From: msm0000@my-deja.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 03:47:50 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 36 Message-ID: <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.40.165.130 X-Article-Creation-Date: Sun Aug 27 03:47:50 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x65.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 4.40.165.130 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmsm0000 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!feeder.via.net!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26432 As a follow-up, my website with e-texts was closed after the Tolkien estate's lawyers (Manches Solicitors, ) complained to Yahoo. Nobody discussed anything with me. I did not get any warning. My website was just up one day, and gone the next. Forget about the right to defend oneself against accusations; I have no right to even *learn* of them. Thanks to Yahoo for at least being polite in their message: they say they are sorry to close the site, and hope that I will become a customer again... I very much hope the great legal minds who defend Napster will some day go into book publishing, and let us create searchable e-texts for those who already bought the book. And I hope those goblins from the Tolkien estate will spend all their money on unsuccessful law suits. In article <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, msm0000@my-deja.com wrote: > I found etexts of LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales and a couple of essays. > > I offer them all for download for a fee of just 1 silver penny. > > On second thought, dont pay anything now. Pay to Butterbur next time > you pass those lands, as I still owe him a decent amount for the many > meals and nights at Prancing Pony. > > URL: http://www.geocities.com/msm0000/. > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 54 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: <6R8q5.21653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 13:38:10 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.25.99 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967383490 12.79.25.99 (Sun, 27 Aug 2000 13:38:10 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 13:38:10 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.20!wnmasters3!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26444 wrote in message news:8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > As a follow-up, my website with e-texts was closed after the > Tolkien estate's lawyers (Manches Solicitors, > ) complained to Yahoo. Nobody discussed > anything with me. I did not get any warning. My website was > just up one day, and gone the next. You were given warning. Several people told you that your action was illegal. You then promised to take the material down by a certain date... and did not. > Forget about the right to defend oneself against accusations; I > have no right to even *learn* of them. You were actively breaking copyright law and you knew it. What defense were you planning to give? > I very much hope the great legal minds who defend Napster will > some day go into book publishing, and let us create searchable e- > texts for those who already bought the book. As opposed to searchable e-texts available to EVERYONE. Such as the one you were providing. In any case, most of the arguments being used in the Napster battle don't apply to text publications. They'd have NO hope of extending the idea to books. The best hope of the Napster defense is founded on an exception which allows individuals to share copies of songs with each other... on the grounds that these are often freely available from radio transmissions. Napster is claiming that they are merely facillitating this legal form of sharing - much as the producers of tape recorders and such do. No similar exception exists for books... which are not freely distributed in any form, and thus a Napster-like source for e-texts would have no chance of surviving a legal challenge. > And I hope those goblins from the Tolkien estate will spend all > their money on unsuccessful law suits. Ah yes... such a fan you are. They are goblins because their lawyers defend them from theft. And for the record... it was me who contacted Manches. When it became clear you weren't taking the material down as promised. I do hope to see e-texts some day. And if the Tolkien Estate produces one I'll be happy to pay for it. But that's a long long way from giving away unlimited copies of something which does not belong to you. ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 11:09:37 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.21653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.cd.52 X-Server-Date: 27 Aug 2000 15:09:34 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26466 [This followup was also e-mailed to the cited author.] Conrad Dunkerson wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >And for the record... it was me who contacted Manches. When it >became clear you weren't taking the material down as promised. Good for you -- both for doing it, and for having the gumption to say so publicly. I think the Tolkien estate is missing an opportunity by not offering a modestly priced CD with all the texts. I'd easily pay $20-25 for Hobbit, LotR, Silm, and UT on a disk (*); I would go higher if HoME was included. And look at the opportunity for including Tolkien's art work! But even though I think the estate is making the wrong choice, it's their choice and no one else's. I fully support their legal and moral right to control publication. (*) This assumes it could be read and searched with normal software, not some half-assed proprietary search program. I have started contacting publishers when I see full texts posted and the posters ignore or argue with reminders about copyright. (So far I have not had occasion to do this with any Tolkienana.) If people are allowed to keep stealing printed material, book and periodical prices will rocket even higher for those of us who are honest. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: David Sulger Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 15:59:47 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 58 Message-ID: <8obdtd$hs3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 166.72.250.152 X-Article-Creation-Date: Sun Aug 27 15:59:47 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x73.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 166.72.250.152 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDorius Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed.germany.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.csl-gmbh.net!skynet.be!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26443 In article <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, msm0000@my-deja.com wrote: > Nobody discussed anything with me. I did not get any warning. My > website was just up one day, and gone the next. > Next time read the TOS. Specifically these parts: > You agree to not use the Service to: > (f) upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that infringes any > patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary > rights of any party; and > You acknowledge that Yahoo does not pre-screen Content, but that > Yahoo and its designees shall have the right (but not the obligation) > in their sole discretion to refuse or remove any Content that is > available via the Service. Without limiting the foregoing, Yahoo and > its designees shall have the right to remove any Content that > violates the TOS or is otherwise objectionable. You agree that you > must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any > Content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or > usefulness of such Content. and > 12. TERMINATION > You agree that Yahoo, in its sole discretion, may terminate your > password, Yahoo GeoCities Site, use of the Service or use of any > other Yahoo service, and remove and discard any Content within the > Service, for any reason, including, without limitation, for lack of > use or if Yahoo believes that you have violated or acted > inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS....You agree that > any termination of your access to the Service under any provision of > this TOS may be effected without prior notice, and acknowledge and > agree that Yahoo may immediately deactivate or delete your Yahoo > GeoCities Site and all related information and files in your Yahoo > GeoCities Site and/or bar any further access to such files or the > Service. Further, you agree that Yahoo shall not be liable to you or > any third-party for any termination of your access to the Service. So stop whining. > Forget about the right to defend oneself against accusations; I have > no right to even *learn* of them. What rights? You accepted the TOS, and broke it. Yahoo has every right to remove your website, and they are not obligated to inform you about it. Besides, you're not being sued in court or anything like that, so what accuastions do you need to defend against? --Dave Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 15:52:51 -0400 Lines: 19 Message-ID: <39A97192.C7FAF648@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8obdtd$hs3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: FFdBSAO/+ER5ndB0C/B3d87Lx3H3C302qrf+YHDXMGg= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2000 21:47:08 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26483 David Sulger wrote: > > Forget about the right to defend oneself against accusations; I have > > no right to even *learn* of them. > > What rights? You accepted the TOS, and broke it. I'll bet he just clicked "Accept" without reading it. What a moron! He probably doesn't even read the instruction manual before operating a new car! -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 16:12:57 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 25 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8obdtd$hs3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.ce.89 X-Server-Date: 27 Aug 2000 20:12:54 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.frii.net!easynews!cyclone-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26552 David Sulger wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >What rights? You accepted the TOS, and broke it. Yahoo has every >right to remove your website, and they are not obligated to inform you >about it. Besides, you're not being sued in court or anything like >that, so what accuastions do you need to defend against? This gives me an idea. Would people please complain about my old Web site at http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1791/ ? Everything there is horribly out of date, but Geocities changed the password in 1997, wouldn't tell me the new one, and ignored requests to delete the pages. I even contacted the "block coordinator" or whatever they're called -- you know, the Geocities user who helps out others in the neighborhood. She promised to take care of it but never did. So since Yahoo now runs Geocities, maybe if people complain about my page Yahoo will pull the plug. I'd be grateful. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.21653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 29 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: uchinews 967436014 128.135.12.7 (Sun, 27 Aug 2000 23:13:34 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 23:13:34 CDT Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 04:13:34 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26489 Quoth "Conrad Dunkerson" : > wrote: > > As a follow-up, my website with e-texts was closed after the > > Tolkien estate's lawyers (Manches Solicitors, > > ) complained to Yahoo. > And for the record... it was me who contacted Manches. When it > became clear you weren't taking the material down as promised. I'm really glad to hear that you did this... and that it's possible! There have been at least a couple of times in the past year or two when I've run into situations where contacting the Estate's lawyers was just about all I could think of to do, but I haven't known where to go. Do they have a straightforward "infringement report form" on their web site? A specific address (email or otherwise) to write to? And has anyone told them about that blasted Russian site? :) On another note, I too would love to see official e-texts at some point. (I'd _really_ love to see a "HoMe Custom Text Integrator", which would assemble the "most canonical" version of the texts based on the criteria you input... but that would be quite a challenge.) With a reasonably complicated system like that, I could imagine that storing the actual texts in a proprietary database format would be completely understandable... which would make maintaining their copyright a good bit easier. (I'd hope they'd at least allow manual cut and paste, at least up to some sensible byte limit...) I wonder if anyone associated with the Estate will read this... Steuard Jensen ###### From: "O. Sharp" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 28 Aug 2000 19:24:37 GMT Organization: Each One With Actual Bloodstains! Lines: 21 Message-ID: <8oee9l$oak$2@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.21653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: c7.b7.09.72 User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990517 ("Psychonaut") (UNIX) (SunOS/4.1.4 (sun4m)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!RRZ.Uni-Koeln.DE!news.netcologne.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!cyclone-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26538 Conrad Dunkerson wrote much, but here's the part I'm quoting: : And for the record... it was me who contacted Manches. When it : became clear you weren't taking the material down as promised. Yaaaaayyyyy! Yaaaayyyyyyyyy! Yay- uhm, erm- Uh, I mean, I too approve of Mr. Dunkerson's actions. :) : I do hope to see e-texts some day. And if the Tolkien Estate : produces one I'll be happy to pay for it. But that's a long long : way from giving away unlimited copies of something which does not : belong to you. Seconded. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ohh@netcom.com Though I admit it _does_ rather limit my ability to begin selling my 15,000 CD-ROM copies of "The Book Of Mazarbul Searchable E-Text". :) ###### Message-ID: <39AAC679.B71B31AE@po-box.mcgill.ca> From: Carl Blondin X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8obdtd$hs3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 20:06:13 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.168.182.34 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mcgill.ca X-Trace: carnaval.risq.qc.ca 967493173 198.168.182.34 (Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:06:13 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:06:13 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!news.idt.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!carnaval.risq.qc.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26508 Stan Brown wrote: > > David Sulger wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: > >What rights? You accepted the TOS, and broke it. Yahoo has every > >right to remove your website, and they are not obligated to inform you > >about it. Besides, you're not being sued in court or anything like > >that, so what accuastions do you need to defend against? > > This gives me an idea. Would people please complain about my old Web > site at > http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1791/ ? Just find youself a good hacker friend and ask him to do a little favor for you. It won't really be anything illegal if you ask him to shut down your own site. Carl ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 29 Aug 2000 17:19:24 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 199 Message-ID: <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967562364 591 10.0.3.2 (29 Aug 2000 15:19:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2000 15:19:24 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26559 Warning: long and tough post, if you don't feel like it click on the next post for your regular sheduled discussion of B***** W**** sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > Quoth "Conrad Dunkerson" : > > And for the record... it was me who contacted Manches. When it At least you stand to it. For doing that you have earned back a few percent of what you have lost for backstabbing msm0000. > I'm really glad to hear that you did this... I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as everyone is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed, it seems to be up to me to deliver the other sides argument: Bad that you did that. Bad that you have supported todays evil rulers [1] and their injust laws [2]. Bad that you have contributed to making it impossible to offer a service and advertise it on Usenet without having the whistle blown on them, for nothing more than "it is illegal" [3]. [1] Tolkien compared politicians to Orcs. One of many good lines from him. [2] proof that copyright (at least in the case of LotR/Hobbit/UT, which is at discussion here) constitutes unjust law is easy: 1 The U.S. constitution (I will just focus on that, for simplicity, and also Yahoo is in the U.S.) declares that copyright shall a) exist for the reason of INCREASIG AUTHORING b) give authors (NOT publishers, they only get it passed on from the author) an monopoly FOR AN LIMITED TIME 2 for "limited time" (1b) to be an meanigfull phrase re the author it must mean significantly shorter than unlimited time = the authors life 2a Assuming that authors expect to die around 70 and are usually above 10 that makes maximum life expectance about 60 years, average about 30 2b for "significant" it will be difficult to insert more than 1/2 of that (=15). Originally the U.S. gave 17 years, as my numbers are inprecise that is an OK value 2c extending "limited" to "authors death plus 75 years" (as is todays U.S. law, "thanks" to multiple copyright extension laws) clearly violates the "limited" as demanded in the constitution. That makes present copyright law injust 2d LotR, Hobbit (even the revised one) are both WELL over 17 years old, even Silm and UT are over 17, HoME I/II are exactly 17, making still regarding LotR/Hibbit/UT as copyrighted injust as under 2c 3 for "increasing authoring" (1a) to be an meaningfull phrase copyright has to have an effect on the authors decision to author or not 3a retro-active after-the-publication extensions (as in 2c) of copyright do not have this effect. Copyright extensions should only apply to new works, the old subject to law as when they were published. That is a second constitution breaking injust law So giving this we can prove that demanding that LotR/Hobbit/UT