Irony and copyrights

[r6d2]

Found this (http://www.brunching.com/copyfire.html) article with an analogy of the copyrights on fire. I think it was fun and interesting reading, so I decided to share it with you.

[Neo Neko]

Someone should copyright irony. You cold have made a fortune of late! :D

[mudda_t]

Im writing to my representatives right now, Im outraged!:D

[r6d2]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Someone should copyright irony. You cold have made a fortune of late! :D Hehe...

If you really mean it, then you are really mean.
And if you didn't mean it, I don't know what you mean. :D:D:D

[Doobie]

That article is right on point. The US Constitution provides for copyrights and patents, not out of any sense of ownership but simply to encourage the production of new works of art and inventions.

As copyright violations remove nothing from the copyright holder, it cannot be called theft. And, as the copyright holder is not an owner, just a holder of a temporary copyright, copyright violations cannot be called theft

It is real theft when media companies put content into the public sphere and then insist that taxpayer-supported government go to great measures to protect those copyrights.

For example, take an example of real theft, apple stealing. Suppose you have a basket of apples but instead of selling them from your store, you leave the apple basket in the town square and you charge $20 per apple. The customer is simply to drop a Twenty into the basket when he takes the apple.

You don't sell many apples. The people say your apples are too expensive. But, some people are taking the apples without paying the asking price.

Should the government go to any great effort to stop the apple thefts? Should police be going out of their way to chase down and take to court apple thieves? Or, should you sell the apples at a reasonable price and take responsibility to prevent the theft yourself, such as selling them in your store where you have someone to watch them? They don't own the town square and my tax money shouldn't be used to protect their apples in place of their own security.

Likewise, the media companies should have reasonable prices that discourage copyright violations. They should explore technological solutions to copyright violations. And, they should take full responsibility themselves for any pre-release of any content. If these are not acceptable terms, they should choose not to produce anything in the first place. In the meantime, the government shouldn't go to any great effort to protect content because the copyright holders should be doing this themselves.

[Pyscrow]

Had a little win here in Australia the other day.

One of the TV stations sued another for copyright infringement, basically one station was running a satirical comedy show, and using small clips from the other station to make fun of them.

Our High Court ruled that extracting a small excerpt from a show and displaying it publically is not a copyright infringement!

So I can legally copy about 30 secs of each movie, to show to my mates! (Weeell thats enough for all the nude bits!)

[iliasstr]

So, if you light your fart and start a fire, do you own it? :p