I really don’t know and I really don’t care whether This Charming Charlie, which combines frames from Peanuts with lyrics from the Smiths, is fair use, but the courts think so, and so does Morrisey.
Some of you may look at this and say that the devil will find work for idle hands to do, and perhaps I’m just happy in the haze of a drunken hour–or maybe I’ve just been in the house too long–but I thought the site was pretty fucking funny. Open thread.
MikeJ
That joke isn’t funny anymore.
schrodinger's cat
One direct consequence of GOP extortion, risk free rate no longer risk free.
dpm (dread pirate mistermix)
@MikeJ: Unruly boys who will not grow up must be taken in hand.
RSR
Long live the Streisand effect.
cleek
there’s too much caffeine in your bloodstream and a lack of real spice in your life
Cervantes
Haaretz asks the burning question: Why do Jews win so many Nobels?
Last month: So what if Hillary Clinton is bisexual?
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
Well, isn’t the answer to that OBVIOUS?
I mean, the Elders of Zion control the Nobel prize committee, do they not?
Also, too, if you are ultra-orthodox, those guys aren’t really Jews at all.
Anoniminous
@schrodinger’s cat:
As I said on the other thread:
In the long run that’s probably a good thing for the world and the US. Having the global trade in commodities denoted in US dollars is dumb, as we are now seeing.
To which I add:
The strong and tight connection of the various derivative markets to the US dollar is really dumb, as we are seeing.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Cervantes:
Girl afraid. Where do his intentions lay? Or does he even have any?
MikeJ
@Anoniminous: Having things denominated in dollars is a huge advantage for the US. It creates a constant demand for US dollars, which pushes interest rates down. Low interest rates mean the government can borrow cheaply, and investors seeking profits will put money in stocks rather than bonds. That makes more private capital available to industry.
schrodinger's cat
@Anoniminous: Would you rather have it in Euro instead?
schrodinger's cat
@MikeJ: Its good for us and a tremendous advantage, which the GOP is trying to piss away, just like they are with our scientific edge by starving basic research.
kindness
Is it Beer-thirty where you are? Out here on the left coast it’s still mid morning.
Anoniminous
@MikeJ:
It is an advantage only if the people making Monetary and Economic Policy have their shit together. At the moment the global economy is being held hostage by thirty or forty TeaBaggers and a drunk.
@schrodinger’s cat:
What I’d like is global trade denominated in basket of currencies, an International Monetary Unit, and toss in a “Tobin Tax” (sic) to close the loop.
That’ll happen when hell freezes.
catclub
@MikeJ: It also makes our exports more expensive and kills manufacturing jobs.
schrodinger's cat
@Anoniminous: For all practical purposes the dollar is that unit.
Tone in DC
Very off topic. But I found it amusing.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/09/2756201/congressman-asks-irs-official-are-you-a-witch/
These g00pers need to be made fun of, early and often.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Anoniminous:
In which case you have either the problem of fixed exchange rates or an equivalent problem to bimetalism, except with even more moving parts.
Don
Unfortunately “fair use” is only ever determined by a court when used as a defense, so being eventually right after being bankrupted is little advantage.
The Other Chuck
People might also get a kick out of Garfield Minus Garfield. And unlike the rotting estate of Charles Shultz, the creator of Garfield is actually cool with it and even wrote some of his own (which I kinda think loses the point but hey).
skippy
“charming charlie” still not as good as the nietzche family circus
Mark B.
The Schulz family heirs have been very aggressive in protecting the images made by Charles before he died. They make a huge profit from Snoopy and Woodstock dolls, and they don’t want anyone else to have a piece of the action. Even though this isn’t a commercial use, they are paranoid about these characters making it into the public domain, so they have their lawyers quash any non-licensed use of them. I don’t think it’s right, but I understand it.
jl
@Tone in DC:
Heard a news report this morning on the multiple GOP rationales for the shutdown and refusal to increase debt limit.
It’s become quite a list.
Ryan has a WSJ column saying it’s about entitlement reform.
So, Ryan is using the crisis as an excuse to trot out his very unpopular slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid plan again?
Yeebus. The Dems need to make a lot of very loud public fun of that one.
