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Originally Posted by Sonist
I am not at all sure what exactly is "They can virtually do anything they want" referring to, but if it is to National Security Letters, or roving wiretaps, or sneak & peak warrants, they all required either the specific authorization of a high level official, or a judicial order.
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You forgot "warrantless wiretaps" there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Yes, that is how it is for many authors. And that is what limits the time and effort they can put into their writing. Many works will never get written. And I am sure they would all be very happy if besides the joy of writing they could derive a sizable additional income from it.
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Have you considered that there are also people who enjoy being both (a scientist) and a writer, who would never want to be
just a writer? Lord knows I'd grow bored.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
As far as your Asian movies are concerned, if they are Chinese you won't have to wait too long before a clampdown there. Because in China nobody pays for anything (hey, maybe you should go there -- your dream is already a reality) and it is seriously affecting the development of some major industries and the competitiveness compared to Western and Indian companies who can actually pull in some revenue. China Mobile and others want to start pushing ebooks, so that happy free-for-all may well be about to end. Except for music, of course.
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There is a certain amount of smugness emanating from this post. It's really quite unpleasant.
Anyway, in
this (CC-licensed) book,
The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, which I'm currently reading for a course, I read this quite coherent statement of why copyright law is oddly slanted:
Quote:
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The Supreme Court recently heard a constitutional challenge to the law which expanded the term of copyrights by twenty years to reach this remarkable length. (Full disclosure: I helped prepare an amicus brief in that case.) This law, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, also extended existing copyrights over works which had already been created. As I observed earlier, this is particularly remarkable if the idea is to give an incentive to create. Obviously the authors of existing works were given sufficient incentive to create; we know that because they did. Why do we need to give the people who now hold their copyrights another twenty years of monopoly? This is all cost and no benefit. Macaulay would have been furious.
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There are a lot of things to be found in this book about the history of copyright put in its context, as well as current developments (though he does not mention ACTA).. feel free to download it; that's what the PDF is meant for.