Difficult to tell. There was some trend in the nineties to go into that direction, more prohibitions, more surveillance, all over most countries, and all over most political parties.
There were/are certainly some drivers of it, NeoCons for instance, but the general mentality has shifted. Everyone had and has its pet-issue which he wants prohibited. From alcohol and drugs to prostitution and pornography, to pollution to guns.
9/11 was of course the first high, but the trend hasn't subsided since then. None of the draconian laws in the US (and elsewhere!) enacted in the aftermath were ever repelled.
I'm tempted to write a book about "The Rise of Fascism in the 21st Century". Because that's exactly what is happening.
If you want a platform to be commercially viable for third-party software developers, you have to lock it down.
Yes, that's why the PC was such an commercial flop. No third-party software developer wanted to program for it. Contrast this with the Nintendo NES, for which you only needed to shell out some thousands of dollars for the development-environment and for which thus 785 games are available for the PAL region alone.
Can anyone (Anne Rice maybe?) explain how "Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship..." (17 USC § 102) and explicitly "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." rules out ideas and concepts, should apply to OTHER original works of art NOT written by the author?
It simply does not. Your ideas do not belong to you, neither does your imaginary world, your invented characters, or the concept of the story you wrote. You've only got a monopoly on YOUR EXACT WORK. And nothing else.
And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the words of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.
Yep. And some morons insisted on granting copyrights over the death of the author, and what Macaulay predicted happened.
Plus, what he did not anticipate, the fact that copyright came under inheritance law produced its own category of legal nightmares, where every heir could prevent a publication, but only all heirs together could authorize one. Institutionalized destruction of culture; that's what this is called. And orphan works, of course.
Henry VIII clause? That sounds like this power to change laws without Parliamentary approval that is known as a "Napoleon I. clause", since that monarch also availed himself of their convenience.... Actually he had no parliament at all.
Except, having been the enemy, I sure hope the British are not following that dictators example ;)
Or maybe he means 540AD. I'm pretty sure nothing was written between 360AD and 540AD because the copyright protection of the roman empire didn't exist anymore.
(Well, the trick obviously is to give out the first books of a series freely, and then speculate on the people who read it to buy the rest... But it works ;))
Of course its utter bogus. But they can't very well confess that they try to keep the public out of it because the USTR lets write its "trade agreements" by rent-seeking corporations.
Of course it could have been developed in China, years ago. Or China could just have backdated the patents.
It doesn't really matter. The only winners with patents are lawyers, patent offices, trolls and maybe incumbents who try to keep competition out of their garden.
Well, I think googles search quality is somewhat a mixed bag. For hard technical information, it's quite good.
However, if you're looking for something a bit older, it gets quite swamped over with newer things, _even_ if the older thing is an exact match, whereas the newer one isn't. Same with sources (like in "primary sources"): You get loads of chaff: reviews, citations and bibliography instead of the original text, even tough the original would be available as well.
Some of that chaff is to blame upon the press: They happily tell you about something, without linking to the original. They rather link to some other article, without mentioning that the scientists who made the discovery _also_ have a webpage where the thing is discussed in detail. Typical "A study by ... found that..." Well, turns out the bloody study is online too, just the journalists didn't bother linking to it (and probably didn't read it either), and the whole of googles frontpage is full of press-homepages which all cite and link to each other, but none of it bothers linking to the study.
And then of course, is the inevitable tendency of people to call their new things after old things. If I'm looking for armour, I'm looking for armour, and not for "tanks" and other "armoured vehicles", which some moron decided might also be called "armour". Oh well. Can't blame google for that, tough.
This is just about so generic that every would-be censor, every internet-surveillance-perpetrator, every patent-fanboi can yell "Hell yeah" and still do the opposite.
Just because some government-agency provided bad data to researchers doesn't mean the privacy-provisions are a bad thing. Probably the agency just had no experience to apply it correctly.
Because, on the other hand, there is a BIG reason for better privacy-laws. Can you guess why Europe has a MUCH lower rate of identity-thefts than the USA? Precisely. Better privacy protection. Because if you have them, law-abiding companies will actually avoid having too much of data about you -- and if their databases get compromised, you will be hurt much less.
Of course, these laws don't help against criminals and nefarious government agencies, but the 90% of the people and companies which try to follow them make a big difference in reducing fraud.
The first people to profit from data-retention are always criminals. Even if the government does it, even if it's meant to combat crime -- first, it will create new crime.
If there are no exceptions defined in copyright-law which make closed-captioning (and, for the blind, screenreaders) legally possible, then obviously the copyright-law is broken, and the ADA should start to fight there. Make DRM illegal, for instance.
On the post: Did You Know That Professional Writing Is Dying And Only Taxing The Public To Pay Writers Can Save It
Free sex is killing prostitution!
On the post: Europe Already Has Draft Standard For Real-Time Government Snooping On Services Like Facebook And Gmail
Who started it?
There were/are certainly some drivers of it, NeoCons for instance, but the general mentality has shifted. Everyone had and has its pet-issue which he wants prohibited. From alcohol and drugs to prostitution and pornography, to pollution to guns.
9/11 was of course the first high, but the trend hasn't subsided since then. None of the draconian laws in the US (and elsewhere!) enacted in the aftermath were ever repelled.
I'm tempted to write a book about "The Rise of Fascism in the 21st Century". Because that's exactly what is happening.