are under copyright is injust, we can claim msm000 was breaking an injust law. See [3] and [4] on that. [3] so was/is opposing any other injust law [2] by circumventing it. Look up the those-day governments attitudes against helping slaves flee or overturning monarchies (which is what the founders of the U.S. did). Law is just the will of the Orcs [1]. Thinking citizens (as opposed to slaves) have the right to oppose it [4], actively (=revolution) and passively (=violating law). Would you turn in people doing what is their good right? Conrad backstabbed msm0000 by betraying him to the rulers, and so is helping their injustice, doing the Orcs work, using his power to spread the Morgothian element in society. Now you know why you have lost all respect I had for you (minus the few percent regained for owning up). Do you intend to go on doing further backstabbing or are you going to see the light and reform yourself? [4] so says the U.S. constitution, not surprising, as it was written by revolutionaries, who had no interest of declaring their own actions a crime. I suppose it speaks for their sincerity, that they wrote in what fits their demands for freedom, and not what fits the latent desire of every governor for keeping power, one they got it. > [surprised] and that it's possible! You can bet that it is possible. Law supports those that profit from it in any way it can (so long the law gets its share of the spoils, of course). Lawyers are known since centuries or even millennia for having no morals or guilty concience, just follow the politicians will. Both Orcs. > when I've run into situations where contacting the Estate's lawyers > was just about all I could think of to do, but I haven't known where msm0000 has even been a helpfull as giving you their URL. There sure will be an e-mail address there, if you intend to also do some backstabbing. Morgoth is waiting for you to join his servants. Am I actually the only person on this group to have read Tolkien and understood what he and all the other mythologies have to tell about how evil works and how it lives from people _duped_ by the rulers [5] propaganda into helping it spread? [5] Maiar that became Balrogs, Haradrim, Easterlings, ... > And has anyone told them about that blasted Russian site? :) As I have said before: it is in R u s s i a , thankfully Russia was still the Soviet Union when international copyright was standardised to the worst standards (Berne convention). Do you think they bothered entering a law that only benefits "capitalistic profiteers"? Copying whatever you were able to was a way of life in the Soviet Union, known as "Samizdat". Since then Russia may be trying to present the face of being an democracy. But at the moment they are still trying to prevent their government being obliterated by the mafia and separatists. I doubt VERY strongly, that signing up for or actually enforcing laws which offer nothing to either them or their citizens is high on their priorities list. Copyright in addition to being injustly extended is also a brittle system, dependant on every last tate being in on it. So in addition to offending my sense of justice it also offends my professional ethos as engineer, where making something robust and reliable is paramount. > On another note, I too would love to see official e-texts at some Who on this NG wouldn't? > point. (I'd _really_ love to see a "HoMe Custom Text Integrator", > which would assemble the "most canonical" version of the texts based > on the criteria you input... but that would be quite a challenge.) I would say that that is neigh impossible. There exists no AI software that can do that, so that would require someone (CT?) to go through all the text individually marking each section. And that for every such question immaginable. Forget it. > With a reasonably complicated system like that, I could imagine that Replace "reasonably" with "unmanagable". > storing the actual texts in a proprietary database format would be > completely understandable... which would make maintaining their > copyright a good bit easier. Nope. It would be just as copyable as pure ASCII text, bits are bits before the almighty copy program. It just, like every other copy prevention system, makes it more difficult to access/use by the legitimate (= bought the CD) users (no importing into the users existing text collection/searching systems, yet annother separate interface, limit on what computer systems it will run on [6]). Copy prevention is just as evil as copyright. Same Orcs at work. [6] just look at the DVD CSS vs DeCSS debacle. The industry brought that on itsself by making an closed format and then denying Linux users *who* *had* *bought* the DVD access to them on their computers. So the format was hacked. Now the MPAA is trying to lock the barn after the horse has bolted. > I wonder > if anyone associated with the Estate will read this... Unlikely. They (with the exeption of CT) seem to care for the fans about as much as PJ does. They are not authors, just estate that inherited a money machine. The money counts for them, nothing else. We live in the age of evil. Wellcome to Mordor everywhere. Now where can I get a boat to Aman from? Even Tol Erressea will do. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.21653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 33 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 02:14:02 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.27.50 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967515242 12.79.27.50 (Tue, 29 Aug 2000 02:14:02 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 02:14:02 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!portc01.blue.aol.com!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.20!wnmasters3!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26568 "Steuard Jensen" wrote in message news:OFlq5.445$v3.6191@uchinews... > There have been at least a couple of times in the past year or > two when I've run into situations where contacting the Estate's > lawyers was just about all I could think of to do, but I haven't > known where to go. Do they have a straightforward "infringement > report form" on their web site? A specific address (email or > otherwise) to write to? I just write letters. There is no form that I'm aware of. The Estate's legal representative is; Cathleen Blackburn Manches & Co. 3 Worcester Street Oxford OX1 2PZ U.K. Phone: 01865 722106 Fax: 01865 201012 I also have an e-mail address. If anyone needs to contact her that way let me know and I'll send it to you. Don't want to just post it and have her end up getting spammed. > And has anyone told them about that blasted Russian site? :) I haven't mentioned it because I didn't think they could do anything about it. :( ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.21653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 24 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 02:26:56 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.27.50 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967516016 12.79.27.50 (Tue, 29 Aug 2000 02:26:56 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 02:26:56 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.20!wnmasters3!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26569 "Stan Brown" wrote in message news:MPG.1412f939add547c798b693@news.mindspring.com... > But even though I think the estate is making the wrong choice, > it's their choice and no one else's. I fully support their legal > and moral right to control publication. I agree that it would be to everyone's benefit if the Estate produced searchable e-texts, but I don't see this so much as a 'choice' as unfamiliarity. I mean... their lawyer apparently didn't have e-mail until recently and by all accounts Christopher doesn't have it still. These are not the sort of people to be leading a tech savvy e-text revolution in the publishing market (though I wouldn't have chosen Stephen King for that role either). I don't think we will see Tolkien's works in e-text until it becomes standard for books to be available in that form. P.S. Thanks to various people for support. The 'big stick' approach isn't my favorite, but it's pretty much the only option when people won't voluntarily respect the Estate's rights. ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:13:03 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 63 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.cc.cd X-Server-Date: 29 Aug 2000 17:12:53 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!logbridge.uoregon.edu!feeder.via.net!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26595 Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >[2] proof that copyright (at least in the case of LotR/Hobbit/UT, >which is at discussion here) constitutes unjust law is easy: > >1 The U.S. constitution (I will just focus on that, for simplicity, > and also Yahoo is in the U.S.) declares that copyright shall > a) exist for the reason of INCREASIG AUTHORING > b) give authors (NOT publishers, they only get it passed on from the > author) an monopoly FOR AN LIMITED TIME True (except for the spelling errors). But Congress decides what "a limited time" shall be. I happen to agree with you that "75 years after the death of the author" (or is it 50?) is way too long, but it is not Constitutionally prohibited since it is still limited. >Law is just the will of the Orcs [1]. This is just silly. There are bad laws, but that does not mean that all laws are bad. >[1] Tolkien compared politicians to Orcs. One of many good lines from him. I have a vague memory of his complaint in some letter about orclike behavior, but I don't believe he was making a general comparison. Would you cite your source, please? >Thinking citizens (as opposed >to slaves) have the right to oppose it [4], actively (=revolution) >and passively (=violating law). Would you turn in people doing what >is their good right? > >[4] so says the U.S. constitution, not surprising, as it was written >by revolutionaries, who had no interest of declaring their own actions >a crime. I suggest you reread the Constitution, and point out the specific section that supports your contention. Hint: you'll have a tough time finding such a section. You may be perhaps thinking of the US Declaration of Independence, which is rhetoric not law. If the Declaration had any legal effect, the present-day laws against overthrowing the US government by force and violence would be null. >msm0000 has even been a helpfull as giving you their URL. There sure >will be an e-mail address there, if you intend to also do some >backstabbing. Morgoth is waiting for you to join his servants. You have several times accused Conrad of "backstabbing". As a purely semantic matter, it's not backstabbing if he reports a copyright violation publicly and after warnings, as he did. But on a more substantive note, I believe what he did was morally and ethically proper. msm did not own the copyright on the material in question, and therefore had no legal or moral right to publish it. It's really that simple. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA http://oakroadsystems.com My reply address is correct as is. The courtesy of providing a correct reply address is more important to me than time spent deleting spam. ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 30 Aug 2000 03:02:57 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 140 Message-ID: <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967597377 664 10.0.3.2 (30 Aug 2000 01:02:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Aug 2000 01:02:57 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26600 brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: > Neil Franklin wrote in > rec.arts.books.tolkien: > >[2] proof that copyright (at least in the case of LotR/Hobbit/UT, > >which is at discussion here) constitutes unjust law is easy: > > > >1 The U.S. constitution (I will just focus on that, for simplicity, > > and also Yahoo is in the U.S.) declares that copyright shall > > a) exist for the reason of INCREASIG AUTHORING > > b) give authors (NOT publishers, they only get it passed on from the > > author) an monopoly FOR AN LIMITED TIME > > True (except for the spelling errors). But Congress decides what "a > limited time" shall be. I happen to agree with you that "75 years > after the death of the author" (or is it 50?) is way too long It was 50 up until being changed to 75 somwhere around 1993. A law called the Sonny Buono copyright extension act or something similar. > is way too long, but > it is not Constitutionally prohibited since it is still limited. In letter, but not in any effect that would be relevant from either the authors not his readers point of view. And as the constitution writers intended it to be effectively limited, it is a violation of the constitution. > >Law is just the will of the Orcs [1]. > > This is just silly. There are bad laws, but that does not mean that > all laws are bad. I did not claim that all laws are bad. Just that laws are make by bad people and that therefore one should not automatically assume all laws to be good. I was critisizing the "it is illegal, so we have got to stop it" type of argumentation which is common among pro-copyrightists, and which seems to be Conrads motivation (at least that has been his argumentation for why he has been against msm). > >[1] Tolkien compared politicians to Orcs. One of many good lines from him. > > I have a vague memory of his complaint in some letter about orclike > behavior, but I don't believe he was making a general comparison. > Would you cite your source, please? Some post on this newsgroup. IIRC something from Letters (which I do not have), commenting on where the various people of ME have gone. > >Thinking citizens (as opposed > >to slaves) have the right to oppose it [4], actively (=revolution) > > > >[4] so says the U.S. constitution, not surprising, as it was written > >by revolutionaries, who had no interest of declaring their own actions > >a crime. > > I suggest you reread the Constitution, and point out the specific > section that supports your contention. Hint: you'll have a tough > time finding such a section. No specific section. The entire articles limiting the rights of the government are aimed at safeguarding the citizens right to force the government to behave the way the citizens want it to be (as opposed to governors telling subjects what they are to do). > the present-day laws against overthrowing the US government by force > and violence would be null. I was talking about opposing, not overthrowing. The later should have been rendered unneccessary by the possiblity to dispose of the governors by peacefull means (ballot). > >msm0000 has even been a helpfull as giving you their URL. There sure > >will be an e-mail address there, if you intend to also do some > >backstabbing. Morgoth is waiting for you to join his servants. > > You have several times accused Conrad of "backstabbing". As a purely > semantic matter, it's not backstabbing As english is not my best language, you may suggest a word you feel fits better. I am looking for something that describes this situation: A few kids are fighting on the school ground. A dislikes B but has no inside-group power against him, so he goes and tells tales to the school headmaster (outside-group power) and has B eliminated from the fight by this. It should have negative connotations in the style of "foul play". Backstabbing fits this nearer than any other word I know. > if he reports a copyright > violation That would be the "telling tales" as mentioned above. > But on a more substantive note, I believe what he did was morally > and ethically proper. That is exactly the question I was throwing up: is it? I doubt so. > msm did not own the copyright on the material > in question, and therefore had no legal or moral right to publish > it. And that is the underlying question: does the estate still morally [1] own the material? Copyright clearly states that after the limited time is over, the material reverts to the public (including msm). The issue is, whether the copyright extension, on which LotRs continued copyright is based, is legitimate. If it is not, then LotR has gone public and msm is justified in publishing it. [1] legally the case is clear, LotR is still copyrighted. The discussion is about whether legality is still fitting morality or violating it. And if legality is here being immoral (as I claim it is), then Conrads action ceases to be a good deed, and becomes helping an evil law. > It's really that simple. Legally simple. Morally not at all as simple, as all the "great deed" posters thought. That is why I posted, to point that out. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 17:06:35 -0400 Lines: 25 Message-ID: <39AC25D9.632286F7@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: I2ha+OpzhmcNwOT3pOycpCr4MezYcQIhSGJd2q7RAic= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Aug 2000 00:06:10 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26602 Neil Franklin wrote: > [2] proof that copyright (at least in the case of LotR/Hobbit/UT, > which is at discussion here) constitutes unjust law is easy: > > 1 The U.S. constitution (I will just focus on that, for simplicity, > and also Yahoo is in the U.S.) declares that copyright shall > a) exist for the reason of INCREASIG AUTHORING Without agreeing with NF or defending msm, I have to agree that present law is unjust. It seems unreasonable to me to allow a copyright holder to hang on to its monopoly while not offering the product for sale. What that does in effect is make the gov't an accomplice in forcibly denying people access to what was written. It's hard to believe that this is what the framers of copyright law had in mind. I think a more just system would require that the product be made available at a reasonable price in order to maintain the monopoly. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 112 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 23:05:59 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.78.74.113 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967590359 12.78.74.113 (Tue, 29 Aug 2000 23:05:59 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 23:05:59 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.20!wnmasters3!