When Romney took Ryan as veep, and adopted his program on entitlements, I think that is when a lot of voters saw the light about what the GOP had in mind, and the GOP ticket started to really go downhill.
The House GOP and their leaders are just disgusting.
Tone in DC
Another off topic comment.
Last one on this thread. Promise.
The other Cole is on fire.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/shutdown-hurting-people.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29
PaulW
I can quote the Plimsouls if you want.
Meanwhile, this is an article worth reading: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/09/2730651/how-racism-caused-the-shutdown/
Tone in DC
@jl:
I saw the Ryan reheated dross column. He’s less than worthless
I can only hope the sentient members of the party that Makes Shit Up are getting desperate.
LanceThruster
Lucy: Why do you think we’re put here on earth Charlie Brown?
CB: To make others happy.
Lucy: I don’t think I’M making anyone very happy. Of course nobody’s making ME very happy either. SOMEBODY’S NOT DOING HIS JOB!
Culture of Truth
Why do Jews win so many Nobels?
So what if Hillary Clinton is bisexual?
The funny thing is the answer to both questions is the same. Think about it.
jl
@The Other Chuck: I like Garfield without Garfield better than Garfield.
Culture of Truth
It’s wine o’clock somewhere
jl
@Tone in DC: Nice to hear national news report that just flat out describes the GOP BS.
There was no bothsidesdoit to the report. Maybe they wanted to do a bothsidesdoit, but were still scratching their heads at deadline.
Edit: or mayb a bothsidesdoit was just unpossible anymore. I also heard a sound clip of Boehner. He’s been yowling like a baritone cat in heat lately, whenever he talks
Culture of Truth
Cathy plus Carole King lyrics
Culture of Truth
Doonesbury plus the Beatles
shelly
Ah, I feel better about the future of Obamacare. Dick-“I’m wrong 100% of the time-Morris predicts it’s demise.
jl
@shelly: So. Morris is out killing his own ObamaScare book scam,? No business sense. That guy has no sense at all.
piratedan
@shelly: truly a canary in the coal mine moment, if only Vegas ran betting lines on Dick Morris statements.
beltane
@shelly: Yes, Dick Morris is our own little Magic Eight Ball, shake him and the opposite of what he says comes true.
raven
(CNN) — [Breaking news update at 1:30 p.m.]
President Barack Obama was disturbed to learn that death benefits were not being paid to survivors of fallen military survivors as a result of the partial government shutdown and has directed the Pentagon, the Office of Management and Budget and White House lawyers to figure out a way to address the problem, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday. The president expects the problem “to be fixed today,” Carney said.
Another Holocene Human
@Mark B.: I don’t think it’s right, but I understand it.
It’s been a generation. How long do heirs profit off the work of the deceased? Copyright is supposed to protect creators, their immediate families. It’s supposed to expire. It’s been extended and extended to protect corporations.
It’s absurd.
But one could say the same of any family wealth–the robber barons’ families had a special law that let them pass obscene amounts of wealth down to this day while others paid estate taxes. Too much inherited wealth is morally unsound, besides the economic damage it causes.
dmsilev
@shelly: Has Bill Kristol weighed in yet? I won’t feel safe until we have a consensus here.
Cassidy
Bedrooms of the Fallen
Well, I guess I’m going to spend the rest of the day drinking.
shelly
@beltane:
When even Free Republic agrees he’s a joke….well,
schrodinger's cat
To people who have better insight into US history and the crazy that currently dominates the GOP. What is their endgame? What do they actually want?
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Edward G Robinson as Johnny Rocco in Key Largo
shelly
Huh…what the?
Culture of Truth
Can’t let these little violations go. Rights last for 70 years after the creator dies.
The ‘Goodnight Moon’ heir is making a fortune.
Cassidy
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, I don’t have any particular insight into history more than anyone else, but I do pay attention to military history a lot. Also, I have been listening to the Revolutions podcast lately and see some striking parallels. My take on it is they no longer know what they want, but they just know with all their heart that if they were in charge they could fix what’s wrong, but they can’t articulate what’s wrong other than they’re not in charge and doing things their way. My belief, fwiw, is that this ends with people shooting at one another. Maybe not a civil war, hopefully, but some blood is going to be shed. I think history points to that conclusion.
