Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> It's one of the more famous and enduring songs from that time period, 
>> particularly the opening notes.  Now you have some american culture in you, 
>> assuming you listened to the song. :-)
> 
>   Except that Deep Purple is a British band...

Great! Two cultures for the price of one! ;-)

Seriously, thanks for the correction.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 07/12/09 22:23, Darren New wrote:
>> You might be using "reward" in a looser sense, simply meaning "pay" or
>> "reimburse" or "benefit" or something.
> 
>     I meant it as in benefit. Kind of forgot that reward was not that 
> flexible a word.

Then I think we're agreeing.

>>> Unless you're talking about free software...
>>
>> I'm not sure that free software within the discussion of modified
>> copyrights makes sense. If it's already free, why prevent copying?
> 
>     Stuff like the GPL. To put conditions on its usage.

Sure. My point was more philosophical. I understand why FSF wants to put 
conditions on its usage. My question was more "why should the government 
support that", just like our question has been "why should the government 
support copyright at all?"

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   In Finland in particular, it has been *officially* and *explicitly* stated
> > that deep-linking is legal and prohibiting it has no legal basis. Yet there
> > are tons of Finnish company websites out there with the prohibition in their
> > license agreement.

> But if you agree not to do it, you're violating other laws, like breach of 
> content. (Assuming that the click-through license agreement can be enforced.)

  I don't know how it is in the US, but at least here contracts cannot
forbid things which are explicitly stated as basic rights by law. If a
contract forbids such a thing, that part of the contract is invalid and
does not hold up in court. This even if you specifically agree and sign
the contract. A contract never surpasses the law, no matter how much you
"agree" with it.

  This fact causes a curious situation in particular with computer programs.
Finnish law explicitly states that creating backup copies of computer
programs is a basic right, and moreover it explicitly says that any part
of the program's license agreement which prohibits backupping is
non-enforceable.

  But then, what happens with computer programs with copy protection?
In other words, those which even if you try to copy them, won't work from
the copy. They are technically speaking breaking Finnish law by disallowing
a basic right. However, I have never heard this tested on court.

> That's another of those funky copyright questions: Who is doing the 
> "copying" if it's all 100% automated. If I post something to a newsgroup and 
> it gets distributed and google news picks it up and then you look at it, who 
> made "the copy"?

  Interpretation of the law on that regard is fuzzy here as well. Not even
the police (who are supposed to uphold the law) is completely sure how to
interpret it properly.

  For example the recent (much protested) internet censorship law here does
not, AFAIK, specifically give exemptions to search engines such as google.
However, when the question was brought up, the police interpreted that
google was not infringing the law (and they used hilariously inexact and
incorrect terminology for their decision).

  The new Finnish copyright law is even more mangled. Not even the people
who wrote it seem to fully understand it. Some high-ranked police official
even commented publicly that laws that cannot be unambiguously interpreted
and enforced make no sense.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> It's one of the more famous and enduring songs from that time period, 
> >> particularly the opening notes.  Now you have some american culture in you, 
> >> assuming you listened to the song. :-)
> > 
> >   Except that Deep Purple is a British band...

> Great! Two cultures for the price of one! ;-)

> Seriously, thanks for the correction.

  I wonder if this was a case of Eagleland Osmosis in reverse... :P

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   I don't know how it is in the US, but at least here contracts cannot
> forbid things which are explicitly stated as basic rights by law.

Same here - you cannot, for example, contractually agree to sell your 
organs. But there's also a bunch of things that the law states how it works, 
and you're allowed to waive those rights. That's kind of what I was talking 
about.

For example, I have copyright on anything I write, but I can sign a contract 
to sell that copyright to you.

There are even cases where we passed laws like "if you sign a waiver, and 
then later find out something that wasn't disclosed, the waiver doesn't 
cover that."  What happened?  Now all the contracts just include a clause 
that says "if you sign this waiver, and you later find something the waiver 
doesn't cover, you agree to waive that too."  Kind of not too useful once 
the lawyers figure out how to get around it.

> moreover it explicitly says that any part
> of the program's license agreement which prohibits backupping is
> non-enforceable.

