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It's funny that the senator's party's platform is based around little to no government regulation and healthy capitalistic competition. Here he is granting an a

It's funny that the senator's party's platform is based around little to no government regulation and healthy capitalistic competition. Here he is granting an artificial monopoly for 7 generations. I'll bet his hands were well greased. Gotta love corrupt America.

rayiner 8y ago
Copyright is about the least artificial monopoly that exists. An artificial monopoly is the government sending men with guns to keep bigger stronger men than me off my land. It's a chunk of dirt that existed millions of years before I was born and will continue to exist millions of years after I'm dead, but the government allows me to call it "mine." That's as artificial as it gets, but we call it "natural rights." A monopoly on creative works--something that didn't exist before the person who created it--is far less artificial. (And granting a monopoly on something that's non-rival, so everyone can have as much of it as they want so long as they're willing to create their own, seems far better than granting one on a scarce natural resource.)
- barrkel 8y ago
  I don't accept that for a moment. Monopoly over land predates humans, as any observation of territorial creatures will let you know.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Territorial creatures have possession, not property, which is completely different. Bashing someone's head in and taking their property is natural right. Having the State send men with guns in response to that action is a highly artificial deprivation of that natural right.
    - mijamo 8y ago
      I think you should read about natural rights. The traditional natural righta are life, liberty, and property, which is the opposite of what you describe. And natural rights only exist in an organized society, they are just the limits of what a human should give in its social contract with the society.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure rayiner knows what the concept is, he's criticizing it for misusing the term "natural" and he's replacing it for something that is actually natural. Besides, current property is quite far from the Lockean concept of mixing your own labor and only taking it when "there is enough, and as good, left in common for others", which the original "natural right of property".
    - mywittyname 8y ago
      > Having the State send men with guns in response to that action is a highly artificial deprivation of that natural right. Pack animals will do the same. If you attempt to take their property, the leader (State) will likely engage with you.
  - harryh 8y ago
    Animals might have monopoly over land that they are physically standing on and protecting right this very second. But they have no concept of property: land in some other place far away from them that somehow remains theirs even if they aren't there or never intend to go there. That sort of property is solely a creation of the modern state.
- thomastjeffery 8y ago
  One is a monopoly on a physical object, the other is a monopoly on an idea. Ideas are far more abstract.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Copyright is a monopoly on a specific creative work, not an idea. It’s intangible but it’s not an idea (Microsoft Windows for example, isn’t an “idea”). It’s a product of labor, just like a house you built.
    - thomastjeffery 8y ago
      That intangibility is what I am trying to get at: If someone builds an exact copy of your house across the street, you don't lose anything. The idea that you should be allowed to prevent them from doing so is copyright.
    - dctoedt 8y ago
      > Copyright is a monopoly on a specific creative work, not an idea. But courts — urged on by copyright owners — have extended the scope of copyright protection to nonliteral aspects such as (for example) look and feel and structure, sequence, and organization. Sometimes this is done while paying lip service to the principle that copyright doesn't protect ideas. The resulting fuzziness of the boundaries is one of the major sources of complaint.
- Strang 8y ago
  That's a very unconventional view. I'd argue that as presented it is based on an over-simplification of copyright. Specifically, "something that didn't exist before the person who created it" and "everyone can have as much of it as they want so long as they're willing to create their own" do not seem to accurately describe copyright law to me.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    I don't think it's unconventional. Almost nobody outside certain circles cares about the "public domain." It's a romantic idea that has little relevance. And why do you think that description of copyright law is inaccurate? Copyright protects concrete expression, not abstract ideas, and independent creation is a defense to copyright infringement. How many sci-fi books are basically identical and rehash the same tropes? That's not copyright infringement. It's only infringement if you actually copy someone else's work.