@Another Holocene Human: I saw your question from the earlier thread (football) but didn’t get to answer until this morning. Thanks for the compliment. Yes, I was serious. A lot of the good HS football teams in the South are in poor neighborhoods. I think it’s become culturally entrenched that one of the few ways for young black or hispanic men to have upward mobility is to play football. It gets you to college, maybe the NFL and millions of dollars, but at the very least an education and connections.
IowaOldLady
Another scene from my day so far: In Panera Bread, four middle-aged white women are outraged over events at the WWII Memorial, and the target of their outrage is….the Congresscritter who yelled at the woman park ranger.
It’s unusual to hear people talking politics at all around here. People are taking notice and the optics of that particular scene raised women’s hackles. They know a bully when they see one.
schrodinger's cat
@IowaOldLady: So manly of the Congressman to pick on a woman.
Brendan in NC
Message to Tailgunner Ted and the GOP – Frankly Mr Shankley, since you ask – you are a flatulent pain in the a$$
eric
@schrodinger’s cat: to win the Civil War, part deux.
piratedan
@Culture of Truth: isn’t it okay that if you create or invent something that you and yours get to benefit? Did I miss something?
Persia
@Mark B.: This challenge came from the Smiths’ old label, though.
EDIT: And/or Johnny Marr. Either way not the estate.
Trollhattan
Uhhhhhhh.
http://wonkette.com/531145/american-apparel-invites-you-to-wear-this-menstruating-vagina-on-your-chest
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m not calling for champagne, but it looks like Kentucky could be worth some popcorn
It would be hilarious to see the Turtle go down
schrodinger's cat
@eric: And then what?
PaulW
@Culture of Truth:
Boondocks plus Katy Perry.
Trollhattan
@Culture of Truth:
That 70 years is a moving target and will be whatever the hell Disney says it shall be (measured in Steamboat Willie units).
Dcrefugee
So…
Can I be the only one to think about the Rs’ hostage-taking and Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon?”
Please tell me someone else — here or elsewhere — thought of this before me…
DCr
Culture of Truth
@piratedan: Sure, why not. Just saying why the heirs and lawyers have to contest all violations.
ericblair
@IowaOldLady:
It’s like the Schiavo moment: the GOP fucked up and put themselves in a situation that most people are familiar with. People have bosses. Here, the boss fucks with everything, something fails because of it, and the boss stomps over and yells at the poor schlub who’s got no power to change anything and is just trying to do her job. People get that.
Trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
True dat, but I’m imagining what a Kentucky tea party replacement to the right of Herr Reichsmarshall Aqua Buddha Paul might be like, and do not much like the thought.
Gin & Tonic
@piratedan: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
Where does this mention the families or descendants of the authors or inventors? Note “limited times.”
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder at what point the GOP in Congress will realize that the Tea Party isn’t about who support their positions, rather how many notches they can carve in the stock of their gun. They care fuck-all about policy – just look at how over the map they are on their shutdown demands. They just get off on the power of wrecking shit. McConnell can move as far to the right as he wants, the Tea Party will still try and claim his head for their wall.
srv
Dick had a great time at his roast! And Joe brought the house down with this:
Busting my ribs and balls!
http://news.yahoo.com/dick-cheney-roast-waterboarding-140459332.html
tybee
@Trollhattan:
the comment about the little dutch boy was pretty funny
? Martin
@srv: I wonder if any roast has ever previously been used as the basis for a RICO case?
Dee Loralei
@srv: That “joke” by Lieberman was one of the most disgusting things I have ever read. And that bar is damned low. Those fuckers need to rot in a pit while they are living. I don’t want to wait for an everlasting hell for them.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Another Holocene Human: The modern copyright era started in 1928 with the release of Steamboat Willie. While it’s true that the legislation didn’t change until later, that’s the beginning event right there.
Trollhattan
@Dee Loralei:
Somehow it’s even sicker than Dubya’s joke video of pokin’ around the Oval Office lookin’ for those pesky missing WMDs. Hilarity from the Leader of the Free World(tm).
