Posts by ScottY
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For me personally it has been a good year. With two young ones at home there has been much sleep deprivation, and I've felt tired all year. I am looking forward to the "break" (i.e. being run ragged by two under threes for days on end). But it's been a good year because I feel blessed (in a non-religious way ) to have a happy healthy family.
Bond's retirement though has saddened me :(
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That is, effectively, perpetual
Not meaning to nitpick, but life of the author plus 70/95 years is not perpetual. You can't assume the copyright term will be further extended. The last extension was controversial and caused the US some issues with the EU and other countries. I'm not saying it won't happen - but your argument assumes it is a certainty.
In the internet age, that's a much harder argument to make.
But the fact a song is somewhere on the interwebs doesn't amount to prima facie evidence the alleged infringer has copied. The more obscure the site the harder it will be for the plaintiff to show infringement.
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Matthew, I don’t want to end up trapped in a copyright death spiral, but there are two problems with that fictional piece you linked to.
Firstly, only the most rabid of copyright proponents (and I agree there are some) argue for perpetual copyright.
Secondly, the argument that copyright stifles creativity is a difficult one to prove. If I write a song, only to find someone else wrote the same thing in the past, I won’t be infringing their copyright unless it can be shown that I copied that person’s song. If I come up with something independently it’s not copying. Sure, if the first person’s song was on the radio a lot that might make it harder to show I didn’t copy their work. But the vast majority of songs written remain unpublished or are simply difficult to access.
Thirdly (I said two problems, but I lied...), the writer of the piece tries to argue people have been succeeding in getting courts to recognise that copyright exists in ideas. The author says: “That ended the legal principle that one does not copyright ideas but arrangements of words”. I’m sure a number of copyright lawyers I work with would be interested to learn that, because it flies in the face of accepted principles of copyright law. As would the idiots who tried to sue Dan Brown for copyright infringement a couple of years ago because he pinched their ideas and made a novel out of them (They lost - badly).
Anyway, I didn’t mean this to sound like a rant. And I’m sure some or all of what I’ve just said may have already been argued in the previous 17 pages of this thread.
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I think the only music I've bought recently is a Wiggles CD (yes, a CD - I am dreadfully old-fashioned).
My kids have a bad case of Wigglesmania, and the Christmas DVD is on constantly at home.
I can't get the damn tunes out of my head. But some of the music suggestions in this thread will hopefully help...
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I'm going to go against the tide here and just say it: some people do deserve a smack in the mouth.
I feel not a bit of pity for the corrupt thug Berlusconi. He changed the law so they couldn't convict him of corruption offences. And the things he's been accused of over the years would make a Mafia don blush.
If the law can't be used to take a bully down, what else is left but "direct action"? I'm not saying someone should do anything really bad to him. But a smack in the mouth will do for now.
He wasn't seriously hurt anyway.
(getting coat...)
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The most egregious offence I hold Andrew Williams responsible for is that he has forced me to agree with Cameron Slater.
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My own contribution on this thread was probably a bit nastier than I intended - sorry 'bout that.
I struggle to contain my annoyance when people come here, complain and then wonder why people don't like them. But I shouldn't bite.
What I like about this place is that, usually, if there's been a bit of nastiness or tension in the air, someone steps in and calms us all down, and normalcy is restored.
This is still one of the few forums where flamewars aren't the norm.
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yeah, sad eh ?...that after 3 years a pecking order becomes established and boring predictablity sets in.
pollywog, your whining is ruining my Friday.
The great thing abut an online forum is that if you don't like it you can leave with one click.
If you don't like the "scene" then don't stay.
And start your own forum, if you think you can do a better job than Russell.
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Hizbollah were able to predict that those towns were going to be targetted years in advance of the bombing, because they had prior knowledge that a certain militant group (called Hizbollah) was going to use those towns to launch several thousand missiles at Israel.
The Israeli bombing campaign did not simply target Hizbollah. It was aimed at the entire infrastructure of Lebanon. So perhaps not such a bad example after all.
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The New Zealand Institute issued a discussion paper a few days ago. It highlights how little NZ businesses invest in R&D, and how generally we're poor at commercialising innovation. And the number of patents we file is pretty dismal compared to the OECD average.
This is in part due to the lack of incentives to spend on R&D (no tax credits), and to cultural issues (such as the "DIY" Kiwi attitude that avoids use of experts and specialists).
The NZI report also has shiny pictures.