    - gnode 8y ago
      > It's only infringement if you actually copy someone else's work. This is inaccurate. Copyright has been extended to cover fictional characters for instance. Consider that at the copyright term of 144 years proposed, the character of Count Dracula would still be under copyright, and not freely usable for artistic works.
      - wahern 8y ago
        Unlike patent law which protects novelty, copyright only protects originality. Violating copyright requires actual copying of material. Theoretically, you could independently conceive of Count Dracula[1] and put him into your own work without violating someone else's copyright. To prove violation of copyright the copyright holder must as a preliminary matter provide evidence that the defendant likely had access or exposure to the copyrighted material. Only once that evidence exists could the fact finder infer, based on similarity, actual copying. For widely disseminated pop cultural material, however, exposure is a rather easy burden to meet. [1] I presume for the sake of argument that the character Count Dracula is per se copyrighted. But I don't think that's true. AFAIU only certain stylized versions of that character are copyrighted. This necessarily follows from the fact that to show violation of copyright you must first identify the specific material that has been copied, and then show substantive similarity and the extent of copying. IMO modern copyright law is too liberal in this regard (i.e. favors copyright holders) and has gotten rid of many bright line rules that rejected infringement claims early on. But all of this absolutely matters if you're going to trial. The Oracle v Google case was fundamentally about how to construe similarity and extent in the context of APIs.
- gnode 8y ago
  I don't think it's sensible to refer to all ownership of land as monopolistic. In most cases land is fungible. There are many landowners in my town of plots of land which are largely interchangeable. Saying someone has a monopoly on their specific plot of land is about as relevant as saying someone has a monopoly on a specific cheeseburger. If one party were to own all the land in a particular region, like a feudal lord, that may be considered monopolistic. The case with copyright is that copyrighted works are by definition not fungible; if you create a trivially similar work, you violate the copyright.
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    > In most cases land is fungible. Err, there's a reason the first three rules of real estate are 1. location 2. location 3. location The key thing about land is that it's unique, there is no other place on the entire planet identical to the place you're standing. There may be similar places, and that may be fine enough for some people. But plenty of wars have been fought over a particular piece of land. Just ask the Palestinians if land is fungible.
    - gnode 8y ago
      I was referring to a local basis. I.e. in most cases, plots of land of equal size on a given street are of similar value for similar purposes. My point is that people don't typically monopolise land to the extent that a prospective land buyer has one potential current owner they could deal with. Of course there are always exceptional cases where this breaks down.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Are the Palestinians being offered similar land? That fight seems pretty all or nothing. But more importantly, very few bits of land are all that special. Location, location, location means that if a business got its pick of nearby plots, most would happily switch, and reap the benefits!
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > Just ask the Palestinians if land is fungible. That analogy would only make sense if Palestinians were being offered similarly-sized and similarly-resourced land, to compensate for what was taken away from them at the beginning of the Nakba 70 years ago. Except, they're not. The land was seized, with no new land provided in return. Over time, more and more has been occupied and taken away from Palestine.
chimeracoder 8y ago
> Gotta love corrupt America. Ah yes, as opposed to all the other developed European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., which all signed the TPP/TTIP, which contains similar massive copyright extensions.

