Comments on: Copyright Extension vote 10 days away

By: Henry Emrich

Henry Emrich — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:56:48 +0000

“The public will not be fooled. If copyright law, cynically, departs from its purpose, piracy becomes an easy option.”

Goddamn right.
It becomes an “easy” option, and a politically valuable one: THEY keep buying themselves bad laws, WE keep “breaking” those laws until everybody supporting such bad laws is bankrupted and totally destroyed.

And guess what?
We do the same thing if they EVER try it again.

Here’s a simple rule of thumb in regard to copyrights, patents and trademarks:
Whichever one has the SHORTEST term, is the one which is least odious.

Every increase in term length on ANY of them, is harmful.

Of course “piracy” is an “easy option” — the opposition finds buying themselves extensions every few years to be an “easy” option, but somehow THAT has the color of law.

Thus far, and no further.

By: Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:58:51 +0000

Ya gotta love the Disney model:
You take something FROM the public domain and expand on it, then copyright the shit out of it and keep it out of the public domain for another 100 years, and sue anyone who even tries to apply Fair Use to pieces of the *original* works.

Some years from now, students are going to be asking their teachers why they’re using only really, really old stuff in their cirriculum (i.e. Shakespeare, Burns, etc.), and not teaching them about writers/artists in the last 30 years. That can and will happen given the present scenario.

By: Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:51:27 +0000

If everything produced in the present and the last decade are to be kept out of the Public Domain for the next 50-100 years, what will be available in the Public Domain 10-20 years from now??

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:58:30 +0000

Remind them that copyright is NOT A RIGHT, it is a PRIVILEGE. It is also a CONTRACT, a contract that the owners have with everyone. This contract grants owners a limited time monopoly PRIVILEGE in exchange for returning the work to the PUBLIC DOMAIN after the time has elapsed.

This copyright extension is a violation of that contract. Disney and the music labels are violating this contract. And if they violate the contract, why does the public have to respect their part of the deal????

By: www.eZee.se

www.eZee.se — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:50:53 +0000

Heh! With the “Cheers, Ryan” at the bottom it almost looks like I wrote that instead of just recommending the article
Thanks Jon, I appreciate it!

I did write to all my MEPs, not so hard really.. write your text and just add all their email address in the CC/BCC field, I wont post the email I wrote here as its a bit longish on text (being as passionate as i could about my feelings on the extension,and dont want to disrupt this pretty layout) but if you guys dont know what to write just send me a message and i’ll email you the text I sent them… either way PLEASE WRITE TO YOUR MEPS, its VERY important that you do.

Remember the first copyright extension was passed because most people didnt know and didnt care, this has resulted in BILLIONS of dollars from the consumer going to Disney and movie/music industries, and the padlock on a certain mouse as well as thousands of songs/albums and other forms or our rightful culture for years/decades longer… we paid for them the first time, we should not have had to pay for it again, but we did.

Lets not keep paying for it over and over like stupid sheep, long after you are gone your children will still be paying for it so to coin one of the most cliche phrases “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”

Kidding aside, WRITE TO YOUR MEPs, make your voice heard or we _are_ going to end up with forever copyright minus a day ( http://ezee.se/49 ) .