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat:
They mean to win Wimbledon.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Culture of Truth: No, rights after Steamboat Willie are perpetual, at least in the United States of America. When it comes close to time for it to expire again, Congress will dutifully pass an extension.
dmsilev
A fun read:
Contrast that with Erick ibn Erick this morning:
fuckwit
@Dcrefugee: No Wyoming. Wyoming’s not a country.
Mnemosyne
@piratedan:
I’m all in favor of creators getting to benefit from their work during their lifetimes, but it seems a little excessive that their heirs get to benefit for an additional 70 years after the creator dies.
But, of course, the reason our current copyright laws are so distorted is not because families hold the copyrights, but because corporations do, and they don’t want to deal with the mess of rights that would be created by, say, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs going into the public domain when one corporation owns the movie and an entirely different and unrelated corporation owns the soundtrack and songs and expects to be paid every time any of those songs is used, even for commercials selling the DVDs.
polyorchnid octopunch
@piratedan: Yes. Every time Steamboat Willie has come close to expiring, copyright gets extended so nobody other than Disney Corp(se) can do anything with it. Read some of the history around that… basically copyright has come to mean “now that I own this I get to make money from it forever.”
Botsplainer
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/10/koch-industries-doesnt-want-be-tainted-obamacare-prompted-shutdown/70350/
Translation – “The Drs Frankenstein want the Villagers to know that while the Doctors equipped the laboratory, performed the necessary labor to reanimate and in fact did reanimate aggregate dead tissue (which thus created the monster), they are in no way responsible for the acts the monster has taken to destroy the village, nor do they approve of any of the destruction it has wrought.”
eric
@schrodinger’s cat: profits.
Seriously, a theocracy for the benefit of the oligarchy.
Mike E
@Bill E Pilgrim: Monty Python reference FTW
Mnemosyne
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Sort of. It’s really “Three Little Pigs” (1933) that made the lawyers freak out because, again, Disney does not own the song in the film and has to pay a second, unrelated corporation every time “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” (among others) is played or that film is shown. “Steamboat Willie” is a convenient place to draw the line, but what they’re really trying to avoid is having to re-litigate music rights, which are separate from the copyright.
fuckwit
@dmsilev: HOLY SHIT! It’s now impossible for Obama to negotiate… because IT’S NOT EVEN CLEAR WHO THE FUCK TO NEGOTIATE WITH!! You can’t negotiate with an amorphous blob. Who’s got the power to actually deliver a deal? Ryan? Cruz? Cantor? Boehner? Koch? Some random fuckhead in the Teabaggers? Who the fuck is across the table? They’re all saying different things. The teabaggers want Obamacare repealed, Ryan wants the New Deal repealed, what the fuck is going on over there. They have no idea what they want so it’s impossible to trade them for it, even if it made sense to, which it doesn’t.
No way. The House fixes this or we go down the toilet. And it seems, since they can’t even get their shit together to make coherent demands, the we go down the toilet. Or…. maybe the discharge and those 20 endangered R’s in purple districts saves us. I dunno
piratedan
@Bill E Pilgrim: +1 for the Python reference
Tone in DC
@jl:
I have made a significant effort to ignore Orange Julius over the last two weeks, especially after I found out about his “no vote on a clean CR” horseshit.
Misterpuff
@srv: Tiger Cages and Tumbrels for All!
fuckwit
@Mnemosyne: And Disney stole that from the Commons. It was an ancient fairy tale, in the public domain. Disney stole a huge number of his “copyright ad infinitum” works from the fucking public domain (or the Brothers Grimm, or A.A. Milne, etc). He was able to do this legally because copyright had a limted term, which had expired. Now his corporation insists on extending the term of THEIR copyright on those things, indefinitely. It’s theft, pure and simple. Theft from the past, and theft from the future.
polyorchnid octopunch
@fuckwit: If it comes out of the Tea Party, it’ll be an oily discharge.
pseudonymous in nc
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, the underpinnings of early copyright law were to allow an author to provide for his (usually his) family. The Statute of Anne set a 14-year term.
