> I'm very happy this demon-worship idea never caught on > 'round these parts.
Here neither. We had some, but here in Europe the people making the allegations were regarded as religious nutcases. Which they of course were and probably still are.
Complicated, unrealistic and basically a collection of special case law.
That's why just a few years later, RuneQuest came out. Done by people who a) understood that game mechanics have to be simple and consistent and b) knew how a melee weapons really work and that they don't have a weight of 5kg.
Anyway, I stopped playing pen & paper roleplaying games, when I realized I could run around in armour and hit people with a boffer halberd. Which I still do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEcMmDTcoV8 (yes, that is totally not the same kind of LARP as is played in the USA).
"We consider the claim that an industry with patents and design patents will flourish, and one without these ingredients will drown, to be totally wrong" -- Alphons Koechlin-Geigy, ca. 1880, president of the swiss trade and industrial society, and member of the Geigy-Family (from Ciba-Geigy, which later became pharma-giant Novartis).
I'd have thrown out quite a lot more US operations when Snowdens revelations first came to light. And immediately terminated any treaties that allow data to flow to the US (like the airplane passenger data treaty). So this is late and tame.
And I'd have started criminal proceedings against my own secret service (the BND) in the first place: suspicion of conspiring to spy on german citizens for a foreign power.
(Please note the fine distinction of espionage against "citizens" from espionage against "governments". Secret services are supposed to spy on foreign governments. But they're not supposed to spy on ordinary citizens. Even less their OWN citizens).
And what about companies producing something which hundreds of people are involved? Who has the copyright there? Do you really want to deal with a few thousand people to licence some movie distribution? And what exactly is which contribution to a movie worth, in terms of copyright?
I'm all for declarations of license and author with the individual work. But that should incorporate: - Author/Artist with date of birth AND date of death if applicable - Publishing date - Initial Publisher if exist - ISBN if exist - license, if it makes sense
The trouble with licenses of course, is that various entities can have different licenses at various points in time. And of course, the only licenses that are actually of interest are LICENSES TO PUBLISH. People who bought a copy of the work are not interesting. And you don't need to know every license-holder with CC-BY-SA. But you need it with more restrictive licensing, so you know whether Hachette really may publish this book, or Amazon, or whether Springer has the right to publish it in german.
The Stasi ("Staatssicherheit") was in eastern Germany after the war.
In the 3rd Reich, it was actually the Gestapo, the "Geheime Staats-Polizei" (Secret State Police) which did what the NSA and the GCHQ do nowadays.
But they don't actually do everything the Gestapo did by themselves, they need help by the FBI and the CIA for things like warrantless detention and torture).
On the post: Fair Use Continues To Pay The Price For YouTube's Direct Takedown Deal With Universal Music Group
Re: Re:
> Free doesn't mean illegal.
Even more. GET and ILLEGAL have nothing to do with each other, not according to copyright. It's PUBLISH which might be illegal.
On the post: An Actual D&D Effect: Inspiring Kids To Become Writers
Re:
> 'round these parts.
Here neither. We had some, but here in Europe the people making the allegations were regarded as religious nutcases. Which they of course were and probably still are.
On the post: An Actual D&D Effect: Inspiring Kids To Become Writers
D&D always sucked
That's why just a few years later, RuneQuest came out. Done by people who a) understood that game mechanics have to be simple and consistent and b) knew how a melee weapons really work and that they don't have a weight of 5kg.
Anyway, I stopped playing pen & paper roleplaying games, when I realized I could run around in armour and hit people with a boffer halberd. Which I still do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEcMmDTcoV8
(yes, that is totally not the same kind of LARP as is played in the USA).
On the post: Film Distributor, Copyright Enforcement Company Join Forces To Kick Creative Commons-Licensed Film Off YouTube
Re:
On the post: Even The Onion Is Mocking Big Pharma's Focus On Patents Over All Else
Another historical perspective
On the post: Germany Expels Top US Intelligence Official, Says It Will (Officially) Spy Back On US And UK
Tame
I'd have thrown out quite a lot more US operations when Snowdens revelations first came to light. And immediately terminated any treaties that allow data to flow to the US (like the airplane passenger data treaty). So this is late and tame.
And I'd have started criminal proceedings against my own secret service (the BND) in the first place: suspicion of conspiring to spy on german citizens for a foreign power.
(Please note the fine distinction of espionage against "citizens" from espionage against "governments". Secret services are supposed to spy on foreign governments. But they're not supposed to spy on ordinary citizens. Even less their OWN citizens).