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26606 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > At least you stand to it. For doing that you have earned back a > few percent of what you have lost for backstabbing msm0000. Could you explain in what way I 'backstabbed' him? He HAD after all promised to willingly do precisely what he is now complaining about. It is unfair of me to hold him accountable to his own word? > I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as > everyone is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed Evil? Now that truly seems a bit overboard. Even if your personal moral code holds the prevention of theft as an immoral act (mine doesn't) I'd be able to claim some defense on the basis of my view that it was justified in support of CT and the Estate. If there were no laws or moral strictures against taking things created by others... well, then I >still< like the Tolkiens better and am perfectly justified in supporting the 'side' I like better - or would you deny me that right? :) > Bad that you did that. Bad that you have supported todays evil > rulers [1] and their injust laws [2]. Bad that you have > contributed to making it impossible to offer a service and > advertise it on Usenet without having the whistle blown on them, > for nothing more than "it is illegal" [3]. Correction... there was more than "it is illegal". There was also "it is immoral" and "it is harmful to people I respect". > 1 The U.S. constitution (I will just focus on that, for > simplicity, and also Yahoo is in the U.S.) declares that > copyright shall > a) exist for the reason of INCREASIG AUTHORING > b) give authors (NOT publishers, they only get it passed on > from the author) an monopoly FOR AN LIMITED TIME > 2 for "limited time" (1b) to be an meanigfull phrase re the > author it must mean significantly shorter than unlimited time > = the authors life Which would imply that you agree with me... given that he included works authored by CHRISTOPHER Tolkien, who is still quite alive. The 'publishers' weren't an issue at all in my action. I was acting to protect the man who produced some of the books and he and other heirs of the man who produced the rest. > 3 for "increasing authoring" (1a) to be an meaningfull phrase > copyright has to have an effect on the authors decision to author > or not I disagree. There seems no reason to believe the 'increasing authoring' provision was intended to act on an author by author basis. If the works of one author are not protected other authors are less likely to devote the effort only to have their creations stolen from them. > So giving this we can prove that demanding that LotR/Hobbit/UT > are under copyright is injust, we can claim msm000 was breaking > an injust law. See [3] and [4] on that. Unfinished Tales. Containing considerable material written by Christopher Tolkien. Who is still alive. Even allowing your apparent belief that msm000 has equal right to the works of JRR Tolkien as the man's children (which seems to me >ethically< (not merely legally) absurd) his action still violates copyright law as you are attempting to redefine it. > Conrad backstabbed msm0000 by betraying him to the rulers, and so > is helping their injustice, doing the Orcs work, using his power > to spread the Morgothian element in society. Nonsense. That worldwide laws on copyright happen to agree with me is simply a validation of my belief that Christopher Tolkien has more right to the product of his labor than msm000 does AND my belief that the children of JRR Tolkien likewise have more right to the product of their father's labor than msm000 does. > Now you know why you have lost all respect I had for you (minus > the few percent regained for owning up). Do you intend to go on > doing further backstabbing or are you going to see the light and > reform yourself? I intend to continue supporting the Tolkien Estate. Which your radical anarchism (at least as regards copyright) ought to support as my personal right to be free of the 'evil rulers'. If the lawyers and politicians and other 'evils' all supported msm000's 'right' to take things created by others I'd probably have worked towards hacking the site to remove the material. Given that the world is pretty much on my side here I took the easy way out.... so I'll admit to being lazy, but not evil. :) > Am I actually the only person on this group to have read Tolkien > and understood what he and all the other mythologies have to tell > about how evil works and how it lives from people _duped_ by the > rulers [5] propaganda into helping it spread? You apparently missed the bit on his feelings about people who violate copyrights. > [5] Maiar that became Balrogs, Haradrim, Easterlings, ... And now... I suddenly suspect that you've been engaging in deliberately over-the-top rhetoric as a joke - but am far from certain. ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 23:43:46 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 144 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.cd.95 X-Server-Date: 30 Aug 2000 03:43:42 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!upp1.onvoy!msc1.onvoy!onvoy.com!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!easynews!cyclone-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26625 Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: >In letter, but not in any effect that would be relevant from either >the authors not his readers point of view. And as the constitution >writers intended it to be effectively limited, it is a violation of >the constitution. Sorry, but *your* notion of what is an appropriate limit is irrelevant to the fact that *some* limit is stated in the law, and therefore the law is prima facie constitutional. The copyright revisions are not new, and you can rest assured that if there were any *legitimate* challenge to the statutory limit, it would have been litigated by now. Essentially, you're in the position of the tax protestors who deny the authority of the US over them because they are "sovereign" and use other pseudo-legal language to justify their frivolous claims. "Frivolous" is not my word, by the way, but a legal term, meaning an argument so absurd that hearing it is a waste of the court's time. Frivolous pleadings often lead to fines on the litigant and possibly the attorney. >> >Law is just the will of the Orcs [1]. >> >> This is just silly. There are bad laws, but that does not mean that >> all laws are bad. > >I did not claim that all laws are bad. Just that laws are make >by bad people and that therefore one should not automatically assume >all laws to be good. Again, not all people who make laws are bad. You substitute one sweeping generalization for another. Both are equally silly. Not all laws are good" is true, as I said earlier. But all that means is "I can point to at least one bad law". It does not imply that all laws are bad or even that a significant number are bad. And it certainly does not imply that legislators are bestial and subhuman "Orcs"). Though if it did, what would that say about the people who elected them? >> >[1] Tolkien compared politicians to Orcs. One of many good lines from him. >> >> I have a vague memory of his complaint in some letter about orclike >> behavior, but I don't believe he was making a general comparison. >> Would you cite your source, please? > >Some post on this newsgroup. IIRC something from Letters (which I do >not have), commenting on where the various people of ME have gone. In other words, you have no support for your statement. "Some post on this newsgroup" is not a citation, and neither is "some letter". You would need to cite a particular subject, author, and date (or a particular letter) with the sentence or two that support your position. >> >Thinking citizens (as opposed >> >to slaves) have the right to oppose it [4], actively (=revolution) >> > >> >[4] so says the U.S. constitution, not surprising, as it was written >> >by revolutionaries, who had no interest of declaring their own actions >> >a crime. >> >> I suggest you reread the Constitution, and point out the specific >> section that supports your contention. Hint: you'll have a tough >> time finding such a section. > >No specific section. The entire articles limiting the rights of the >government are aimed at safeguarding the citizens right to force the >government to behave the way the citizens want it to be (as opposed to >governors telling subjects what they are to do). In other words, you have no support for your position. I note also that you changed your position. There is no connection between "citizens have right to make revolution; the Constitution says so", which you said originally, and "governments have limited powers; the Constitution says so". The first is quite false; the second is partially true but irrelevant. People who post about what the Constitution says should read it to avoid making themselves look quite so silly. >> the present-day laws against overthrowing the US government by force >> and violence would be null. > >I was talking about opposing, not overthrowing. Did you read what you yourself wrote, or were you on automatic pilot? You used the word "revolution". If that isn't overthrowing the government, what is? >> >msm0000 has even been a helpfull as giving you their URL. There sure >> >will be an e-mail address there, if you intend to also do some >> >backstabbing. Morgoth is waiting for you to join his servants. >> >> You have several times accused Conrad of "backstabbing". As a purely >> semantic matter, it's not backstabbing > >As english is not my best language, you may suggest a word you feel >fits better. I'll give you a phrase, not a word: reported copyright violations to the copyright owner after giving the violator a chance to correct the violation voluntarily. >I am looking for something that describes this situation: >A few kids are fighting on the school ground. A dislikes B but has no >inside-group power against him, so he goes and tells tales to the school >headmaster (outside-group power) and has B eliminated from the fight by >this. It should have negative connotations in the style of "foul play". > >Backstabbing fits this nearer than any other word I know. "Putting an end to violence" seems nearer the mark. How long should the kid let some little hoodlum beat on him? >> if he reports a copyright >> violation > >That would be the "telling tales" as mentioned above. News flash: rules of conduct for adults are different from rules for children. "Don't be a tattletale" is a childish rule suitable for children. Whether you and msm are adults chronologically, you're in an adult forum and need to behave like adults -- or take the consequences. The goos part of this is that if you do behave like adults, it doesn't matter how old you are, what color, what height, what sexual orientation, how disabled, etc: you will be treated exactly like everyone else, namely judged on your articles. How on earth do you think any crimes can ever be redressed if not reported to the responsible authorities? Do you believe you are "telling tales" when someone takes your wallet at knife point and you furnish the police a description? -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 30 Aug 2000 23:19:10 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 259 Message-ID: <6ud7iq8n1t.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967670350 1067 10.0.3.2 (30 Aug 2000 21:19:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Aug 2000 21:19:10 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26626 "Conrad Dunkerson" writes: > "Neil Franklin" wrote in message > news:6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > > At least you stand to it. For doing that you have earned back a > > few percent of what you have lost for backstabbing msm0000. > > Could you explain in what way I 'backstabbed' him? He HAD after > all promised to willingly do precisely what he is now complaining > about. It is unfair of me to hold him accountable to his own word? Did he? I must have missed that post (or possibly never recieved it, this news server loses a few posts a day). I only got posts in which you were attacking him for putting up the texts, and in which he was not prepared to take them down. If he did promise you so, and then break the promise, then my claim of backstabbing would be not appropriate. > > I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as > > everyone is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed > > Evil? Now that truly seems a bit overboard. I use "evil" as in the sense of "behaviour which will lead to destroying society", which IHMO includes injust laws (they destroy citizens belief in the benefit of law, and so contribute to law being abolished, which is not good for society). > Even if your personal > moral code holds the prevention of theft as an immoral act (mine > doesn't) Theft [1] is immoral, preventing that is good. But we here are not talking about theft. We are a) talking about violating copyright [2] and b) about copyright that should have expired [3]. [1] according to The Concise Oxford Dictionary: theft n, (act ot instance of) stealing; ... steal v, (stole; stolen; pr. sto-) & 1. v.t. take away (things, or abs.) esp. secretly ... 2. obtain surreptitiously or by surprise (stole a kiss...) 3. ~ (away) win, get possession of ... 4. v.i. move (in, out, away, ...) sectretly ... [[ 5 and 6 apply even less ]] [2] making a copy (= original remains = not taken away = not stolen) without paying a license to the author (he still has his copy, so that is not stolen either). As you see copyright violation is not stealing, no matter how often the propagandists of the publishing industry like to spread this piece of twisted argumentation. [3] as argued, the works involved [4] should be out of copyright, as they were published over 17 years ago, and the copyright extension laws (on which their continued copyright rests) are morally wrong. SO supporting these laws is equally morally wrong. [4] I have not visited msm0000s website, so I am assuming the works published there to be only those named in the Subject: line, LotR (1948, 53 years go), Hobbit (1937/1951, 63/49 years), UT (1980, 20 years). All of these are over 17 years. > I'd be able to claim some defense on the basis of my view > that it was justified in support of CT and the Estate. If their demand (copyright) were based on a just law (non-extended copyright). As the works in question are over 17 years published their demand for continued copyright is only legal due to injust laws and so immoral. By supporting them in this you are supporting immoral. That was the claim I made. > If there > were no laws or moral strictures against taking things created by > others... a) msm000 is/was not "taking". He made copies (and offered to make (automatically) more copies). No one lost their copy in the process, nothing taken away, nothing stolen. b) there exists a stricture against copying without paying to the author, but this morally ends at 1/2 life experience, and in these cases has done so. > well, then I >still< like the Tolkiens better and am > perfectly justified in supporting the 'side' I like better - or > would you deny me that right? :) You may support them in their injust demand, but I will call you an helper on immorality for it. And I call on you (and others who expressed support for you) to rethink your stance and stop this helping. The estate has had its 17 years of monopoly on publishing, now the public wants its right to the texts. > > Bad that you did that. Bad that you have supported todays evil > > Correction... there was more than "it is illegal". There was also > "it is immoral" Not. As the authors (both JRRT for LotR and Hobbit) and CT for UT have had their respective 17 years monopoly. > and "it is harmful to people I respect". As is all competition. That is the base of market economy (often called capitalism). The main reason why we get products so much cheaper thses days, and so are materially better off. Copyright gives authors a limited monopoly (at the cost of all readers who would like electronic copies), JRRT and CT have had that. Now it is the others time. > > b) give authors (NOT publishers, they only get it passed on > > from the author) an monopoly FOR AN LIMITED TIME > > > 2 for "limited time" (1b) to be an meanigfull phrase re the > > author it must mean significantly shorter than unlimited time > > = the authors life > > Which would imply that you agree with me... given that he included > works authored by CHRISTOPHER Tolkien, who is still quite alive. As I said in the bit just below, that you snipped: 2b for "significant" it will be difficult to insert more than 1/2 of that (=15). Originally the U.S. gave 17 years, as my numbers are inprecise that is an OK value I am giving CT 17 years. UT is 20 years published (my copy has "forst publication 1980" written in the front). Note: if there were _newer_ CT works, not mentioned in the Subject:, such as HoME, on the site, they I would be supporting you on a demand for _them_ to be removed (as not yet 17 years published). > > 3 for "increasing authoring" (1a) to be an meaningfull phrase > > copyright has to have an effect on the authors decision to author > > or not > > I disagree. There seems no reason to believe the 'increasing > authoring' provision was intended to act on an author by author > basis. If the works of one author are not protected other authors > are less likely to devote the effort only to have their creations > stolen from them. All works are protected. For a "limited time". Which morally can not be above the original 17 years. > > So giving this we can prove that demanding that LotR/Hobbit/UT > > are under copyright is injust, we can claim msm000 was breaking > > an injust law. See [3] and [4] on that. > > Unfinished Tales. Containing considerable material written by > Christopher Tolkien. Who is still alive. But published them over 17 years ago. > Even allowing your > apparent belief that msm000 has equal right to the works of JRR > Tolkien as the man's children According to copyright law the public (= everyone worldwide, that includes msm0000) gets equal (= all) rights after copyright expires. > (which seems to me >ethically< (not > merely legally) absurd) his action still violates copyright law as > you are attempting to redefine it. I was talking about law violating moral. I am not redefining law, I am defining from when on law is immoral. > > Conrad backstabbed msm0000 by betraying him to the rulers, and so > > is helping their injustice, doing the Orcs work, using his power > > to spread the Morgothian element in society. > > Nonsense. That worldwide laws on copyright happen to agree with Laws made by politicians who sold out the citizens due rights to the publishers who demanded the extensions. And the estate using this law (which they could simply refuse to use). And you supporting them in doing so. > > Now you know why you have lost all respect I had for you (minus > > the few percent regained for owning up). Do you intend to go on > > doing further backstabbing or are you going to see the light and > > reform yourself? > > I intend to continue supporting the Tolkien Estate. On their not justified demand for further monopoly. Which your > radical anarchism (at least as regards copyright) Hmm. Anarchists argue that law should not be. I am arguing that laws should fit moral. And that _in_cases_where_they_do_not_, citizens should not make use of then, nor help others do so. Now how could that be anarchist? > If the > lawyers and politicians and other 'evils' all supported msm000's > 'right' to take things created by others I'd probably have worked > towards hacking the site to remove the material. Huh? Breaking into a site? Vigilantism? Now who is the anarchist here? And this from the "its the law" guy? I am surprised. > > Am I actually the only person on this group to have read Tolkien > > and understood what he and all the other mythologies have to tell > > about how evil works and how it lives from people _duped_ by the > > rulers [5] propaganda into helping it spread? > > You apparently missed the bit on his feelings about people who > violate copyrights. In LotR? Hobbit? Silm? UT? HoME 1-5? Those are those I have read. I am on HoME 6 presently. (And yes, these are all paid for copies). Does he also address using injust extensions to sefaguard revenue streams? > > [5] Maiar that became Balrogs, Haradrim, Easterlings, ... > > And now... I suddenly suspect that you've been engaging in > deliberately over-the-top rhetoric as a joke - but am far from > certain. Just finding examples of people/beings helping evil, because they were fooled into believing it to be good, in his works. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 31 Aug 2000 00:34:54 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 223 Message-ID: <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967674894 1108 10.0.3.2 (30 Aug 2000 22:34:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Aug 2000 22:34:54 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26627 brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: > Neil Franklin wrote in > rec.arts.books.tolkien: > >brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: > >In letter, but not in any effect that would be relevant from either > >the authors not his readers point of view. And as the constitution > >writers intended it to be effectively limited, it is a violation of > >the constitution. > > Sorry, but *your* notion of what is an appropriate limit is > irrelevant to the fact that *some* limit is stated in the law, and > therefore the law is prima facie constitutional. Huh? Law can very well be inconstitutional! The supreme court has as one of its explicit jobs to do rulings on exactly this. Or do you think they have been breaking law each time they have declared laws void (such as the segregation laws, or the CDA)? > revisions are not new, and you can rest assured that if there were > any *legitimate* challenge to the statutory limit, it would have > been litigated by now. Replace "*legitimate* challenge" with "person believing they will get justice on such a case". In this case the legal system has demonstrated that it is not living up to its job. But anyway, back on topic: I was arguing that supporting these laws is _immoral_, _not_ that the present legal system will accept this (its views are clear [1]: 75 years after authors death). [1] until the next extension bill, in about 15 years, to piecemeal convert "limited" one more step into "forever", to the profit of the publishers. Screw them citizens. > Essentially, you're in the position of the tax protestors who deny > the authority of the US over them because they are "sovereign" and I do not know U.S. tax law. It has no effect on anyone living where I do (unlike U.S. copyright), so I have never taken an interest in it. So I will not comment on that one. But that is irrelevant for the purpose [2] of this discussion: declaring copyright extension law to be morally wrong. [2] trying to convince Conrad (and others here) to not help the estate use this law, by reporting sites publishing e-texts of older publications. This is based on moral arguments. > use other pseudo-legal language to justify their frivolous claims. > "Frivolous" is not my word, by the way, but a legal term, meaning an > argument so absurd that hearing it is a waste of the court's time. > Frivolous pleadings often lead to fines on the litigant and possibly > the attorney. Typical legal system. Declare the citizen wrong and beat them into submission if they do not accept it. Nothing new there. Does the victim of this at least retain their right to have an second court judge on whether the first judges decision was wrong? Or are the stripped of that as well? > >I did not claim that all laws are bad. Just that laws are make > >by bad people and that therefore one should not automatically assume > >all laws to be good. > > Again, not all people who make laws are bad. You substitute one > sweeping generalization for another. Both are equally silly. > > Not all laws are good" is true, as I said earlier. But all that > means is "I can point to at least one bad law". It does not imply > that all laws are bad or even that a significant number are bad. But enough to make the claim "its the law, therefore it is good" wrong. That is the claim Conrad used to demand from msm0000 that he remove the pages (and then report msm0000 when he did not do it). > And it certainly does not imply that legislators are bestial and > subhuman "Orcs"). Though if it did, what would that say about the > people who elected them? You have a choice of politician 1 or politician 2. Both do an roughly equal amount of evil stuff (and front parties who do the same). Now try to chose an non-evil one. I have yet to see an voting form with an "none of these" field on it. Nor a political system that would enable decent people to get onto the ballot. > >Some post on this newsgroup. IIRC something from Letters (which I do > >not have), commenting on where the various people of ME have gone. > > In other words, you have no support for your statement. "Some post > on this newsgroup" is not a citation, and neither is "some letter". I do not have Letter. So given your own admission: "I have a vague memory of his complaint" of the post claiming this, and with no one remembering a following post denying it, that is what we will have to live with (unless someone with "Letters" is prepared to look it up for us). > >> >Thinking citizens (as opposed > >> >to slaves) have the right to oppose it [4], actively (=revolution) > > > >I was talking about opposing, not overthrowing. > > Did you read what you yourself wrote, or were you on automatic > pilot? You used the word "revolution". If that isn't overthrowing > the government, what is? I should not write posts at 3 in the morning :-). > >> >[4] so says the U.S. constitution, not surprising, as it was written > >> >by revolutionaries, who had no interest of declaring their own actions > >> >a crime. > > I note also that you changed your position. There is no connection > between "citizens have right to make revolution; the Constitution > says so", which you said originally, and "governments have limited I have a small correction: replace "Constitution" with "one of the amendments" (not _exactly_ the same thing, but near enough). I do not have the number, it is the one about the right to bear arms. The notion of "only the state (its armed forces) needs arms" was rejected because this would take the citizens last resort of stopping the government, if all peacefull methods to stop it fail. So that seems like revolution is legitimate (not neccessary legal, I suppose in such a case, it is the winners who declare themselves legal). And before you post: that is paraphrased, not actual text. > >As english is not my best language, you may suggest a word you feel > >fits better. > > I'll give you a phrase, not a word: reported copyright violations to > the copyright owner after giving the violator a chance to correct > the violation voluntarily. With other words: invoking external force, after not managing with the force available to him on the NG (persuasion by arguments). > >A few kids are fighting on the school ground. A dislikes B but has no > >inside-group power against him, so he goes and tells tales to the school > >headmaster (outside-group power) and has B eliminated from the fight by > >this. It should have negative connotations in the style of "foul play". > > "Putting an end to violence" seems nearer the mark. How long should > the kid let some little hoodlum beat on him? I was not proposing a situation in which B was being violent to A. Rather one with A having a grudge on B. For an concrete example insert B as a black, A as a racist who wants to torment B, so he goes telling stories (say B did something that is OK, but the particular headmaster is known to dislike) to the headmaster to harm B. For the situation I was searching for the fitting word, A is the one in the wrong. Wrong and using the Headmaster as a tool to do his wrong. So any word suggestions? Does there even exist a word for this? Backstabbing was the nearest I could find. Suggest a better one. > >That would be the "telling tales" as mentioned above. > > News flash: rules of conduct for adults are different from rules for > children. "Don't be a tattletale" is a childish rule suitable for > children. So you think adults are allowed to conform to lower standards than children? I would put that the other way round. > consequences. The goos part of this is that if you do behave like > adults, it doesn't matter how old you are, what color, what height, > what sexual orientation, how disabled, etc: you will be treated > exactly like everyone else, namely judged on your articles. Children don't have that right to be judged on their articles? Why not? > How on earth do you think any crimes can ever be redressed if not > reported to the responsible authorities? If you go back to the original discussion, you will see that I am exactly arguing, that no crime took place. Conrad disliked msm0000s doings. As msm0000 had brokenan injust (= should not exist) law (copyright extension) Conrad used this to whipe him out [3]. [3] and has in the meantime officially admitted ("easier than hacking the site") to using this as a tool to get rid of msm0000s pages. > Do you believe you are > "telling tales" when someone takes your wallet at knife point and > you furnish the police a description? a) there was here no knife (= death threat, = crime) b) no wallet (or anything else) was taken (which would be a crime) c) the victim of a crime reporting it is OK, not someone using reporting as a method of stopping something he personaly dislikes This was not "getting help from the police against a crime", this was "using injust law as a tool to get rid of someone not liked". There is a small difference there, that make it "tattletale" as opposed to propper behaviour. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 101 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 22:15:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.78.72.215 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967673737 12.78.72.215 (Wed, 30 Aug 2000 22:15:37 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 22:15:37 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!portc01.blue.aol.com!europa.netcrusader.net!204.127.161.3!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26643 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > I was critisizing the "it is illegal, so we have got to stop it" > type of argumentation which is common among pro-copyrightists, > and which seems to be Conrads motivation (at least that has been > his argumentation for why he has been against msm). I've brought up the legal issue as the most easily invoked (and most effective). However, as I explained previously, that was not my motivation at all. > As english is not my best language, you may suggest a word you > feel fits better. I am looking for something that describes this > situation: > A few kids are fighting on the school ground. A dislikes B but > has no inside-group power against him, so he goes and tells tales > to the school headmaster (outside-group power) and has B > eliminated from the fight by this. It should have negative > connotations in the style of "foul play". You are looking for something like 'tattling', 'squealing' or 'ratting'. > Backstabbing fits this nearer than any other word I know. No, backstabbing carries connotations that the two people were friends or associates and one betrayed or falsely implicated the other. For example if one of our fighting kids were to suddenly turn on a friend and start beating them up because there were more kids on the 'other side'... that would be backstabbing. And while we're on the 'juvenile definition of morality' - you might want to consider something vaguely similar to what actually happened (which your example is not); The father of kid A is a cartoonist. Kid A has brought some of his father's sketches to school and made his own drawings and filled in captions around them. He is selling these sketches to other kids. Kid B starts telling others on the playground that he is going to steal the sketches and give them away. Everyone tells kid B that wouldn't be nice, but he does it anyway. Then when the kids tell him to give the sketches back kid B promises to do so at recess the next day... but he doesn't. Nor the day after that. So kid C (that's me) goes and tells a teacher, who contacts kid B's parents, who take the sketches away from him and give them back. > And that is the underlying question: does the estate still > morally [1] own the material? Unfinished Tales certainly. You won't convince me that Christopher has no right to his own work. As to the rest... in my opinion, yes JRRT's children have the rights to his work. The idea that copyright should end immediately on death would imply that no author should produce anything in the last few years of their life as it would give no benefit to their children. Likewise if an author, inventor, or other holder of copyright died prematurely and their heirs had no rights to their creation any funds from sale would go entirely to the publishers / corporations rather than the family of the creator.... which seems to be precisely what you are most railing against - despite it's general inapplicability in this case. > Copyright clearly states that after the limited time is over, the > material reverts to the public (including msm). The issue is, > whether the copyright extension, on which LotRs continued > copyright is based, is legitimate. What? The copyright extension from 50 years to 75? LotR hasn't been out for 50 years yet. Unfinished Tales has only been out for TWENTY. > If it is not, then LotR has gone public and msm is justified in > publishing it. No... even if the law were unjust, it would still be the law and the book would not have 'gone public' - as that can only have meaning if it is for some legally defined period 'not public'. Your claims of 'unjust' copyright seem to be based on a littany of things which don't apply here; 1: Copyright should not extend beyond the life of the author. I disagree, but again... Christopher Tolkien is alive. 2: Copyright should not be retroactively extended in duration. It hasn't been yet. When the books were published they were copyright for 50 years, which LotR and UT have not reached yet. 3: Copyright is intended to benefit the creator, not big corporations or publishers. Which again, isn't a concern here as we are talking about the creator himself in CT's case and the direct offspring of the creator for those items published by JRRT. Even by your extreme standards it seems that the only work which might have been 'unjustly copyrighted' would be The Hobbit. The others fail one or more of your personal definitions for excessive copyright protection. ###### From: "Androg" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:02:30 +1000 Lines: 34 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.tavultesoft.com X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.tavultesoft.com Message-ID: <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> X-Trace: 31 Aug 2000 04:03:52 GMT, delta.tavultesoft.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.labyrinth.net.au!casper.southcom.com.au!delta.tavultesoft.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26653 Neil Franklin wrote in message news:6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > But enough to make the claim "its the law, therefore it is good" > wrong. That is the claim Conrad used to demand from msm0000 that he > remove the pages (and then report msm0000 when he did not do it). The law is the law, so one should obey it; but if you feel it is unjust, there are systems in democratic countries for getting the laws changed. And Conrad reported msm0000 after he had said he would do it and then did not. > If you go back to the original discussion, you will see that I am > exactly arguing, that no crime took place. Conrad disliked msm0000s > doings. As msm0000 had brokenan injust (= should not exist) law > (copyright extension) Conrad used this to whipe him out [3]. Crime is a violation of a law: therefore a crime did take place. You might say that wrongdoing did not take place - that is a moral judgement. But in most moral systems I am aware of breaking an instituted law is generally considered wrongdoing (unless one has a very compelling reason such as loss of family/life etc.). But also, to get his Yahoo site, msm0000 had to agree to the Terms of Service, which explicitly state that that sort of thing is not allowed on Yahoo (and it's their right to decide that); and then he went and did it anyway. That is certainly a wrongdoing... -- Andróg "Fela bith on Westwegum werum uncúthra, wundra and wihta, wlitescéne land, eardgeard elfa, and ésa bliss." ###### From: "Androg" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:09:10 +1000 Lines: 20 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.tavultesoft.com X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.tavultesoft.com Message-ID: <39addab8@casper.southcom.com.au> X-Trace: 31 Aug 2000 04:10:32 GMT, delta.tavultesoft.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.labyrinth.net.au!casper.southcom.com.au!delta.tavultesoft.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26656 Neil Franklin wrote in message news:6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as everyone > is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed, it seems to be up to me to > deliver the other sides argument: Congratulations on your evil deed, Con! ;-) -- Andróg "Fela bith on Westwegum werum uncúthra, wundra and wihta, wlitescéne land, eardgeard elfa, and ésa bliss." ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 04:35:30 -0400 Lines: 22 Message-ID: <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: 4QnT34w5w9fe3T2yUofuaZZsaPiDmxEro2upA+cKQ5g= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2000 08:36:33 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!uni-erlangen.de!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!europa.netcrusader.net!207.172.3.37!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26632 Androg wrote: > The law is the law, so one should obey it; but if you feel it is unjust, > there are systems in democratic countries for getting the laws changed. Or practice 20-century style civil disobedience, which includes enduring whatever consequences come from disobeying the law. But when you take someone's property[1], asserting they have no moral right to it, and they assert their legal rights, you don't go around whining about it. Gandhi and Martin Luther King worked for change, but didn't whine and mope every time they landed in jail. "HEY - no fair!" [1] Expect in Zimbabwe, in which case the gov't will come around and *help* you steal from racial minorities. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: colinr@toliman.uio.no (Colin Rosenthal) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 31 Aug 2000 11:46:40 GMT Organization: University of Oslo, Norway Lines: 22 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39addab8@casper.southcom.com.au> Reply-To: colin.rosenthal@astro.uio.no NNTP-Posting-Host: toliman.uio.no User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (OSF1) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gblx.net!uio.no!nntp.uio.no!colinr Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26665 On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:09:10 +1000, Androg wrote: > > > >Neil Franklin wrote in message >news:6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... >> >> I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as everyone >> is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed, it seems to be up to me to >> deliver the other sides argument: > >Congratulations on your evil deed, Con! ;-) Oh yes, congrats from me to Conrad. May evil ever triumph, the Lord Morgoth (may he come again soon!) is proud of our championing of his Dread Copyright Laws. -- Colin Rosenthal Astrophysics Institute University of Oslo ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 31 Aug 2000 17:20:39 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 103 Message-ID: <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967735239 894 10.0.3.2 (31 Aug 2000 15:20:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2000 15:20:39 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26672 "Conrad Dunkerson" writes: > "Neil Franklin" wrote in message > news:6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > > As english is not my best language, you may suggest a word you > > feel fits better. I am looking for something that describes this > > situation: > > > A few kids are fighting on the school ground. A dislikes B but > > has no inside-group power against him, so he goes and tells tales > > You are looking for something like 'tattling', 'squealing' or > 'ratting'. Thanks for the answer. > And while we're on the 'juvenile definition of morality' - you > might want to consider something vaguely similar to what actually > happened (which your example is not); [descrtiption od justified copyright snipped, as this is not such a case] > > And that is the underlying question: does the estate still > > morally [1] own the material? > > Unfinished Tales certainly. You won't convince me that Christopher > has no right to his own work. I repeat: he _had_ the right. 17 years. Then it expires (at least moralicly, but not in present legality). > As to the rest... in my opinion, > yes JRRT's children have the rights to his work. Also: had. > The idea that > copyright should end immediately on death would imply that no > author should produce anything in the last few years of their life > as it would give no benefit to their children. You are missreading me: it should end on half of the average life expectancy of all authors, i.e. 17 years. Copyright law is a deal: the author get 1/2 the public the other. This deal hab been broken. Thats injust law, supporting people using this injustice is what I am critisizing. > would go entirely to the publishers / corporations rather than the > family of the creator.... Nope. It revets after 17 to the public. Law says so. > > Copyright clearly states that after the limited time is over, the > > material reverts to the public (including msm). The issue is, > > whether the copyright extension, on which LotRs continued > > copyright is based, is legitimate. > > What? The copyright extension from 50 years to 75? LotR hasn't > been out for 50 years yet. Unfinished Tales has only been out for > TWENTY. Legally 75, we are in this entire thread talking about M O R A L L Y. Is it so difficult to understand the difference of these? The original 17 years deal was morally correct, the extensions since then were not. > 1: Copyright should not extend beyond the life of the author. I > disagree, but again... Christopher Tolkien is alive. Error: I in all posts have said 17 years, not actual authors death. > 3: Copyright is intended to benefit the creator, not big > corporations or publishers. Which again, isn't a concern here as > we are talking about the creator himself in CT's case and the > direct offspring of the creator for those items published by JRRT. Error: I have not been criticising the wexistance of copyright, but the injust length of it. Try again. > Even by your extreme standards it seems that the only work which > might have been 'unjustly copyrighted' would be The Hobbit. The > others fail one or more of your personal definitions for excessive > copyright protection. All published over 17 years ago: Hobbit, LotR, Silm, UT, Home I+II. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 31 Aug 2000 17:26:50 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 59 Message-ID: <6uog298n9h.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au>NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967735610 894 10.0.3.2 (31 Aug 2000 15:26:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2000 15:26:50 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26673 "Androg" writes: > Neil Franklin wrote in message > news:6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > > > But enough to make the claim "its the law, therefore it is good" > > wrong. That is the claim Conrad used to demand from msm0000 that he > > remove the pages (and then report msm0000 when he did not do it). > > The law is the law, so one should obey it; but if you feel it is unjust, > there are systems in democratic countries for getting the laws > changed. Systems that do not work: see the extensions done by exactly those systems. > And > Conrad reported msm0000 after he had said he would do it and then did not. That has been addressed: I did not see that post, I have retracted that one in an previous post. > > If you go back to the original discussion, you will see that I am > > exactly arguing, that no crime took place. Conrad disliked msm0000s > > doings. As msm0000 had brokenan injust (= should not exist) law > > (copyright extension) Conrad used this to whipe him out [3]. > > Crime is a violation of a law: therefore a crime did take place. You might > say that wrongdoing did not take place - that is a moral judgement. That seems a legalistic definition. In normal englisch (AFAIK) crime is a more serious form of wrongdoing. So crime has both a colloqial and legal definition, which may not even agree with each other. > most moral systems I am aware of breaking an instituted law is generally > considered wrongdoing (unless one has a very compelling reason such as loss > of family/life etc.). I even know moral system that _demand_ putting moral over law. > But also, to get his Yahoo site, msm0000 had to agree to the Terms of > Service, which explicitly state that that sort of thing is not allowed on > Yahoo (and it's their right to decide that); and then he went and did it > anyway. That is certainly a wrongdoing... I will fully aggree that msm000 was being idiotic in hosting oin Yahoo. He should have hosted in Russia or some other country without copyright laws. But that was not what we were discussing in this thread. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:31:06 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 43 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.ce.38 X-Server-Date: 31 Aug 2000 13:30:07 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26675 Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: > >> Neil Franklin wrote in >> rec.arts.books.tolkien: >> >brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: >> >In letter, but not in any effect that would be relevant from either >> >the authors not his readers point of view. And as the constitution >> >writers intended it to be effectively limited, it is a violation of >> >the constitution. >> >> Sorry, but *your* notion of what is an appropriate limit is >> irrelevant to the fact that *some* limit is stated in the law, and >> therefore the law is prima facie constitutional. > >Huh? Law can very well be inconstitutional! The supreme court has as >one of its explicit jobs to do rulings on exactly this. Or do you >think they have been breaking law each time they have declared laws >void (such as the segregation laws, or the CDA)? Newsflash! You are not the Supreme Court. And I did not say it was constitutional, I said it was prima facie constitutional. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your article, because the more you write, the clearer we can see your real legal argument: you set yourself up as the arbiter of what is legal and what is not, and you grasp at any legal-sounding words to support that; but as soon as you are challenged on any ground you abandon that and shift to other ground. Since your position was not arrived at by reason, any use of reason is wasted on you. I've got better things to do with my time than continue pissing into the wind. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: "O. Sharp" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 31 Aug 2000 16:51:29 GMT Organization: Call Me Evil? Shall I Oblige You? Lines: 71 Message-ID: <8om2eh$eei$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ud7iq8n1t.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: c7.b7.09.72 User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990517 ("Psychonaut") (UNIX) (SunOS/4.1.4 (sun4m)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!63.211.125.72!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!easynews!cyclone-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26674 Neil Franklin wrote, amongst much: [quoting Conrad Dunkerson, who quotes Neil Franklin in turn] :> > I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as :> > everyone is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed :> :> Evil? Now that truly seems a bit overboard. : : I use "evil" as in the sense of "behaviour which will lead to destroying : society", which IHMO includes injust laws (they destroy citizens belief : in the benefit of law, and so contribute to law being abolished, which is : not good for society). So am _I_ evil, then? I'm just curious, since I'm one of the people who congratulated Mr. Dunkerson on his "evil deed" (and hold him in higher esteem for taking that action), and so by definition would be on your list of evildoers. But... since I don't think the behaviour of defending a copyright will "lead to destroying society", but you do, am I evil? If I disagree with you, and believe that the copyright laws are just, does that make me evil? And am I evil for supporting the belief that Tolkien's copyrights should be honored, or am I evil because I don't agree with your position? I'm just curious. If you're going to call me evil, you'll have to tell me exactly why you have the high moral ground necessary to make that judgement of _my_ morality. (You, and anyone else, are welcome to _disagree_ with me, of course, on this subject or any other. But if you decide to be judge and jury for my beliefs, you'd damned well better expect not to get my agreement.) And on a related note, I'd also like to know how it is that msm0000 should be in any position to decide how much the Tolkien family should be allowed to keep of their own father's estate. What if he wants to steal Tolkien's armchair, too, and give _that_ away? CT's probably had _that_ for over 17 years... what makes that theft, and this not? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ohh@netcom.com "This paperback edition, and no other, has been published with my consent and co-operation. Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it, and no other." -J.R.R. Tolkien, on the first (legal) American paperback edition of _LotR_ "There is a lot of unfinished material [deep among my papers], but everything belongs definitely to the _Silmarillion_ or all that world. To which I should now be in only a few days returning, if it was not for this infernal copyright business [arising out of Ace Books' illegal printing]." -JRRT, _Letters_ #270, 20 May 1965 "I am not relishing the task of 're-editing' _The Lord of the Rings_. I think it will prove very difficult if not impossible to make any substantial changes in the general text. [...] I am hoping that alteration of the introductions, considerable modifications of the appendices and the inclusion of an index may prove sufficient for the purpose [of producing a new edition that would be protected by U.S. copyright, since Ace Books' unlicensed publication had made it necessary]. Incidentally, I am making a point of including a note in every answer or acknowledgement of 'fan' letters from the U.S.A. to the effect that the paperback edition of Ace Books is piratical and issued without the consent of my publishers or myself and of course without remuneration to us. Do you think that if this were done on a larger scale it might be useful?" -JRRT, _Letters_ #271, 25 May 1965 ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 01 Sep 2000 03:24:09 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 156 Message-ID: <6ug0nkgb0m.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ud7iq8n1t.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8om2eh$eei$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 967771449 425 10.0.3.2 (1 Sep 2000 01:24:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2000 01:24:09 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26677 "O. Sharp" writes: > Neil Franklin wrote, amongst much: > [quoting Conrad Dunkerson, who quotes Neil Franklin in turn] > :> > I was going to keep out of this discussion this round, but as > :> > everyone is congratulating Conrad for his evil deed > :> > :> Evil? Now that truly seems a bit overboard. > : > : I use "evil" as in the sense of "behaviour which will lead to destroying > : society", which IHMO includes injust laws (they destroy citizens belief > : in the benefit of law, and so contribute to law being abolished, which is > : not good for society). > > So am _I_ evil, then? As you supported someone (Conrad) in supporting someone (the estate) in using something evil (injustedly extended copyright): yes. > list of evildoers. But... since I don't think the behaviour of defending a > copyright will "lead to destroying society", Injust laws [2] lead to destroying society, because their victims develop antipathy towards law, regarding it as more against them than for them [2], and so as something to destroy, not preserve. [1] Violating the original _justified_ limited time copyright is an injust law. [2] The basic tennet of anarchy, which is _the_ upcoming ideology at the moment. > disagree with you, and believe that the copyright laws are just, So long you believe in _limited_time_ (as in the original) copyright, you are fine with me. The injust bit is violating the contract between citizen and author where the citizens grant an limited monopoly to the author and recieve more works (after expiry) for this. The original law split the profits 50:50 between both groups. Since then the authors stake (at the lobbying of publishers who like to have an exeption from competition) has been enlarged repeatedly. Does it really surprise you (and others here) that some (and daily more) citizens are pissed off by this? > does > that make me evil? Supporting injustice that creates evil? It definitely does. > And am I evil for supporting the belief that Tolkien's > copyrights should be honored, or am I evil because I don't agree with > your position? You are evil for supporting an injust law (as I have written at least 10 times in this thread. Why do people not first _read_ the posts before posting?). > I'm just curious. If you're going to call me evil, you'll have to tell me > exactly why you have the high moral ground necessary to make that > judgement of _my_ morality. Any person (and that includes me) has the right to judge others actions as to be moral or amoral. Of course they then should follow up this judgement with arguments why they arrived at it (which I have). > (You, and anyone else, are welcome to _disagree_ with me, of course, on > this subject or any other. But if you decide to be judge and jury for my > beliefs, you'd damned well better expect not to get my agreement.) If you had read the thread, you would have seen, that I originally objected to the "copyrights are great, only good, warship them" attitude that all people (including you) were displaying by unisono applauding Conrad. I wrote to point out, that copyright (in its present extended form, which all the mentioned Tolkien works depend on) is no where near the unquestionably good thing people here pass it around as. > allowed to keep of their own father's estate. What if he wants to steal > Tolkien's armchair, too, and give _that_ away? The point of stealing vs copyright violation being two different things has already been addressed in this thread. Please read before posting. > CT's probably had _that_ for > over 17 years... what makes that theft, and this not? That copyright law is a constitutionally defined contract, that grants an _limited_time_ monopoly? I am getting the strong impression that people here believe copyright to be eternal. If you believe so, I have news for you: it isn't, and it never was. Copyright is not a possession like a thing. It is a limited grant of monopoly. > this infernal copyright business [arising out of Ace > Books' illegal printing]." > -JRRT, _Letters_ #270, 20 May 1965 AFAIK the Ace stuff happened because the then US copyright did not cover any non-US publication. I am in full agreement with you, that that was wrong. Rights belong equally to everyone. JRRT had the full right to demand his 17 years of copyright (1965 is just within 17 years of 1948/50). This is not the issue at hand in this thread. So why bring it up? Note, that I _am_ aware (and all too well) of the growing movement to abolish copyright entirely. I am not demanding that. I am demanding that people who believe in copyright take back their demand for the injustices done in extending it. Given the unisonso "questioning the legitimacy of even just aspects of copyright is not acceptable" attitude here, I do not think this bodes well for any future attempt to get an compromise between pro-copyright and anti-copright camps. Pissing off the few moderates [3] who are tring to find an acceptable middle (copyright, but with decent limits) does not look like a sensible strategy to stop the hoardes of anti-copyrightists who are just about set to eradicate copyright in the next 10-15 years. Bad luck for the authors, that their supporters will not even consider moderation. [3] Yes, I am _moderate_ relative to what is growing up rapidly on the net. If you don't belive that, go to http://slashdot.org/ and find a few threads on copyright and look at the views given by the majority there. Millions [4] of them bulldozing copyright into the ground is the future, if you don't come up with some compromise that they will accept. [4] there are 750'000 users there, so any view exposed and not contradicted has got a lot of people behind it. And we are only 5 years into the "internet as public phenomena" age. I am now going off-line due to going on holiday. I do not intend to reviving this thread when I come back, as I don't see any good for Tolkien of the fans coming from its continuation. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39addab8@casper.southcom.com.au> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 17 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 23:21:50 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.78.71.251 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967764110 12.78.71.251 (Thu, 31 Aug 2000 23:21:50 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 23:21:50 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!newsfeed.dpn.de!news-out3.f.gtn.com!news-in2.f.gtn.com!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.20!wnmasters3!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26716 "Colin Rosenthal" wrote in message news:slrn8qshd0.600.colinr@toliman.uio.no... > On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:09:10 +1000, > Androg wrote: >> Congratulations on your evil deed, Con! ;-) > Oh yes, congrats from me to Conrad. May evil ever triumph, the > Lord Morgoth (may he come again soon!) is proud of our > championing of his Dread Copyright Laws. Gee... it's almost like old times. Somehow I'm not getting all nostalgic though. :) ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 17:23:15 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Lines: 33 Message-ID: <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.cwix.com!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!easynews!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26760 On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 04:35:30 -0400, Flame of the West wrote: >Or practice 20-century style civil disobedience, which includes >enduring whatever consequences come from disobeying the law. Of course the problem with '20-century style' United States civil disobedience is that the district attorneys and judiciary take it upon themselves to forgive the law breakers so that they endure virtually no consequences for disobeying the law. This practice is contributing to the decay and dismemberment of 'law and order' in the United States and elsewhere in the (formerly) civilized world and, of course, is deprecated by the other criminals and their attorneys who, justly, complain that it does not apply to them because they are poor, and black or brown. Educated middle and upper class offenders should, in a just system, be penalized more severely than poor and ill-educated offenders because, in truth, they knew better and did not have the economic incentive to break the law. At a minimum they should repay every last cent which their 'civil disobedience' has cost their fellow citizens in monetary and other damages, expenses, and losses However I know that this is just so much dreaming in our (in)justice system. At least in the United States the majority of the 'civilly disobedient' are college educated (or equivalent) WASPs, Catholics, or Jews, or their 'atheistic' offspring, not the poor and down-trodden or even other 'minorities'. the softrat mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- Baba ganoosh ganache Ganesh! Baba ganoosh ganache! --culinary cheer for the elephant god ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 207 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 00:56:27 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.78.71.251 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967769787 12.78.71.251 (Fri, 01 Sep 2000 00:56:27 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 00:56:27 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!portc03.blue.aol.com!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26707 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6ud7iq8n1t.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > Did he? I must have missed that post (or possibly never recieved > it, this news server loses a few posts a day). Actually, it wasn't a post. He put a disclaimer on the web page itself that the materials would be removed over a month ago. > I only got posts in which you were attacking him for putting up > the texts, and in which he was not prepared to take them down. Funny, I don't remember having seen or written any of those. Nor can I find them on Deja. Indeed, your characterization of the earlier posts is grossly inaccurate. My sole post from the time is linked below; http://x76.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=652603952 Hardly the attack you named it. > [4] I have not visited msm0000s website, so I am assuming the > works published there to be only those named in the Subject: > line, LotR (1948, 53 years go), Hobbit (1937/1951, 63/49 years), > UT (1980, 20 years). All of these are over 17 years. Fellowship of the Ring was first published in July of 1954... not 1948. It has thus been in print for 46 years. Four less than the 50 I understand to have been the copyright duration of the time, and ~47 less than the duration it would be covered under current law - which I still see nothing immoral about. You have argued that it is immoral to change the laws... and that therefor the laws should be changed. I'd say rather that the laws have been being refined and improved for years to reach the currently >fairly< equittable state. > a) msm000 is/was not "taking". He made copies (and offered to > make (automatically) more copies). No one lost their copy in the > process, nothing taken away, nothing stolen. Really? So, if he were writing stories set in Middle Earth three years after LotR were published he would not be 'stealing' JRRT's ideas? If he read an advanced copy of the book and then quickly published another using the same plot he would not be 'stealing' anything? There IS such a thing as intellectual property... and yes, msm000 took something which did not belong to him - and that is theft. > Copyright gives authors a limited monopoly (at the cost of all > readers who would like electronic copies), JRRT and CT have had > that. Now it is the others time. Given that electronic variants did not exist at the time this is a rather specious argument for your '17 year' preference. > All works are protected. For a "limited time". Which morally can > not be above the original 17 years. Which is insupportable. I don't believe the original period WAS 17 years, but even if it were it is patently absurd to insist that this original idea must by default be the absolute and perfect period of time. I can apply the same 'unjust laws must be changed' arguments you employ to say that it was necessary for this unjust 17 year period to be extended... and I think most people would agree with me. > Hmm. Anarchists argue that law should not be. I am arguing that > laws should fit moral. And that _in_cases_where_they_do_not_, > citizens should not make use of then, nor help others do so. Now > how could that be anarchist? Because you are insisting that 'moral' be defined on YOUR terms... which are in conflict with those of the vast majority of the populace on this issue. Tearing down the laws to conform to each person's own standards as opposed to a popular common standard is inherently anarchical. > Huh? Breaking into a site? Vigilantism? Now who is the anarchist > here? And this from the "its the law" guy? I am surprised. You keep going on with this insistence to mis-represent me. I've said repeatedly that "its the law" was no part of my motivation. "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > But enough to make the claim "its the law, therefore it is good" > wrong. That is the claim Conrad used to demand from msm0000 that > he remove the pages (and then report msm0000 when he did not do > it). No, in point of fact it is not. I've mentioned before that I have a pet peeve about 'quotations' which aren't... and that one isn't. > I do not have Letter. So given your own admission: "I have a > vague memory of his complaint" of the post claiming this, and > with no one remembering a following post denying it, that is what > we will have to live with (unless someone with "Letters" is > prepared to look it up for us). You are presumably referring to Letter #52; "Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. ... Have at the Orcs, with winged words, hildenaeddran (war-adders), biting darts - but make sure of the mark, before shooting." > I have a small correction: replace "Constitution" with "one of > the amendments" (not _exactly_ the same thing, but near enough). > I do not have the number, it is the one about the right to bear > arms. > The notion of "only the state (its armed forces) needs arms" was > rejected because this would take the citizens last resort of > stopping the government, if all peacefull methods to stop it > fail. That would be the Second Ammendment. Which reads (in total); "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." That's it. Nothing about it being necessary to allow the citizens to overthrow the government. Indeed, it is the government that should be assuring that the militia is "well-regulated". The ammendment was intended for home defense in a hostile land... not revolution. I refer you to the explanation provided by the US Senate; http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/constitution/amdt2.html "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > I repeat: he _had_ the right. 17 years. Then it expires (at least > moralicly, but not in present legality). Ok... so how exactly do you arrive at this absolute conviction that 17 is the just perfect number of years? Because it was the first? Though that has been disputed, and doesn't match my understanding. Why are we to suppose that they got it right on the first try? > You are missreading me: it should end on half of the average life > expectancy of all authors, i.e. 17 years. Ah... but people live longer now. Doesn't that mean the copyright duration should get longer? Also, you get alot younger writers these days I think - many of them are in their 30s or 40s. That could make the average remaining lifespan 45 years. > Copyright law is a deal: the author get 1/2 the public the other. Ok... so the author gets 17 years, the public gets 17 years, and then the material is permanently expunged from the face of the globe? Oh, no... it isn't, is it? The public gets to keep it... for CENTURIES. That doesn't look like half to me. Nor does it look remotely equatable. I'd argue that, at the VERY least the author should own it for the whole of their life. > Nope. It revets after 17 to the public. Law says so. Current law does not. It is possible that no law ever did. If an early one DID use this standard... what of it? There is nothing inherently more ethical about the number 17 than the numbers 18, 16, 5, 20, 0, 2000, et cetera. > The original 17 years deal was morally correct, the extensions > since then were not. Says you... so far as I'm concerned 17 years would be a terribly unjust period of time to allow an author ownership of their work. That would mean that if an author wanted to write stories in a particular world they'd have to get them all done within 17 years of the original or potentially have to deal with other people messing in their world. At the end of the day you are insisting that everyone else conform to your idea of 17 years as the only 'just' period of copyright protection. That figure seems, to me, spectacularly UN-just... nor have you presented any particular support for it (other than the various inapplicable 'greedy publishers' and 'beyond death of the author' complaints). While you are entitled to your beliefs, insisting that others (and the majority at that) are 'unjust', 'evil', and such for disagreeing with you is impolite and likely to provoke some to... well, precisely the sort of responses you have unfortunately gotten. About the only thing you and I agree on is that morality ought to come before law (though I'd temper this somewhat - sometimes a specific immorality can support a general morality). However, we disagree entirely on the 'moral' duration for copyright. Offhand I'd probably set it at the life of the author and their immediate next of kin, not to be less than 50 years unless there are no living heirs. All provided the author and family retain the copyright of course... in cases (such as the music industry) where the 'publisher' 'buys' the copyright from the creator I'd make the duration much shorter... perhaps 17 years. :) There no longer being any question of protecting the creator and family. ###### From: mlindanne@hotmail.com (China Blue Shift) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 20:07:23 -0700 Organization: Collective against Consensual Sanity Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Hello-Kitty: meow meow. X-Should: Prancing green elves on yellow daisy fields. X-Should-not: You're not allowed. X-Newsgroup-Bomb: Crossposted to heck and back. X-Ray-Specs: Off. X-Traneous-Reference: Kibo X-NSA-Bait: wiretap pgp cryptoterrorist rsa des Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!headwall.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!c168.ppp.tsoft.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26749 / no consequences for disobeying the law. This practice is contributing / to the decay and dismemberment of 'law and order' in the United States / and elsewhere in the (formerly) civilized world and, of course, is Whoddathought? Excerpts from a sixty year book have led us straight into our modern Mad Max post apocalyptic world! =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Sign up for WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK's special We Rob You While You Sleep Service TODAY! =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= CACS: Collective Against Consensual Sanity v0.123 pretty pretty http://www.tsoft.com/~wyrmwif/ All new and improved web pages! Bookmark yours today! :)-free zone. Elect LUM World Dictator! ###### From: mlindanne@hotmail.com (China Blue Shift) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 21:42:49 -0700 Organization: Collective against Consensual Sanity Lines: 118 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Hello-Kitty: meow meow. X-Should: Prancing green elves on yellow daisy fields. X-Should-not: You're not allowed. X-Newsgroup-Bomb: Crossposted to heck and back. X-Ray-Specs: Off. X-Traneous-Reference: Kibo X-NSA-Bait: wiretap pgp cryptoterrorist rsa des Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!psinet-eu-nl!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!portc01.blue.aol.com!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!gestalt.direcpc.com.!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!c178.ppp.tsoft.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26753 / law - which I still see nothing immoral about. You have argued / that it is immoral to change the laws... and that therefor the laws / should be changed. I'd say rather that the laws have been being / refined and improved for years to reach the currently >fairly< / equittable state. Actually USA copyright law and associated codes are going through major spasms. Perhaps you missed all the fun with UCC2. The law had stabilised for 1970 technology, but we're in the midst of upheaval that I think will be as profound as Gutenberg and his printing press. We've got an entirely new way to distribute and index new expressions. The law and custom assumed that physical copies of copies would degrade with each generation, and that manufacturing copies and distributing them was capital intensive. Digital content on the internet can be exactly copied any number of times, and it cost no more than telephone call to manufacture and distribute content. Publishers are scrambling for a way to make a profit from digital distribution. If you missed Seybold, there was a score of companies offering techniques. UCC2 presumed that publishers had a right to exist and to make a profit. Copyrights did not; many of the for-profit digital distributions depend on overturning long established (refined, improved, and fairly equittable) notions of fair use. They are also attempting to outlaw research and programming whose real world analogs (such as reverse engineering a competitor's car) have long been recognised as legal. Such as the DVD lawsuit. / There IS such a thing as intellectual property... and yes, msm000 / took something which did not belong to him - and that is theft. I'm sure you can define "intellectual property" so that it refers to actual things, however that has nothing to do with copyright. In the USA copyright is a deal, a bribe almost, that to enrich society with new expressions, authors of the new expression can enrich themselves. There's a lot assumptions in there which claiming "intellectual property" skip over. Expression is protected, not the ideas being expressed. A distinct expression of the same idea is not prevented by the first expression; the subsequent expression can itself be copyrighted. Copyrights are not inalienable right, they're a deal between society and authors. Congress and the courts are supposed to extend and retract copyright privileges in the best interest of society. Despite the stern warnings publishers put in their distributions, copyrighted works can be copied by their owners under fair use. How much can be copied depends on the context. There is no fixed limit to amount that can be copied; education and research is granted a liberal fair use, for example. If authors produce new expressions without compensation, copyrights are not needed. Already in traditional publishing many "literary" authors and nearly all poets do not get enough compensation to write full time. And now there's a world wide web with more new expression than any one person can cope with, and compensation is going to only a very very few authors. / > Copyright gives authors a limited monopoly (at the cost of all / > readers who would like electronic copies), JRRT and CT have had / > that. Now it is the others time. / / Given that electronic variants did not exist at the time this is / a rather specious argument for your '17 year' preference. A new distribution of the same content does not extend the copyright. / > All works are protected. For a "limited time". Which morally can / > not be above the original 17 years. / / Which is insupportable. I don't believe the original period WAS 17 / years, but even if it were it is patently absurd to insist that / this original idea must by default be the absolute and perfect It has been life+n years for copyright by a person, and plain n years for a business's copyright. n varies with different Congresses. 