rayiner 8y ago

Copyright is about the least artificial monopoly that exists. An artificial monopoly is the government sending men with guns to keep bigger stronger men than me off my land. It's a chunk of dirt that existed millions of years before I was born and will continue to exist millions of years after I'm dead, but the government allows me to call it "mine." That's as artificial as it gets, but we call it "natural rights." A monopoly on creative works--something that didn't exist before the person who created it--is far less artificial. (And granting a monopoly on something that's non-rival, so everyone can have as much of it as they want so long as they're willing to create their own, seems far better than granting one on a scarce natural resource.)

barrkel 8y ago
I don't accept that for a moment. Monopoly over land predates humans, as any observation of territorial creatures will let you know.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Territorial creatures have possession, not property, which is completely different. Bashing someone's head in and taking their property is natural right. Having the State send men with guns in response to that action is a highly artificial deprivation of that natural right.
  - mijamo 8y ago
    I think you should read about natural rights. The traditional natural righta are life, liberty, and property, which is the opposite of what you describe. And natural rights only exist in an organized society, they are just the limits of what a human should give in its social contract with the society.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure rayiner knows what the concept is, he's criticizing it for misusing the term "natural" and he's replacing it for something that is actually natural. Besides, current property is quite far from the Lockean concept of mixing your own labor and only taking it when "there is enough, and as good, left in common for others", which the original "natural right of property".
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    > Having the State send men with guns in response to that action is a highly artificial deprivation of that natural right. Pack animals will do the same. If you attempt to take their property, the leader (State) will likely engage with you.
- harryh 8y ago
  Animals might have monopoly over land that they are physically standing on and protecting right this very second. But they have no concept of property: land in some other place far away from them that somehow remains theirs even if they aren't there or never intend to go there. That sort of property is solely a creation of the modern state.
thomastjeffery 8y ago
One is a monopoly on a physical object, the other is a monopoly on an idea. Ideas are far more abstract.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Copyright is a monopoly on a specific creative work, not an idea. It’s intangible but it’s not an idea (Microsoft Windows for example, isn’t an “idea”). It’s a product of labor, just like a house you built.
  - thomastjeffery 8y ago
    That intangibility is what I am trying to get at: If someone builds an exact copy of your house across the street, you don't lose anything. The idea that you should be allowed to prevent them from doing so is copyright.
  - dctoedt 8y ago
    > Copyright is a monopoly on a specific creative work, not an idea. But courts — urged on by copyright owners — have extended the scope of copyright protection to nonliteral aspects such as (for example) look and feel and structure, sequence, and organization. Sometimes this is done while paying lip service to the principle that copyright doesn't protect ideas. The resulting fuzziness of the boundaries is one of the major sources of complaint.
Strang 8y ago
That's a very unconventional view. I'd argue that as presented it is based on an over-simplification of copyright. Specifically, "something that didn't exist before the person who created it" and "everyone can have as much of it as they want so long as they're willing to create their own" do not seem to accurately describe copyright law to me.
- rayiner 8y ago
  I don't think it's unconventional. Almost nobody outside certain circles cares about the "public domain." It's a romantic idea that has little relevance. And why do you think that description of copyright law is inaccurate? Copyright protects concrete expression, not abstract ideas, and independent creation is a defense to copyright infringement. How many sci-fi books are basically identical and rehash the same tropes? That's not copyright infringement. It's only infringement if you actually copy someone else's work.
  - gnode 8y ago
    > It's only infringement if you actually copy someone else's work. This is inaccurate. Copyright has been extended to cover fictional characters for instance. Consider that at the copyright term of 144 years proposed, the character of Count Dracula would still be under copyright, and not freely usable for artistic works.
    - wahern 8y ago
      Unlike patent law which protects novelty, copyright only protects originality. Violating copyright requires actual copying of material. Theoretically, you could independently conceive of Count Dracula[1] and put him into your own work without violating someone else's copyright. To prove violation of copyright the copyright holder must as a preliminary matter provide evidence that the defendant likely had access or exposure to the copyrighted material. Only once that evidence exists could the fact finder infer, based on similarity, actual copying. For widely disseminated pop cultural material, however, exposure is a rather easy burden to meet. [1] I presume for the sake of argument that the character Count Dracula is per se copyrighted. But I don't think that's true. AFAIU only certain stylized versions of that character are copyrighted. This necessarily follows from the fact that to show violation of copyright you must first identify the specific material that has been copied, and then show substantive similarity and the extent of copying. IMO modern copyright law is too liberal in this regard (i.e. favors copyright holders) and has gotten rid of many bright line rules that rejected infringement claims early on. But all of this absolutely matters if you're going to trial. The Oracle v Google case was fundamentally about how to construe similarity and extent in the context of APIs.
gnode 8y ago
I don't think it's sensible to refer to all ownership of land as monopolistic. In most cases land is fungible. There are many landowners in my town of plots of land which are largely interchangeable. Saying someone has a monopoly on their specific plot of land is about as relevant as saying someone has a monopoly on a specific cheeseburger. If one party were to own all the land in a particular region, like a feudal lord, that may be considered monopolistic. The case with copyright is that copyrighted works are by definition not fungible; if you create a trivially similar work, you violate the copyright.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  > In most cases land is fungible. Err, there's a reason the first three rules of real estate are 1. location 2. location 3. location The key thing about land is that it's unique, there is no other place on the entire planet identical to the place you're standing. There may be similar places, and that may be fine enough for some people. But plenty of wars have been fought over a particular piece of land. Just ask the Palestinians if land is fungible.
  - gnode 8y ago
    I was referring to a local basis. I.e. in most cases, plots of land of equal size on a given street are of similar value for similar purposes. My point is that people don't typically monopolise land to the extent that a prospective land buyer has one potential current owner they could deal with. Of course there are always exceptional cases where this breaks down.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    Are the Palestinians being offered similar land? That fight seems pretty all or nothing. But more importantly, very few bits of land are all that special. Location, location, location means that if a business got its pick of nearby plots, most would happily switch, and reap the benefits!
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > Just ask the Palestinians if land is fungible. That analogy would only make sense if Palestinians were being offered similarly-sized and similarly-resourced land, to compensate for what was taken away from them at the beginning of the Nakba 70 years ago. Except, they're not. The land was seized, with no new land provided in return. Over time, more and more has been occupied and taken away from Palestine.

chimeracoder 8y ago

> Gotta love corrupt America. Ah yes, as opposed to all the other developed European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., which all signed the TPP/TTIP, which contains similar massive copyright extensions.