On the post: App Developer: Android OS Built For Piracy And Consumer Choice Sucks
Like a PC
Yes, that's why the PC was such an commercial flop. No third-party software developer wanted to program for it. Contrast this with the Nintendo NES, for which you only needed to shell out some thousands of dollars for the development-environment and for which thus 785 games are available for the PAL region alone.
On the post: Understanding The Legal Ramifications of Fan Fiction
Copyright
It simply does not. Your ideas do not belong to you, neither does your imaginary world, your invented characters, or the concept of the story you wrote. You've only got a monopoly on YOUR EXACT WORK. And nothing else.
On the post: Mexico's IP Office Surprised Its Congress By Signing ACTA, And Now Hopes To Win Their Support
Re: Who runs Mexico [Re: ]
On the post: Patent Troll Sues Facebook, Amazon, Oracle, Linkedin, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley & More For Using Certain File Systems
Attorney Tax
http://seegras.discordia.ch/Blog/the-end-of-the-patent-system/
Unless the patent system gets ditched (at least for everything not chemicals).
On the post: Is The EU's Proposed Reform Of Music Licensing Doomed From The Start?
Re: Re: Re:
http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html
And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the words of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.
Yep. And some morons insisted on granting copyrights over the death of the author, and what Macaulay predicted happened.
Plus, what he did not anticipate, the fact that copyright came under inheritance law produced its own category of legal nightmares, where every heir could prevent a publication, but only all heirs together could authorize one. Institutionalized destruction of culture; that's what this is called. And orphan works, of course.
On the post: Is The EU's Proposed Reform Of Music Licensing Doomed From The Start?
Kroes
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/11/73&format=HTML&aged=0& amp;language=EN&guiLanguage=en
On the post: UK Government Wants To Give Itself Power To Change Copyright Law Without Full Parliamentary Scrutiny
Napoleon I clause
Except, having been the enemy, I sure hope the British are not following that dictators example ;)
On the post: If You Behave Like Your Own Fans Despise You, They Probably Will
One Book
Really? Maybe you should take a look at the years 36O AD to 1540 AD. Only one book in the west. Not much music.
Maybe he means this one from 1340. It only contains several hundreds of songs (totalling 6000 verses). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Manesse
Or maybe he means 540AD. I'm pretty sure nothing was written between 360AD and 540AD because the copyright protection of the roman empire didn't exist anymore.
On the post: Are Books Printed With Disappearing Ink Really The Best Way To Make People Read Them?
Give away electronic books for free
(Well, the trick obviously is to give out the first books of a series freely, and then speculate on the people who read it to buy the rest... But it works ;))
On the post: How Not To Build A 21st Century Trade Agreement: In Secret
On the post: Chinese Companies Again Using Patents To Punish Foreign Competitors: Apple Sued Over Siri In Shanghai
Re:
It doesn't really matter. The only winners with patents are lawyers, patent offices, trolls and maybe incumbents who try to keep competition out of their garden.
The only way to win is not to play.
On the post: Quality Search Results: From Pink Slime To Correctly Diagnosing Appendicitis
Re: Search Quality
Of course, I meant _after_ you've been searching for something. As you said, high ranking media pages linking to other high ranking media pages..
The "armour" thing. That was just some example. Of course I'm not going to search just for that alone.
On the post: Quality Search Results: From Pink Slime To Correctly Diagnosing Appendicitis
Search Quality
However, if you're looking for something a bit older, it gets quite swamped over with newer things, _even_ if the older thing is an exact match, whereas the newer one isn't. Same with sources (like in "primary sources"): You get loads of chaff: reviews, citations and bibliography instead of the original text, even tough the original would be available as well.
Some of that chaff is to blame upon the press: They happily tell you about something, without linking to the original. They rather link to some other article, without mentioning that the scientists who made the discovery _also_ have a webpage where the thing is discussed in detail. Typical "A study by ... found that..." Well, turns out the bloody study is online too, just the journalists didn't bother linking to it (and probably didn't read it either), and the whole of googles frontpage is full of press-homepages which all cite and link to each other, but none of it bothers linking to the study.
And then of course, is the inevitable tendency of people to call their new things after old things. If I'm looking for armour, I'm looking for armour, and not for "tanks" and other "armoured vehicles", which some moron decided might also be called "armour". Oh well. Can't blame google for that, tough.
On the post: TV Analyst: Kids Love Netflix, And Disney Should Break Them Of That Nasty Habit
The Iron Price
And then you're wondering why people pay the Iron Price?
On the post: Announcing The Declaration Of Internet Freedom
I just know what some politicians will say...
On the post: Protected To Death: How Medical Privacy Laws Helped Kill 25,000 People
Don't blame privacy laws for bad methodology
Because, on the other hand, there is a BIG reason for better privacy-laws. Can you guess why Europe has a MUCH lower rate of identity-thefts than the USA? Precisely. Better privacy protection. Because if you have them, law-abiding companies will actually avoid having too much of data about you -- and if their databases get compromised, you will be hurt much less.
Of course, these laws don't help against criminals and nefarious government agencies, but the 90% of the people and companies which try to follow them make a big difference in reducing fraud.
The first people to profit from data-retention are always criminals. Even if the government does it, even if it's meant to combat crime -- first, it will create new crime.
On the post: Websites Deemed 'Place Of Public Accommodation' Under The ADA; Expects Lots Of Sites To Get Sued
obviously copyright is broken
On the post: US Continues To Try To Block Megaupload From Using Its Lawyers, Pretends It Has Jurisdiction Over The World
playschool children
Actually, the DOJ looks more like a criminal organization than an organization to fight criminals in this case.
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