Mystara setting stolen for hack novels...


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It's official: I'm kkkkeeeeyyyyy-rrrrraaaaazzzzyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!


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Leeroy Jenkins is copyrighted. Stop infringing on someone else's work.


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Parody is protected. [Gangnam-style horse dance] Suck-it! [/Gangnam-style horse dance]


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You're neither satiric nor ironic.


But I'm having a blast! Fzzzbbbttt!


Brian E. Harris wrote:


R_Chance wrote:


The penalties may or may not outweigh the crime. It will sometimes and it won't other times. You could argue that the penalties should be adjusted accordingly. That doesn't impact my argument. And the penalties are supposed to discourage the crime; too little and no one will take the crime seriously. There is also the matter of the damage done to the rights of the copyright holder. They may outweign any "profit" the infringer made. Somebody gets to pay the bill and the infringer is the one who volunteered by breaking the law.

But it's not even supposed to be a crime! It was a civil matter, until corporate interests lobbied politicians to criminalize it (i.e. they bought off politicians).

You've got a problem with infringement? Then you should take it up in civil court.

The fact that copyright infringement was criminalized is one of the biggest abuses of copyright ever.

It is a civil offence and may be a criminal offence iirc. Infringement is civil and is settled by lawsuits. Theft is criminal and is settled in criminal court. Theft requires a purposeful attempt to use the copyrighted work to profit. In other words, people who infringe without making a profit are subject to civil law. Someone who infringes and sells a copyrighted work for a profit is subject to criminal prosecution (as well as civil suit).

Brian E. Harris wrote:


R_Chance wrote:

*sigh* It protects the right of the individual against the many to encourage the individual to do more work. It will benefit the individual and the public at large. That's the idea.

That's the intent, but it no longer encourages any such thing, because there's no incentive to create more when your original is protected by an effectively unlimited term.

It does NOT benefit the public at large, like it was intended to do, because now it only benefits the individual, which is the antithesis of providing that monopolistic protection in the first place.

So Steven King and all those other already published authors had no incentive to continue... but did anyway. It benefits the individual and, in the long run, the public. Protection is limited, not eternal. Eventually the material enters the public domain. Someone just mentioned Robert E. Howards work upthread for example (died 1936).

Brian E. Harris wrote:


R_Chance wrote:
So, they did this to be... mean? Snotty? Evil capitalists?

No, they (the founding fathers, the creators of copyright in the United States) put these limits in for a reason - so that people would see contemporary work enter the public domain. You can make the argument that people live longer now, but that still doesn't hold water - we live perhaps twice as long as we did when copyright was implemented, but copyright term has nearly quadrupled.

I don't think the "live longer" argument is all that good. It's based more on an average lifespan. That includes a lot of infant mortality and childhood death. Adult lifespans are longer, but only by a bit. The current protection afforded by copyright and patent reflects our (present) evaluation of the issue, not the Founding Fathers. Copyright predates the American Revolution btw, early 1700s iirc. And of course, the period of protection is subject to statute law and may change.

Brian E. Harris wrote:


The idea that you should maintain a complete monopoly on an idea and the use thereof, on words on paper - or notes of music or whatever else is protected by copyright - for your entire life, and then be able to pass that monopoly on as an inheritance for nearly the life of that person, and hey, if big-money-interests can manage to pass another extension so my great-grandchildren also maintain that monopoly, that's great too - that's completely insane.

No, not really. It just seems that way to you. If it seems that way to the majority of people and, specifically, to the interested parties it will change.

Brian E. Harris wrote:


Coupled with the fact that you DON'T feel that equal protection should be granted to inventions, to physical creations for some arbitrary "well, my book is MINE, but that guy's invention? That should belong to the world, it could do some real good!" kind of reason?

Like, full-blown mental illness insane.

Invention is more likely to effect the public good than literature or music. It's societies view reflected through the law. You can argue that it's arbitrary, but it is not illogical. It just doesn't reflect your views. Your view of "insanity", well, it's yours. Not mine. Sorry.

And, btw, if they shorten the period for copyright I'll live. I don't think it should be shortened to less than the life of the author btw, but that is a personal opinion. And, as I've said, I'm OK with the current periods as well. For the reasons I've stated several times.


Since some are trying to make the specious claim that copyright is an "individual right" rather than a collective right, I thought this was incredibly apt:

Mike Masnick/techdirt.com wrote:

And, if we're going to talk about "property rights" and "protection of the rights of individuals" it needs to start with our rights to express ourselves, along with our rights to own what we legally posses. Copyright has gone against those rights in so many ways. It stops us from actually owning the music we thought we'd "purchased." It stops us from modifying our phones or video game consoles. It stops us from shifting a movie we purchased on DVD to our computer. So, sure, if we're going to protect "property rights" and the "rights of individuals" let's actually do that.

From: Techdirt


Another good read:

Three Myths About Copyright


Brian E. Harris wrote:


Another good read:

Three Myths About Copyright

The Congressman involved, Jim Jordan (R) Ohio, is a far right wing fiscal and social conservative Republican. There are people farther right than him, but not that much. Not really my cup of tea :) And I don't agree with what the "Republican Study Committee" has to say about it. They think that copyright protection has been extended too far. I don't. I do think we need to differentiate between technical / scientific literature and other literature and establish differing protections based on that. There is a better case for the public good there, but there is still a good case for protection for a period as well.

*edit* Almost forgot; I don't agree with Mike at Techdirt either :) I visit any number of tech related sites and I'm familiar with the opinions typical of a lot of them although most of my time is spent on hardware sites (Anandtech, etc.). I'm a regular Slashdot reader (can't get much more anti-copyright than that). I just do not agree.


So, at least one argument already in this thread lambasted the idea of copyright reform as socialist and Marxist.

Now, it's far right wing and conservative/Republican.

Cute.


Brian E. Harris wrote:


So, at least one argument already in this thread lambasted the idea of copyright reform as socialist and Marxist.

Now, it's far right wing and conservative/Republican.

Cute.

look up the voting record and beliefs of the Republican representative involved with the Republican Study Committee. Then get back to me about it. I was a tad surprised about your source :)

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