But since SCOTUS is apparently fine with “limited” meaning “forever minus a day”, that’s a problem, because you have rights passing down several generations — and in the case of corporate owners, immortality.
dmsilev
According to Gallup,
C’mon, Republicans, only one percentage point to go before you hit the crazification limit! You can do it!
Roger Moore
@Culture of Truth:
Or 95 years from the date of creation for collective works that don’t count as having a single author. IOW, expect lots of pressure on Congress to extend copyright again before 2023, so that “Steamboat Willie” won’t go into the public domain. Sadly, my Congresswoman is one of the wrongheaded folk who will be pushing this vigorously.
Mnemosyne
@fuckwit:
The story was in the public domain. “Whistle While You Work” and “Someday My Prince Will Come” were not. Those songs are what’s holding the film hostage, not the story itself.
If you want to be the one to explain to the Bourne Company that Disney doesn’t have to pay them to use that music anymore because the movie is in the public domain, I’m sure Disney’s lawyers would be very grateful, but so far the courts disagree with you and say that Disney has to pay the Bourne Company for every use of that music, including in commercials.
Also, the rights to Winnie the Pooh were purchased from A.A. Milne before he died in 1956. Unfortunately for, well, everyone, Milne had kind of a bad habit of selling the same rights to multiple people, so you had several different entities, including Disney, who had all purchased the rights from Milne and had to fight it out long after Milne’s death.
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer:
I love that the Koch Brothers are now whining through their government affairs Kochmouthpiece.
This cannot be lost on all but the dimmest of Tea Partiers:
Another interesting thing about that letter — other than its obfuscation: the address and phone numbers of their lobbyists.
Trollhattan
Speaking of negotiations with known terrorists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24463839
Mehsud asserted, “We’re really nice guys, once you get to know us and, like, do everything we say. And, oh yeah, that Malala chick has still got to die, m’kay?”
Roger Moore
@piratedan:
For some time, yes. But part of the bargain of copyright is that copyrights are supposed to expire at some point so that new artists can use the works in new ways. Think about how much great work has been based on Shakespeare, Dickens, Dumas, Twain, and all those other authors whose works have gone out of copyright. That’s only possible because those artists’ descendants aren’t able to demand payment or block new works that offend their sensibilities. 75 years beyond the creator’s lifespan is simply much too long for copyright to extend. Not to mention that Congress keeps extending copyright every time there’s a threat that the copyright on existing works will expire.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Mike E: I figure that giant desserts from another planet turning everyone into Scotsmen all with the goal of removing the competition so they could win at Wimbledon is no more crazy than what’s happening in US government right now.
On a more serious note, to respond to the OP, I think the goal is refighting the civil war, creating (even more of) a plutocracy ruling in part by theocracy, which go hand in hand, starting religious wars with one to misdirect from the fact that they’re robbing people blind with the other.
I also think it is doomed, just by demographics, and this is a sort of last gasp. Latest polling is showing that they could even lose the House, so okay a year from now that will change but it shows that it’s not as far fetched as everyone thought.
After all, blancmange originally meant “white dish”, it’s worth keeping in mind, and they were chased back to their home planet and never did win Wimbledon.
Trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Not to forget the frozen head exemption, which extends the creator’s death date infinitely, or so long as they pay the electricity bill.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
The copyrights on the music- which is what allows others to get money from Disney for their songs- should also expire. Also, of course, if the copyright on the movie expires and Disney no longer has control over it, it will be up to the music copyright holders to chase down anyone who uses them by showing the movie. I think you have been misled by Giant Evil Corporation.
Botsplainer
@fuckwit:
That would be an awesome presidential speech.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
This is all thanks to the vile corporate monster that is “The Mouse”. They want to collect rents on the work of Walt Disney in perpetuity.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
If you want to bitch about the length of copyright on songs, go complain to Warner/Chappell, the current copyright holders that collect money any time someone sings “Happy Birthday To You.” So far, the courts have upheld their copyright even though the song creation date of 1935 is almost certainly bogus.
Then we get into performance rights, where the original singer(s) and musicians have to be paid per performance due to ASCAP rules, and as far as I know, there’s no copyright expiration on a performance.
