing on the shoulders of those who, under a patent system, developed PCs and the Internet as we know it today and all sorts of other things without which there would be no open source movement.
And the fact (I'm not aware of it, but I'll take your word for it) that the government turned to crowdsourcing to develop a military vehicle does nothing to demonstrate that there are problems with the patent system. Nobody is required to patent their inventions. However, it does seem unlikely that we'd have the various tools we use today (smartphones, tablets, PCs, 4G wireless, etc., etc., etc.) without a patent system to make it worthwhile to devote substantial resources to developing such technologies and products which implement them.
HM
On the post: Debunking Some Big Myths About Patents
Assumptions
HM
On the post: Prop Wars: Can Paramount Prevent People From Offering Up Plans To 3D Print Movie Props?
Sure, 3D objects can be copyrighted...
Not sure why using a 3D printer, rather than a plaster mold, would be any different, and not sure why it makes a difference that the object is a movie prop (assuming it otherwise meets the criteria for copyright protection), rather than a half-naked chick with no arms.
HM
On the post: Infamous Rebecca Black YouTube Video 'Friday' Taken Down Over Copyright Issue?
$2.99? Are you kidding?
If you look at it the right way, you can enjoy it the same way you can enjoy watching kids playing make-believe.
Granted, some parts (like where d's and t's get intentionally silenced, so you get words like "di'n't", and that whole nasal voice thing she's got going on) really grate on my nerves, but she's just a kid, right?
Anyway, even in my most charitable mood, there's no way in Hell I'd pay money to watch that thing. The $2.99 price must have been some sort of mistake, as I can't see anyone REALLY thinking she'd make more than $9.00 once she, her mom and her dad paid up.
HM
On the post: There Really Are Privacy Issues Out There; Facebook Using Facial Recognition Is Not One Of Them
Re: Re:
HM
On the post: Do A Little Dance, Make A Little Love...Get Bodyslammed Tonight (At The Jefferson Memorial)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: *sigh*
This was a group who held an organized demonstration. Sure, this time it was silent dancing, but why should that be treated differently from a group waving signs and chanting slogans? For those who have been critical of comments regaridng determining which demonstrations are acceptable and which aren't, it works both ways. If you feel the need to regulate larger, noisier demonstrations, fairness may require regulating smaller, less-noisy ones as well.
And, in any case, I still question whether this group tried anything less melodramatic (and more constructive) before launching into a narcissistic exercise. I sorta doubt it.
Frankly, I'd find it perfectly reasonable to require that each public place have a designated spot for those wanting to exercise First Amendment rights that is close enough so interested passersby can listen, but not so close that it's going to cause a disturbance. You want to dance silently? Gyrate as much as you want, just over here, off to the side, so that people who are NOT interested in your message don't have to deal with it if they don't want to.
We don't grant enough protection to that part of the public who does NOT want to hear your exercise of your First Amendment rights. It's not always that "the government" doesn't want you speaking out. Quite often, it's the public itself that's not particularly interested in such demonstrations, so why should they have to step around the speakers? Make the speakers get out of the way.
In any case, I really question the value of such demonstratoins. They're WAY overused. I'm not aware of a single issue EVER in which blocking traffic changed anybody's mind on an issue. "Well, I had given thtis issue quite a bit of thought and came out on Side A. However, a hundred screaming people who blocked the street and made me late to work seemed to think Side B was the better way to go, so I'm reversing my position!" I don't think so.
HM
HM
HM
On the post: Do A Little Dance, Make A Little Love...Get Bodyslammed Tonight (At The Jefferson Memorial)
Re: Re: Re: *sigh*
HM
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