That's what we would need to have in the laws here. It is complicated, of 
course, by having way too many jurisdictions.

>   The new Finnish copyright law is even more mangled. Not even the people
> who wrote it seem to fully understand it. Some high-ranked police official
> even commented publicly that laws that cannot be unambiguously interpreted
> and enforced make no sense.

They're unconstitutional here, but it's a fairly hard battle to win.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Warp wrote:
>   I wonder if this was a case of Eagleland Osmosis in reverse... :P

I think a lot of the bands from that time period in America had lots of 
british performers in them. Rock and roll kinda really took off here with 
the beatles, so it makes sense.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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On 13-7-2009 18:36, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>>   I wonder if this was a case of Eagleland Osmosis in reverse... :P
> 
> I think a lot of the bands from that time period in America had lots of 
> british performers in them. Rock and roll kinda really took off here 
> with the beatles, so it makes sense.
> 
Wasn't Elvis before the beatles?

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On 07/13/09 10:12, Warp wrote:
>    In Finland in particular, it has been *officially* and *explicitly* stated
> that deep-linking is legal and prohibiting it has no legal basis. Yet there
> are tons of Finnish company websites out there with the prohibition in their
> license agreement.

	What about where I link to an image, and make it appear as if it is on 
my site?

-- 
AAHH!!! I've deleted all my RAM!

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On 07/13/09 10:51, Darren New wrote:
> That's another of those funky copyright questions: Who is doing the
> "copying" if it's all 100% automated. If I post something to a newsgroup
> and it gets distributed and google news picks it up and then you look at
> it, who made "the copy"?

	Well, if you post on a public newsgroup, is there anything in the law 
that states what rights you have?

	If I were to write a letter to the editor of a paper newspaper, who has 
the rights? I'm assuming the newspaper does, but am not sure. If that's 
the case, I can see where posting to a public forum would grant the 
rights to the forum owners, who may state up front that anything posted 
there is in the public domain.

	Certainly, when Google Groups decided to hide email addresses in their 
archives, a lot of people were upset, saying that Google violated their 
rights by "modifying" their posts. To an extent, I wish they hadn't done 
it either, as it is often easier to search for my and other people's 
posts by searching for their email addresses, rather than their names.

	I had a thought the other day. You can include a header in your posts 
that inform archivers like Google to delete the post after n days. I 
believe Google complies. I don't know if it's binding, though.

	While I strongly value privacy, (possibly more than most), I'm not sure 
I like that header. It may give a false sense of privacy (if it's not 
legally enforceable). But even more pertinently, I feel it can be 
misused (in a manner of speaking). Someone can post some highly 
inflammatory material (politics, religion, etc). And he'll argue back 
and forth. The argument may get heated, but his posts will vanish from 
Google Groups in a month, whereas all of those who responded to him will 
likely be preserved.

	Then, when one of those "others" apply for a job, the potential 
employers will find his posts in that thread, but may not be able to see 
what he replied to. He may look bad due to his comments, because of the 
lack of context.

	So I was thinking: What if I made a script that would detect any 
messages with those headers. And what if any message I reply to (or its 
ancestors in the tree) has such a header (likewise for all descendants 
of my messages). The script would then reply to those messages, simply 
quote the whole thing, and post it back to the server.

	Other than people getting irritated, how much trouble would I get into?

-- 
AAHH!!! I've deleted all my RAM!

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On 07/13/09 11:36, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> I wonder if this was a case of Eagleland Osmosis in reverse... :P
>
> I think a lot of the bands from that time period in America had lots of
> british performers in them. Rock and roll kinda really took off here
> with the beatles, so it makes sense.

	I think I found a Wikipedia page for British songs that topped the US 
charts. They used to be quite common, but began petering out in the 
90's. Finally, there was an eight year period before the next one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_by_British_artists_which_reached_number-one_on_the_Hot_100_%28USA%29

	Are the cultures diverging? British music becoming crappier? US 
becoming more insular? All of the above?

-- 
AAHH!!! I've deleted all my RAM!

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