If you had a vote for copyright?

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I thought laws existed for the enrichment of lawyers

An excellent idea but unfortunately an exception has been made in my case...

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

All I'll say to that is: Try leaving the laws but removing all the police and law enforcement tools in this country, and see what you get.

The crime rate will go down!

[tompe]

Originally Posted by miguel1626

This is a stupid poll, but if I were forced to choose at gunpoint, I'd vote for keeping copyright forever. Stories don't write themselves, you know

Why do you believe that? All evidence I have seen suggest that stories will be written even if we do not have copyright. People write stories because they like to do it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would be dangerous, in my view. Copyright protection gives the important right not to publish, as well as the right to publish. Removal of that right has important privacy implications, when it comes to having the right to decline to publish private diaries, for example.

The proposal as I understood it was for work that had once been available for sale so your example is not relevant for that.

[Quexos]

It is interesting to note that according to this poll, most people are against the concept of copyrights. Funny if one considers the members of this website are supposed to be "politically correct" in their majority

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Quexos

It is interesting to note that according to this poll, most people are against the concept of copyrights. Funny if one considers the members of this website are supposed to be "politically correct" in their majority

Copyright that lasts forever is a different concept than time limited copyright when the time limit is reasonable.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Harmon

The crime rate will go down!

I'm not talking to you any more.

[HansTWN]

This poll is a great example of how the way the question is phrased predetermines the outcome of the poll. It was obviously designed to give two unacceptable choices and thus try to get people to vote for no copyright at all (as the lesser of two great evils).

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would be dangerous, in my view. Copyright protection gives the important right not to publish, as well as the right to publish. Removal of that right has important privacy implications, when it comes to having the right to decline to publish private diaries, for example.

No one can compel you to publish anything, regardless of whether copyright regimes existed or not. There are plenty of other right that would protect you from being compelled to publish, such as privacy, personal property, and so forth. Something physical you own is your private property and others cannot dispossess you of it. It's not like, absent of copyright laws, a government official will come to your home whenever you write a journal entry and force you to publish it. Even if what you wrote wasn't copyrighted, it's not like people would have the right to break into your home or hack into your computer to obtain the works to publish. Don't want to publish private diaries? Just don't publish them.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

This poll is a great example of how the way the question is phrased predetermines the outcome of the poll. It was obviously designed to give two unacceptable choices and thus try to get people to vote for no copyright at all (as the lesser of two great evils).

Even just offering the extremes helps clarify where people really stand. It is clear given the choice between no copyright and perpetual copyright, most people would choose the former, even though clearly our legal and political systems are moving towards the latter. It provides perspective on where we are on this issue.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Even just offering the extremes helps clarify where people really stand. It is clear given the choice between no copyright and perpetual copyright, most people would choose the former, even though clearly our legal and political systems are moving towards the latter. It provides perspective on where we are on this issue.

No, not really. If you want to know how people stand include the option for limited copyright. This means absolutely nothing, it is the same as asking: "would you rather I shoot your mother or your father?" And then you decide "boy, people hate their fathers!"

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Even just offering the extremes helps clarify where people really stand. It is clear given the choice between no copyright and perpetual copyright, most people would choose the former, even though clearly our legal and political systems are moving towards the latter. It provides perspective on where we are on this issue.

As HansTWN pointed out, no it doesn't. I favor a more limited form of copyright than that which exists today (esp. in the US), but I still voted for copyright forever. A more nuanced poll would be way better.

It would be like making a poll asking whether theft should be punished by death by dismemberment or not be punished at all.

[The Straven]

Given that at least one member of this forum vociferously advocates unlimited copyright, and it's not an unreasonable conjecture that Disney and its ilk would be perfectly happy if copyright lasted until the heat death of the universe, presenting the diametric option is quite reasonable. This is a good poll.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Now here's the thing: the judge does not have the "discretion" to say he's not going to allow you to make the excuse that your dog was provoked. He can't decide to allow the excuse to be used when Mary gets sued for her dog biting someone, but to not allow you to give that excuse when it's your dog involved. He can decide that "provocation" is not a legally valid excuse that can't be used by anyone. But that's not "discretion."

So when we talk about "fair use" being an affirmative defense, what it means is that (1) the defendant has to tell the judge that even though he used the copyrighted material, he has the excuse that it was "fair use," and (2) once the defendant raises that defense, the judge can't say he's not going to permit the excuse to be raised. What he can decide, of course, is whether the excuse has been proved, but that's not a question of "discretion".

I don't think that the lawyer lied in his report to Congress. I think that he meant something else. The full paragraph that I quoted from was:

Fair use is an affirmative defense to a claim of copyright infringement. It is a privilege, not a right. More specifically, it is “an equitable rule of reason, which permits courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would” undermine the purpose of copyright. “The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but ‘to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.’ . . . To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work.” Courts apply the four fair use factors with this over arching purpose in mind.

Copyright is the right of the author to make copies and allow others to make copies of their work. Fair use isn't the right to make copies, but the privilege of not being fined or sent to jail for it.

The problem is that people don't understand this concept and think of it in terms of "it's not copyright infringement, it's fair use", or in the example that you gave it would be like saying "you provoked my dog so he didn't bite you".

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

This poll is a great example of how the way the question is phrased predetermines the outcome of the poll. It was obviously designed to give two unacceptable choices and thus try to get people to vote for no copyright at all (as the lesser of two great evils).

Heh...

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Even just offering the extremes helps clarify where people really stand. It is clear given the choice between no copyright and perpetual copyright, most people would choose the former, even though clearly our legal and political systems are moving towards the latter. It provides perspective on where we are on this issue.

It's a false choice. It forces the voter to choose between two extreme and unlikely scenarios, and becomes a vote against what frightens the voter most. Since the real answers are somewhere in-between, and not likely to be as scary as these extreme alternatives, the vote actually means nothing other than an indication of what the voter is afraid of.

As to the outcome, that only indicates a majority of consumers as opposed to creators here.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

As to the outcome, that only indicates a majority of consumers as opposed to creators here.

Opposing copyright is not the same as opposing creators. This is just like saying that without copyright authors wouldn't get payed for their work: a big lie.