I keep trying to explain this to people, but it’s not “Steamboat Willie” that’s holding copyright law hostage. It’s music rights, song copyright, and performance rights, all of which are far more hugely complicated than most people realize.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Funny, I haven’t heard Warner Brothers, Universal, Paramount, etc. complaining about how mean ol’ Disney is forcing them to go along. Not to mention all of the record companies, who don’t seem all that eager to allow songs and/or recordings that are currently out of copyright to be used by current artists.
Sorry, folks, it ain’t just Disney. It’s every entertainment company that wants perpetual copyright protection for everything they ever released. There are no good guys.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
There is. The rules for US copyright are identical across categories. Copyright starts when the work is fixed in a tangible form (e.g. recorded onto record or tape) and expires either 75 years after the creator’s death or 95 years after creation for corporate or collective works. Those rules are the same for sheet music, recorded music, prose, poetry, audiovisual work, or any other category subject to copyright.
And, quite frankly, using the complexity of music and performance rights as a justification for indefinite extension of copyright is bullshit. There are already rules about compulsory licensing under certain circumstances, and those rules could easily be extended to cases in which a work still under copyright- like the songs you’re talking about- is used as part of a larger work that has fallen out of copyright. Or the copyright on the work as a whole could be extended until the copyright on all the works it contains have expired. I’m sure that somebody with more knowledge of copyright than I have could come up with additional solutions. That Congress hasn’t even tried to solve those problems and has just gone directly to copyright extension is very strong evidence that the primary goal is longer copyright.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Copyright, yes. But not performance rights. Those are completely different and are administered in a completely different way under completely different rules.
Great, have at it. Good luck getting the Bourne Company to agree that Disney doesn’t have to pay them anymore. Disney has already been trying to purchase those songs back from Bourne for 50 years, and Bourne refuses to budge.
Sorry, but you can’t hand-wave away decades of litigation with “well, they shouldn’t be allowed to do it.” The courts disagree with you and have upheld Bourne’s rights at every turn. If Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs goes out of copyright, who pays Bourne for those “public domain” copies that aren’t really public domain since there are music licensing rights tied up with each of them?
If you don’t believe me, go ask an entertainment lawyer. But I’m pretty sure that I’m slightly more informed on the ins and outs of this than you are since I’ve actually had to deal with it in my job. When was the last time you had to get music rights to something, again?
ETA:
Copyrights expire, but licenses can be renewed perpetually. Now what?
This is exactly what I’m trying to explain to you — the problem is not “copyright,” but it’s a lot easier to just keep extending copyright than it is to deal with the morass of problems and conflicting rights that are currently being concealed by who holds the copyright.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Performance rights are administered separately from authorship rights in terms of who collects royalties, how the royalties are distributed, etc., but those rights still derive from the copyright on the recording. Since the expiration of that copyright is the same as for any other copyright, the performers’ rights will still expire 75 years after death or 95 years after recording, depending on the category of copyright.
Again, the license relies on the underlying copyright. If the work moves into the public domain, anyone can use it for free and the licensor no longer has any ability to hold up the licensee for money.
The problems are all ultimately a creation of our copyright system*. Yes, some of them are with court rulings rather than statute, but they’re still ultimately about our copyright system, and Congress can still do something about them by rewriting the statute that the court rulings depend on. Instead, Congress kicks the can down the road by extending copyright for everyone. It’s one more example of Congress taking the easy way out and giving giant giveaways to moneyed interests rather than trying to solve problems, and I’m fucking tired of seeing that happen.
*Including the “problem” that there are any works out there to argue about. Don’t want to come off as some crazy person who thinks copyright is inherently evil. I think that copyright has been successful in encouraging the creation of new works. I just think that 75 years after the creator’s death or 95 years from creation is way too long to wait for something to go into the public domain, and that I have no confidence that those times won’t be extended again.
Joey Giraud
@Roger Moore:
Two things.
1. You’re more then completely correct about copyright. These artificial monopolies were barely justifiable back when the costs of media production were high, now they’re little more then rent seeking indulgences.
The word “rights” should be avoided. They are gifts of monopoly.
2. Mnemosyne can doggedly and truculently argue armed with expert ignorance. It’s a tedious experience to be lectured to by the largely-wrong.