Copyright is supposed to be about ensure that novel stuff appears and is used. Therefore surely Copyright should only apply to really new stuff and that older stuff should lose its protection.
Otherwise there will be an incentive to constantly rehash old stuff rather than concentrating on producing stuff that is new.
No more than a decade after a creation or a couple of years after first commercial exploitation I would say.
Until copyright is reduced in scope we're going to get nowhere here. Copyright and Patents on stuff that is easily replicated should be limited to a few months at best, before it becomes generally available. That way if you want a state sponsored monopoly, you'd better have a good pipeline of new stuff lined up.
It isn't copying that is killing music. It is being strangled by archaic IPR laws tailored to vested interests.
I can kind of see Bono as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Living off yesterday's glories so he doesn't have to do any real work today.
After all working for your days pay is for peasants.
Creators should get paid when they create, ie they need to go to work and get a *job*. Musicians should get a *job* to get paid (playing music funnily enough). Just like the rest of us have to.
Copyright is a monopoly and like all monopolies it creates a very few winners, who you hear a lot from since they own the distribution channels, and an awful lot of losers from whom you here nothing.
Music should be like French bread - worthless when it is old. If copyright was short we'd get a lot more fresh stuff and a lot more performances. And less whingeing from yesterday's "stars".
Not quite sure why you'd want to revert to the Julian Calendar given that it is inaccurate according to the Solar Year. If you're doing that you may as well go Lunar, which would mean that Easter stays still and Christmas moves. At least that would be a change.
Instead we should be championing the Herschel amendment to the Gregorian Calendar to exempt the year 4000 from being a leap year - making it an even better approximation of the solar year. Of course it won't affect us, but it would mean that the calendar will be named after a scientist rather than a theologian.
The solution to all this is simple. Any business operating as a recruitment firm for temporary staff (an 'employment business' in the jargon - where they sit in the middle) must employ the individual directly on a contract of service (ie an employee) and be responsible for the individual they are hiring on all in the same legal entity.
That would deal with the temps situation completely and provide protection to the voiceless thousands of low-level staff who operate in this market with no security whatsoever, generally appalling treatment and very poor pay.
The alternative would be for the agents to get out of the middle of the relationship and again I would require that they can only place individuals on contracts of service if operating as an employment agent (as it is known in the jargon).
The move to service software driven by Web Services is a challenge for Free Software. As you have probably noticed, not many Web Services are Free and Open.
GPL was written before the advent of the Web Browser, and it lacks clauses within it that require those who use open source software to provide services to publish any code changes they make to that software.
Personally I would like to see a 'British Library Rider' on the GPL that states that if you don't publish your changes to GPL software, then you must send them to a central storage area where interested parties can find them and catalogue them if they are useful.
Without something like this, I'm struggling to see how Free Software can handle the transistion to a service-oriented world.
Grant patents, but make them shorter. No more than five years for anything that can be duplicated easily, and the item then enters the public domain thereafter (ie you give up copyright protection if you get a patent).
Then people can decide whether to use patents, or plain and simple copyright.
Then you'll see if there is a great drop off in 'innovation'. I very much doubt it.
I would have thought that the software part would be covered by copyright, like all other creative works. The necessary protection sits in that sphere.
Software is built from only three primitives, as music is built from just 12 notes. You can hardly suggest that music has suffered from a lack of progress simply because you can't patent a tune.
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10 posts • joined Tuesday 29th May 2007 09:04 GMT
Reduce Copyright length
Copyright is supposed to be about ensure that novel stuff appears and is used. Therefore surely Copyright should only apply to really new stuff and that older stuff should lose its protection.
Otherwise there will be an incentive to constantly rehash old stuff rather than concentrating on producing stuff that is new.
No more than a decade after a creation or a couple of years after first commercial exploitation I would say.
Then the whole argument becomes moot.
This will not end without legislation
Until copyright is reduced in scope we're going to get nowhere here. Copyright and Patents on stuff that is easily replicated should be limited to a few months at best, before it becomes generally available. That way if you want a state sponsored monopoly, you'd better have a good pipeline of new stuff lined up.
It isn't copying that is killing music. It is being strangled by archaic IPR laws tailored to vested interests.
Bono as Sheriff of Nottingham
I can kind of see Bono as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Living off yesterday's glories so he doesn't have to do any real work today.
After all working for your days pay is for peasants.
Creators should get paid when they create, ie they need to go to work and get a *job*. Musicians should get a *job* to get paid (playing music funnily enough). Just like the rest of us have to.
Copyright is a monopoly and like all monopolies it creates a very few winners, who you hear a lot from since they own the distribution channels, and an awful lot of losers from whom you here nothing.
Music should be like French bread - worthless when it is old. If copyright was short we'd get a lot more fresh stuff and a lot more performances. And less whingeing from yesterday's "stars".
Why go backward when you could go forwards?
Not quite sure why you'd want to revert to the Julian Calendar given that it is inaccurate according to the Solar Year. If you're doing that you may as well go Lunar, which would mean that Easter stays still and Christmas moves. At least that would be a change.
Instead we should be championing the Herschel amendment to the Gregorian Calendar to exempt the year 4000 from being a leap year - making it an even better approximation of the solar year. Of course it won't affect us, but it would mean that the calendar will be named after a scientist rather than a theologian.
And that can only be a good thing.
Is Lucas' helmet art?
Would have been a better title, no?
Except that it's clearly not Lucas' helmet otherwise he wouldn't have had to fall back on the weak 'art' line.
Simple solution
The solution to all this is simple. Any business operating as a recruitment firm for temporary staff (an 'employment business' in the jargon - where they sit in the middle) must employ the individual directly on a contract of service (ie an employee) and be responsible for the individual they are hiring on all in the same legal entity.
That would deal with the temps situation completely and provide protection to the voiceless thousands of low-level staff who operate in this market with no security whatsoever, generally appalling treatment and very poor pay.
The alternative would be for the agents to get out of the middle of the relationship and again I would require that they can only place individuals on contracts of service if operating as an employment agent (as it is known in the jargon).
Don't we need a new licence
The move to service software driven by Web Services is a challenge for Free Software. As you have probably noticed, not many Web Services are Free and Open.
GPL was written before the advent of the Web Browser, and it lacks clauses within it that require those who use open source software to provide services to publish any code changes they make to that software.
Personally I would like to see a 'British Library Rider' on the GPL that states that if you don't publish your changes to GPL software, then you must send them to a central storage area where interested parties can find them and catalogue them if they are useful.
Without something like this, I'm struggling to see how Free Software can handle the transistion to a service-oriented world.
It's dead easy
Grant patents, but make them shorter. No more than five years for anything that can be duplicated easily, and the item then enters the public domain thereafter (ie you give up copyright protection if you get a patent).
Then people can decide whether to use patents, or plain and simple copyright.
Then you'll see if there is a great drop off in 'innovation'. I very much doubt it.
And you haven't even started on the salesmen
IT company salesmen are the biggest bane of my life. How much better it would be if we could dispense with their services.
But what about Copyright
I would have thought that the software part would be covered by copyright, like all other creative works. The necessary protection sits in that sphere.
Software is built from only three primitives, as music is built from just 12 notes. You can hardly suggest that music has suffered from a lack of progress simply because you can't patent a tune.