On the post: DHS Cites 'Credible Threat' As Reason For Forcing Travelers To The US To Hand Over Powered-Up Devices To Airport Security
Re: Now even less interest in visiting the USA
So I won't travel to North Korea, Turkmenistan or the USA.
On the post: DHS Cites 'Credible Threat' As Reason For Forcing Travelers To The US To Hand Over Powered-Up Devices To Airport Security
Re:
On the post: One-Percent Authors Want To End Destructive Conflict, Bring Order to the Galaxy
Net neutrality
On the post: US Courts' Wiretap Report Shows Wiretaps Are For Drugs And Warrants Are Rejected Only .03% Of The Time
Re: Legalize drugs
> reveal just how much attention is being paid to a narrow
> range of criminals
Should of course read "... to a narrow range of criminalized ..."
Just because some puritan pukes in bed with nylon manufacturers managed to outlaw drugs, doesn't make these laws any more moral or right.
On the post: The Trials Of Being A Techdirt Writer Volume 1: Stupid Copyright Popups When Pressing CTRL-C
Wrong ideas
You have every right to download and copy each and every Website out there.
What you don't have is the right to (re-)publish them, unless granted by fair use or some exception.
So the thinking that leads to "disallowing copying" is of course extremely wrong and in no way based on copyright.
On the post: NSA's XKeyscore Source Code Leaked! Shows Tor Users Classified As 'Extremists'
Re: given their behavior
> authors full blown terrorists.
Totally so. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were alive today, the US government would have a revolutionary war going against it.
On the post: NSA's XKeyscore Source Code Leaked! Shows Tor Users Classified As 'Extremists'
Re:
That I wouldn't know. But obviously those guys in the NSA are extremists.
On the post: SoundCloud Has Given Universal Music Group The Ability To Directly Remove Content
Re: Re: I said stop looking behind the curtain!
The internet certainly IS wild west, with all those self-appointed sheriffs, vigilantes and lynch-mobs of the content-industry running rampant.
On the post: EU Publishers Present Their 'Vision' For Copyright: A Permission-Based Internet Where Licensing Is Required For Everything
Re: Re: Ehh - WRONG!
What about this here? https://www.fsf.org/licensing/assigning.html
And what about companies producing something which hundreds of people are involved? Who has the copyright there? Do you really want to deal with a few thousand people to licence some movie distribution? And what exactly is which contribution to a movie worth, in terms of copyright?
On the post: EU Publishers Present Their 'Vision' For Copyright: A Permission-Based Internet Where Licensing Is Required For Everything
Re:
The only thing remotely like it, is actually this here:
http://pro.europeana.eu/available-rights-statements
And this is actually something very useful.
I'm all for declarations of license and author with the individual work. But that should incorporate:
- Author/Artist with date of birth AND date of death if applicable
- Publishing date
- Initial Publisher if exist
- ISBN if exist
- license, if it makes sense
The trouble with licenses of course, is that various entities can have different licenses at various points in time. And of course, the only licenses that are actually of interest are LICENSES TO PUBLISH. People who bought a copy of the work are not interesting. And you don't need to know every license-holder with CC-BY-SA. But you need it with more restrictive licensing, so you know whether Hachette really may publish this book, or Amazon, or whether Springer has the right to publish it in german.
On the post: Snowden, Meet Godwin: British Ambassador Says Leaks Would Have Helped Hitler
Re:
In the 3rd Reich, it was actually the Gestapo, the "Geheime Staats-Polizei" (Secret State Police) which did what the NSA and the GCHQ do nowadays.
But they don't actually do everything the Gestapo did by themselves, they need help by the FBI and the CIA for things like warrantless detention and torture).
On the post: Obama To Appoint Pharma Patent Lawyer, Who Has Fought Against Any Patent Reform, To Head Patent Office
Re: Makes sense
And it's how Obama always does this. Promise one thing, but support the opposite.
Like "whistleblower protection" or "transparency".
On the post: Enough Secret Law: Newly Released DOJ Drone Killing Justification Memo... Points To Another Secret Drone Memo
Re: Re:
> cannot reveal to the citizens is a huge problem.
I see. The fact that the GESTAPO in Nazi Germany could arrest anyone based on some secret law was also "a huge problem"?
I don't call this a problem. I'd call it an abomination.
On the post: New Research Shows Digitization Results In Routine Lock-Down Of Public Domain Books
http://seegras.discordia.ch/Blog/stealing-from-the-public-domain/
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