75 years is far too long. / Says you... so far as I'm concerned 17 years would be a terribly / unjust period of time to allow an author ownership of their work. / That would mean that if an author wanted to write stories in a / particular world they'd have to get them all done within 17 years / of the original or potentially have to deal with other people / messing in their world. Nonsense. Each new expression is its own copyrightable work. The idea of a particular alternate world is not copyrightable, only expressions about that world. I suspect so few other authors have delved into Middle Earth because many of foundation myths were unpublished until 1975; by then other authors just went ahead and created their own alternate worlds. / specific immorality can support a general morality). However, we / disagree entirely on the 'moral' duration for copyright. Offhand / I'd probably set it at the life of the author and their immediate / next of kin, not to be less than 50 years unless there are no Why next of kin? CJRT is certainly entitled to protection for his original expressions, but why should he get money for someone else's? This sounds like the people who claim inheritance tax is somehow inherently immoral. PS. We got a colour scanner at work so those longest promised scans for Fyrenbryda, Lonewalker, and Cinderella will now appear, if I can fit them into the mere 5MB tsoft allocates to me. As time and Macintosh juggling permits. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Sign up for WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK's special We Rob You While You Sleep Service TODAY! =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= CACS: Collective Against Consensual Sanity v0.123 pretty pretty http://www.tsoft.com/~wyrmwif/ All new and improved web pages! Bookmark yours today! :)-free zone. Elect LUM World Dictator! ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 00:46:21 -0400 Lines: 28 Message-ID: <39AF3491.6B4FA927@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: DHWJGUdUR3VZdba8+HHQs68NlAqu86BxaalWiA4h0yg= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2000 05:16:16 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!209.249.123.233.MISMATCH!xfer10.netnews.com!netnews.com!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26683 the softrat wrote: > Of course the problem with '20-century style' United States civil > disobedience is that the district attorneys and judiciary take it upon > themselves to forgive the law breakers so that they endure virtually > no consequences for disobeying the law. > At least in the United States the majority of the 'civilly > disobedient' are college educated (or equivalent) WASPs, Catholics, or > Jews, or their 'atheistic' offspring, not the poor and down-trodden or > even other 'minorities'. This is all correct. I think the memory of people like Martin Luther King has ennobled the concept of disobedience to the point where prosecutors are lothe to prosecute it all. As a result, spoiled little snots are free to snarl downtown traffic or chain themselves to the nearest fence without fear of real punishment. -- -- FotW "For the uninitiated, Galadriel is the good sister of the evil but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien." The Times of London ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 00:59:59 -0400 Lines: 55 Message-ID: <39AF37C2.4F22D011@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: DHWJGUdUR3U/YOW9inDL0QTkOA8Djhf99JKX+BEl7bk= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2000 05:16:18 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!nntp.flash.net!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26774 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > I'd say rather that the laws have been being refined and improved > for years to reach the currently >fairly< equittable state. I have to disagree here. It seems to me that the laws are skewed toward copyright holders and away from consumers. (Again, this is no excuse for violating the law.) > disagree entirely on the 'moral' duration for copyright. Offhand > I'd probably set it at the life of the author and their immediate > next of kin, not to be less than 50 years unless there are no > living heirs. All provided the author and family retain the > copyright of course... in cases (such as the music industry) where > the 'publisher' 'buys' the copyright from the creator I'd make the > duration much shorter... perhaps 17 years. :) There no longer > being any question of protecting the creator and family. I think you're touching on a related point that has not been brought up here. There are really two issues as I see it: that of entitlement to royalties and that of control over the fruits of one's labor. The latter really ought to expire with the death of (or sale of copyright by) the author. The former is what is really meant to be passed on to the author's hiers. For example, suppose the laws were modified so that, on the death of the author, the hiers inherit royalty rights but not the monopoly on publishing? Then anyone could publish The Annotated Hobbit, provided a reasonable royalty was paid to the estate on every copy sold. I don't see how anyone is being wronged by such an arrangement. After all, there is no longer the question of the author losing control of his work; he's gone off to the halls of Mandos and thence whither the Valar know not. Now you could object that the hiers could exploit their monopoly to make even more money, and therefore they are being shortchanged by losing control. But the law is not supposed to lean exclusively in one direction. Everyone has some limits to their ownership (e.g. zoning laws), for the common good (although this is abused, I know). In issues like this one, the law strives for some kind of equity, and I think that it is leaning too far toward the author's hiers to allow them a stranglehold on the market. Royalty rights is enough. -- -- FotW "For the uninitiated, Galadriel is the good sister of the evil but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien." The Times of London ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 01:18:05 -0400 Lines: 21 Message-ID: <39AF3C00.703A27A9@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: 0spr1wDFcwvKMNinTNqywrTJ0AlQFXjhNCiwqUPZR7U= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2000 05:18:04 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26775 China Blue Swede wrote: > / no consequences for disobeying the law. This practice is contributing > / to the decay and dismemberment of 'law and order' in the United States > / and elsewhere in the (formerly) civilized world and, of course, is > > Whoddathought? Excerpts from a sixty year book have led us straight into > our modern Mad Max post apocalyptic world! You should know by now that the works of Tolkien are a springboard to discussing absolutely *anything*. -- -- FotW "For the uninitiated, Galadriel is the good sister of the evil but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien." The Times of London ###### From: mlindanne@hotmail.com (China Blue Shift) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 22:25:57 -0700 Organization: Collective against Consensual Sanity Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> <39AF3491.6B4FA927@erols.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Hello-Kitty: meow meow. X-Should: Prancing green elves on yellow daisy fields. X-Should-not: You're not allowed. X-Newsgroup-Bomb: Crossposted to heck and back. X-Ray-Specs: Off. X-Traneous-Reference: Kibo X-NSA-Bait: wiretap pgp cryptoterrorist rsa des Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.atl.bellsouth.net.MISMATCH!newsfeed.atl!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!c178.ppp.tsoft.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26754 / prosecutors are lothe to prosecute it all. As a result, spoiled little / snots are free to snarl downtown traffic or chain themselves to the / nearest fence without fear of real punishment. If you mean the police can't use fire hoses and police dogs anymore, I'm not all that sorry. If you mean they don't vigourously pursue prosecution, did they ever? It's real hard for a city to jail, arraign, and try ten of thousands of people all on the same day. In California you've got to arraign within 24 hours. (Federal is more like 48 hours.) And defendants can demand speedy trials which have to be provided. When you can't adminster summary justice, the state has to pick and choose who it's going to go after. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Sign up for WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK's special We Rob You While You Sleep Service TODAY! =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= CACS: Collective Against Consensual Sanity v0.123 pretty pretty http://www.tsoft.com/~wyrmwif/ All new and improved web pages! Bookmark yours today! :)-free zone. Elect LUM World Dictator! ###### From: urban@panix.com (Michael Urban) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: 1 Sep 2000 10:05:56 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 22 Message-ID: <8ood44$5vg$1@panix3.panix.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com X-Trace: news.panix.com 967817156 20247 166.84.0.228 (1 Sep 2000 14:05:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2000 14:05:56 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!panix!news.panix.com!panix3.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26708 In article , China Blue Shift wrote: > [many things that I agree with, and then...] > >Nonsense. Each new expression is its own copyrightable work. The idea of a >particular alternate world is not copyrightable, only expressions about >that world. I suspect so few other authors have delved into Middle Earth >because many of foundation myths were unpublished until 1975; by then >other authors just went ahead and created their own alternate worlds. But that sort of thing is not so much a matter of copyright as Trademark, I think? The Conan Doyle heirs do not retain a copyright on the Sherlock Holmes stories (you can download etexts of them), but do assert trademark on the Sherlock Holmes character. It seems to me that trademark works to consumers' advantage as well as that of the trademark holder -- if I buy a box of something called, say, "Kleenex", I can be assured that the contents were manufactured to a certain level of quality by Kimberly-Clarke, and that they can be held to account for that quality. If I buy a "Gandalf(tm) Action Figure", I know that the figure was approved by the Tolkien estate or (more likely) their agents. ###### From: David Sulger Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 18:24:25 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 26 Message-ID: <8oos81$5jo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> <39AF3491.6B4FA927@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 166.72.250.45 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Sep 01 18:24:25 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x62.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 166.72.250.45 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDorius Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed.germany.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!xfer10.netnews.com!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26697 In article <39AF3491.6B4FA927@erols.com>, jsolinas@erols.com wrote: . > > This is all correct. I think the memory of people like Martin Luther > King has ennobled the concept of disobedience to the point where > prosecutors are lothe to prosecute it all. > > I agree. To far too many people today, civil disobediance does not mean Rosa Parks refusing to give up a seat on the bus, but rather trashing downtown Seattle, Philadelphia, or Los Angeles for the hell of it in the name of political protest. > "For the uninitiated, Galadriel is the good sister of the evil > but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship > of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien." I see you're still laughing about that faux pas. --Dave Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### From: David Sulger Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 18:34:53 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 17 Message-ID: <8oossd$6bi$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 166.72.250.45 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Sep 01 18:34:53 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x66.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 166.72.250.45 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDorius Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26704 In article , mlindanne@hotmail.com (China Blue Shift) wrote: > > Actually USA copyright law and associated codes are going through > major spasms. Perhaps you missed all the fun with UCC2. > Perhaps. Tolkien was a British citizen, after all, and in this case it may be British, not American copywrite law that applies. OTOH, the texts were on an American server. However, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know how copyright laws apply in international situations like this. --Dave Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 16:56:49 -0400 Lines: 23 Message-ID: <39B01810.B15BC405@erols.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uaedu8jjl.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <39add928@casper.southcom.com.au> <39AE18D0.5C8DB6E6@erols.com> <20otqs0tfhdhj5797oa9bo3m03b3uvspm5@4ax.com> <39AF3491.6B4FA927@erols.com> <8oos81$5jo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: OIKKY4vohByd9Awq/G5iSidoVUedTsxCZ7GDFTg+JGI= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2000 22:52:09 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26771 David Sulger wrote: > > "For the uninitiated, Galadriel is the good sister of the evil > > but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship > > of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien." > > > > I see you're still laughing about that faux pas. Yeah! What gets me is that the article is still there. I'll bet the reporter wishes they'd take it down already. -- -- FotW "For the uninitiated, Galadriel is the good sister of the evil but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien." The Times of London ###### From: mlindanne@hotmail.com (China Blue Shift) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 18:49:20 -0700 Organization: Collective against Consensual Sanity Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <8ood44$5vg$1@panix3.panix.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Hello-Kitty: meow meow. X-Should: Prancing green elves on yellow daisy fields. X-Should-not: You're not allowed. X-Newsgroup-Bomb: Crossposted to heck and back. X-Ray-Specs: Off. X-Traneous-Reference: Kibo X-NSA-Bait: wiretap pgp cryptoterrorist rsa des Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!c151.ppp.tsoft.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26751 / But that sort of thing is not so much a matter of copyright as / Trademark, I think? The Conan Doyle heirs do not retain a copyright When I market Frodo Baggin Beet Fritters I might have problem. If I want to write a story called Malingerring Frodo and the Ring of Doom, no. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Sign up for WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK's special We Rob You While You Sleep Service TODAY! =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= CACS: Collective Against Consensual Sanity v0.123 pretty pretty http://www.tsoft.com/~wyrmwif/ All new and improved web pages! Bookmark yours today! :)-free zone. Elect LUM World Dictator! ###### From: mlindanne@hotmail.com (China Blue Shift) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 18:52:28 -0700 Organization: Collective against Consensual Sanity Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6R8q5.1653$%O6.1391040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <6ulmxgdrib.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6ur977imri.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <8oossd$6bi$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Hello-Kitty: meow meow. X-Should: Prancing green elves on yellow daisy fields. X-Should-not: You're not allowed. X-Newsgroup-Bomb: Crossposted to heck and back. X-Ray-Specs: Off. X-Traneous-Reference: Kibo X-NSA-Bait: wiretap pgp cryptoterrorist rsa des Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!c151.ppp.tsoft.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26752 / Perhaps. Tolkien was a British citizen, after all, and in this case it / may be British, not American copywrite law that applies. OTOH, the I don't care what British laws are, having not been closer than 4000 miles, which is why I always refer USA copyright. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Sign up for WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK's special We Rob You While You Sleep Service TODAY! =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= CACS: Collective Against Consensual Sanity v0.123 pretty pretty http://www.tsoft.com/~wyrmwif/ All new and improved web pages! Bookmark yours today! :)-free zone. Elect LUM World Dictator! ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6usnrl8njs.