Bay 12 Games Forum

Why'd it get so long, again? Is it just because it allows (theoretically immortal) corporations to keep a stranglehold on stuff?

Essentially. There are a few (very few) cases of certain properties holding near perpetual value. The US Constitution doesn't allow perpetual copyright, so instead we are seeing period extensions of the current maximum term as certain works are threatened by the public domain.

One of my favourite takes on this is Justice Breyer's dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the case that extended copyright an extra 20 years (life +70 or 95 for works-for-hire). Breyer's argument has debatable legal force - it did lose - but he essentially went back to look at the justification and reality of copyright.

Copyright is supposedly a financial incentive for a given work. Breyer wanted to examine just how much of an incentive 20 years of copyright was on a work over 50 years old. His findings;

    In conjunction with official figures on copyright renewals, the CRS Report indicates that only about 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value--i.e., still generate royalties after that time.

    Using assumptions about the time value of money pro-vided us by a group of economists (including five Nobel prize winners)... it seems fair to say that, for example, a 1% likelihood of earning $100 annually for 20 years, starting 75 years into the future, is worth less than seven cents today.

That is, unless you actually hold one of these valuable copyrights then the value of the copyright extension was pretty near worthless. The sort of change you don't worry about being shorted in the shops.



My own solution that I feel is fairly moderate is moving back to a copyright registration system. Unregistered materials are protected for one year after publication. They must be registered with the copyright office by that point or they lapse into the public domain. Registration lasts for five years. A registered work can have it's registration extended only in the final year for a further five years each time, up to, say, six times for a total of 31 years.

Then all you need is massive reform and good sense around copyright enforcement, a solution to the problem of trademarks and a completely new flexible patent system (having the same terms apply for drugs and software as kids toys or car parts is absurd).

Thanks for the explanations.
Any reason why it hasn't been changed yet? Besides the fact that change is scary and evil and communist.

Broadly? This.

Because EC votes are assigned by your congressional delegation and the smallest possible delegation is 3 people (2 senators, 1 representative) even a state with a tiny population get a voice. Wyoming there only accounted for 0.17% of the US population in the 2004 election. They sent 0.55% of the electoral votes.

The argument is without the EC allowing even low population states to have a voice like this, presidential candidates would only need to campaign in or appeal to major population centres and metropolitan areas.

It also keeps a lot of authority over elections within the state. Methods, recounts, etc. are all within the purview of state government. Moving to a popular vote system would require standardisation and probably federal oversight.

And then there is the fact that it props up the two party system. Hard to abolish the thing that keeps those in charge of abolishing it in power.

Spoiler: Don't spolit yourself, really (click to show/hide)

So a jewish guy gets the power to travel back in time, goes back to kill Hitler, Hitler fights back, kills him and takes his cellphone.
Flash back to a present where the Nazis won the war, I wonder what they will do now X)

Despite having never watched the show I felt safe checking that seeing as

The only serious attempt at a theory of sentience based morality I've seen has been Singer, and even he doesn't buy into it as a practical system to live by.

Rule 34 by Charles Stross.

Three main viewpoint characters;
- Lesbian detective on the Rule 34 squad (memetic crime watch).
- Male Muslim family man ex-con who happens to enjoy the occasional pint and male company.
- High functioning psychopath evil bastard coordinator for shadowy crime organisation.

Oh, and the book is written in the second person. Sample three chapters.

From the bill, section 1036, the administration must submit full procedure for determining the status of captives within 90 days of the bill passing. So we should have the full procedure in a couple of months.

But there are two conditions imposed by the bill; presided over by a military judge and access to military council.

This review is in addition to any habeas rights, which apply in virtually all circumstances other than battlefield captures.

This is the part that concerns me.  Bolded text strikes me as incredibly vague, and reminiscent of the patriot act, which has been widely abused against U.S. citizens.  I'm not as alarmist as most people on this issue, but I do think it's bad.

Legally speaking those are narrower terms than have been used elsewhere. The previous language in the Military Commissions Act was;

    engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.

'Purposeful and material' support is a far lower standard than 'directly supported'. Since the 2006 MCA there has been a substantial amount of debate and legal definition around these terms. It's not as vague and general as it looks at first glance.

I found this interesting.

MP3's and WAV files are far easier to remove ads from than it is to remove DRM from games. In fact, any file that contains sound data is going to be easy to crack unless you decide to go for a route that would actively hamper its ability to play well, or force it to take up more space. These files have to be played somehow, and that involves having a standard -- and standards can be cracked.

More than that, you would have to disable any way of recording audio while also playing audio. Audio DRM is hilariously pointless to anyone who grew up recording and sharing audio tapes.

Strangely that sort of secondary recording is often legal while copying a file isn't. That's because under the DMCA breaking DRM is illegal, while making a copy of something for personal use is still protected under conventional copyright law. A good example of this was when the Downfall videos were being taken down. The chair of the EFF made a legal version using captured video rather than ripped. Fair use for being a parody and no DRM breaking.

The MPAA's take on this was somewhat more absurd.