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <%8Dr5.5100$On2.310100@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <8ood44$5vg$1@panix3.panix.com> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 12 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 01:47:10 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.78.74.81 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 967945630 12.78.74.81 (Sun, 03 Sep 2000 01:47:10 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 01:47:10 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newshub.northeast.verio.net!verio!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:26713 "Michael Urban" wrote in message news:8ood44$5vg$1@panix3.panix.com... > If I buy a "Gandalf(tm) Action Figure", I know that the figure > was approved by the Tolkien estate or (more likely) their agents. Actually, it would be coming from 'Tolkien Enterprises'... which the estate has no control over whatsoever. The rights to all that were sold by JRRT himself many years ago. ###### From: msm0000@my-deja.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 19:44:42 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 67 Message-ID: <8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.40.165.130 X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Sep 14 19:44:42 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x67.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 4.40.165.130 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmsm0000 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!news.csl-gmbh.net!news-fra.pop.de!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27295 In article <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, msm0000@my-deja.com wrote: > As a follow-up, my website with e-texts was closed after the Tolkien > estate's lawyers (Manches Solicitors, ) > complained to Yahoo. Sorry, I have not had the internet access, and so could not comment. Conrad, I don't mind your whistle-blowing too much, as long as you own up to it. I do mind, though, your false claim that I promised to take the website down, and then broke my word. You used the fact that I wasn't on the NG for a while, and could not answer. I said on the website roughly the following. <> First of all, it clearly was not a promise to anyone. I just wanted to warn the users that the site may soon go offline. Even if I simply changed this statement to the opposite the next day, I would not "break my promise", as you, Conrad, put it. Second, I did get supportive comments, which made my statement irrelevant anyway. Thanks to those few who said anything friendly. But, I am totally amazed that the vast majority of the people on RATB are so supportive of the Tolkien estate's moral rights to prohibit the distribution of e- texts. (Forget the legal discussion; none of us has the knowledge and skills to be a judge.) Clearly, overall the society's wealth increases due to e-texts. 1. Lost value (to Tolkien estate, through lost sales) is tiny. Very few people would not buy the book just because e-texts float around. People who download e-texts, and print them out or read from the screen, either have no money to buy the book anyway, or already have bought the book. 2. Added value (to people who want to search or have easy access to an electronic copy) is significant. Search capability alone has been valued at $10-100 per person by some people; definitely it's at least a couple dollars. Access to the book anywhere one has his notebook or PDA is another couple of dollars per person (at least). So at issue is whether the following is unfair: <> Argument 1. This is unfair because the great writer would want his success to be reflected in greater monetary earnings to his heirs than they already received. Argument 2. This is fair because the readers are more important than the heirs to Tolkien being the great writer in the first place. It is a purely emotional issue which argument outweighs the other. I have to conclude, to my amazement, that most people on RATB think it is Argument 1. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### From: msm0000@my-deja.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 20:14:24 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 34 Message-ID: <8prbic$jnb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.40.165.130 X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Sep 14 20:14:24 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x67.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 4.40.165.130 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmsm0000 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-ulm.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!fu-berlin.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27304 I forgot to make some clarifications to the calculations of the value effect of e-texts, so here they are in brief. Suppose a reader downloads an e-text. With prob. 50% (very conservatively), he already has bought the book. Losses to Tolkien estate are zero in this case. The reader went through the hassle of finding and downloading the e-texts just for the search and availability of the electronic copy. Let's say he values these at $5 (again very conservatively, since people on the ng said they'd pay a lot more). With prob. 50%, the reader uses the e-texts instead of buying the book. Most likely, he doesn't care for search/availability, so the gain to the reader is just his savings on the book price, say $10 on average. Tolkien Estate loses the royalty in the amount of $1 (estimated) per book. Thus, for each download of an e-text, we can expect on average: the gain to the honest reader 50% x $5 = $2.50. the gain to the dishonest reader 50% x $10 = $5. the loss to the Tolkien estate 50% x $1 = $0.50. So, for every dollar lost by the Tolkien estate, honest readers get $5 worth of value, and (unfortunately) dishonest readers get $10 worth of value. Frankly, 90% of downloads would be by people who bought the book or will buy it shortly. This would imply that for each dollar lost by the Tolkien estate, the gain to honest readers is $45, and to dishonest $10. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### Reply-To: "Conrad Dunkerson" From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Lines: 92 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 23:22:29 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.78.113.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc07-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 968973749 12.78.113.74 (Thu, 14 Sep 2000 23:22:29 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 23:22:29 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!diablo.theplanet.net!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!portc01.blue.aol.com!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.19!wnmasters2!bgtnsc07-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27308 wrote in message news:8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > You used the fact that I wasn't on the NG for a while, and could > not answer. Don't be ridiculous. How could I 'use' something I had no way of knowing? > I said on the website roughly the following. > < disagree, so would anyone who thinks it's legal please write to > me. If I don't hear any good news by [some date in the near > future], I will have to shut down this site.>> Not the precise words I recall. Notably the wording indicated that you were looking for evidence that it was not illegal - which, given that it was, you would not get. > First of all, it clearly was not a promise to anyone. I just > wanted to warn the users that the site may soon go offline. Even > if I simply changed this statement to the opposite the next day, > I would not "break my promise", as you, Conrad, put it. Semantics anyone? You said you would do something and then did not. If you don't like this being called 'breaking a promise' we could just settle on 'lied'. > Second, I did get supportive comments, which made my statement > irrelevant anyway. Supportive comments do not equal proof of legality. Given that the site was removed it is now impossible to prove, but the statement I recall was that you said you would remove the material unless someone provided you with non-existant proof that it was legal. > But, I am totally amazed that the vast majority of the people on > RATB are so supportive of the Tolkien estate's moral rights to > prohibit the distribution of e-texts. (Forget the legal > discussion; none of us has the knowledge and skills to be a > judge.) Forget the legal issue because there's no question there. It surprises you that Tolkien fans support the Tolkiens? > 1. Lost value (to Tolkien estate, through lost sales) is tiny. > Very few people would not buy the book just because e-texts float > around. People who download e-texts, and print them out or read > from the screen, either have no money to buy the book anyway, or > already have bought the book. Lost value of a possible future AUTHORIZED e-text is, of course, considerably greater. > 2. Added value (to people who want to search or have easy access > to an electronic copy) is significant. Search capability alone > has been valued at $10-100 per person by some people; definitely > it's at least a couple dollars. Access to the book anywhere one > has his notebook or PDA is another couple of dollars per person > (at least). Granted. A new car would be nice too... doesn't mean I can just take one. > So at issue is whether the following is unfair: > < Tolkien readers gain benefits equivalent to a much larger > amount.>> Putting aside that it isn't all that tiny (authorized e-text issue again)... how much are we allowed to steal before it becomes immoral? > Argument 1. This is unfair because the great writer would want > his success to be reflected in greater monetary earnings to his > heirs than they already received. > Argument 2. This is fair because the readers are more important > than the heirs to Tolkien being the great writer in the first > place. As I pointed out before... you included material written not only by 'the great writer', but also by one of those heirs. In short... no, we don't have more right to JRRT's work than his children, and we CERTAINLY don't have more right to CT's work than CT himself does. ###### From: msm0000@my-deja.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 00:45:59 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 88 Message-ID: <8prrg3$77h$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.40.165.130 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Sep 15 00:45:59 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x63.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 4.40.165.130 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmsm0000 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!fu-berlin.de!feeder.qis.net!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27294 In article , "Conrad Dunkerson" wrote: > wrote in message > news:8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > > > You used the fact that I wasn't on the NG for a while, and could > > not answer. > > Don't be ridiculous. How could I 'use' something I had no way of > knowing? Ok, I take it back. > > First of all, it clearly was not a promise to anyone. I just > > wanted to warn the users that the site may soon go offline. Even > > if I simply changed this statement to the opposite the next day, > > I would not "break my promise", as you, Conrad, put it. > > Semantics anyone? You said you would do something and then did > not. If you don't like this being called 'breaking a promise' we > could just settle on 'lied'. Suppose I say on the ng "I will go for vacation to Australia." And then I don't (for some reason). Can you say I lied? Of course, not. One cannot lie about the future. One has to know something to lie about it, and no one knows the future. You can say I lied about my intentions. But that's not so, either: I can change my intentions from the time of writing until the future date in question. Changing intentions, which I did not promise to anyone to keep, is neither a lie nor a break of a promise. > Supportive comments do not equal proof of legality. For the sake of time, I won't enter into the discussion on what type of comments I sought vs what comments I received. This is clearly irrelevant, since I think I already proved that I did not lie or break my promise. > Lost value of a possible future AUTHORIZED e-text is, of course, > considerably greater. Yes, I agree to that. My oversight. In my (incomplete) defense I can say two things. 1. The Tolkien Estate is unlikely to create an authorized e-text in the next decade. And by then, any e-text distributed today will not matter. This is because by 2011, we will very likely have very high-quality scanning and optical character recognition technology; so anyone who wants to use an unauthorized e-text, could just scan & OCR the whole book quite quickly. 2. An authorized e-text would be FAR superior to the huge Word file with numerous typos. Therefore, the vast majority of customers would still buy the authorized e-text, even if free e-text floats around. > As I pointed out before... you included material written not only > by 'the great writer', but also by one of those heirs. In the case of all works other than LoTR and TH, the buyer are either hard-core fans or serious researchers, so so are even less likely to save $10-15 on the book and read it instead from screen or a printout. > In short... > no, we don't have more right to JRRT's work than his children Remember, you admitted you reported me on moral, not legal grounds. So we are talking only about moral, not legal, rights. Specifically, moral rights to extract higher income from the work at the expense of the readers. I think it's a question of degree. Suppose the heirs, say, forced the publishers to sell books at 10 times the price, and as a result got an extra $1 Million in royalties at the expense of millions of people who wouldn't be able to afford the book at all. I think you would agree that that would be *unfair*, so the heirs would have no moral right to this action. I use this example just to point out that no absolute moral norms can apply in this situation, and hence it is a personal, subjective decision of what one considers morally acceptable. This means that you decided to be the judge of others' moral rights by reporting me to the lawyers. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 08:17:42 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 33 Message-ID: References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.cd.de X-Server-Date: 15 Sep 2000 12:15:42 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!news.informatik.uni-muenchen.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27347 msm0000@my-deja.com wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >I've been told that posting these materials may be illegal. I >disagree, so would anyone who thinks it's legal please write to me. If >I don't hear any good news by [some date in the near future], I will >have to shut down this site. Here's an analogy for you: I believe that I have the right to walk into your home, take what I like, and give it to the poor; but I've been told that's illegal. I don't like that answer. If no one writes to agree with me that it's legal by (date), I won't do it. Of course you will always find some other pirate to agree that you should just do what you want, regardless of anyone else. That doesn't make it right, or even legal. >Clearly, overall the society's wealth increases due to e-texts. That may be clear to you, and to other pirates. It is very far from clear to the rest of us. The reasons have been explained many times. But it seems, in this as in the "audio books" thread, that you don't listen to anyone who doesn't confirm your own preconceptions. Instead, you ignore all the corrections and just keep posting the same disinformation. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### Message-ID: <39C22564.532FF0A@po-box.mcgill.ca> From: Carl Blondin X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8prrg3$77h$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 20 Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 13:38:25 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.168.182.33 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mcgill.ca X-Trace: carnaval.risq.qc.ca 969025105 198.168.182.33 (Fri, 15 Sep 2000 09:38:25 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 09:38:25 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!carnaval.risq.qc.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27306 msm0000@my-deja.com wrote: > > > I use this example just to point out that no absolute moral norms can > apply in this situation, and hence it is a personal, subjective > decision of what one considers morally acceptable. This means that you > decided to be the judge of others' moral rights by reporting me to the > lawyers. > Well at least be happy he went through legal means to get you shut down, that way you got to know what happenned to your site. I know somw people who don't know how to let the server manager that something is going wrong, so they'd crash your site over and over until you'd be fed up and decided not to bother about uploading your files anymore. Carl > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. ###### From: msm0000@my-deja.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: etexts of original LOTR, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 21:23:20 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 17 Message-ID: <8pu3vf$pm9$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8m091n$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8oa312$642$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8pr9r3$hi5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.40.165.130 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Sep 15 21:23:20 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x54.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 4.40.165.130 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmsm0000 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27299 In article , brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) wrote: > The reasons have been explained many times. But it seems, in this as > in the "audio books" thread, that you don't listen to anyone who > doesn't confirm your own preconceptions. Instead, you ignore all the > corrections and just keep posting the same disinformation. Sorry, I thought I answered Conrad's criticism as carefully and as directly as possible. I went through every single claim he made, and in fact accepted that I was wrong in some of them. But out of respect to you for creating the encyclopedia of Arda, I will not post in this newsgroup any more. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.