From: "Sean Murphy" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Digital appendices? Lines: 7 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:24:27 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.147.67 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: monger.newsread.com 1014240267 209.198.147.67 (Wed, 20 Feb 2002 16:24:27 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 16:24:27 EST Organization: PrismNet, Inc. (prismnet.com) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!yellow.newsread.com!bad-news.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!POSTED.monger.newsread.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78718 Does anyone know of a way to get a digital (computer text) version of the appendices from RotK? All the copies of RotK I've seen end with the end of the story. Thanks! ###### Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? References: X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 22 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: news.uchicago.edu 1014248530 128.135.12.7 (Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:42:10 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:42:10 CST Organization: The University of Chicago X-SessionID: mvWc8-5451-r4-1466@news.uchicago.edu X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: 80b10135 c11c387a 3d2a10f6 0ecd8aea 06fe8fff Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 23:42:10 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!newsfeed.it.ip-plus.net!news.it.ip-plus.net!news.it.colt.net!itgate.net!nntp1.phx1.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp-cust.primenet.com!feedwest.news.agis.net!aleron.net!sfo2-feed1.news.digex.net!intermedia!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.uchicago.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78795 Quoth "Sean Murphy" in article : > Does anyone know of a way to get a digital (computer text) version > of the appendices from RotK? All the copies of RotK I've seen end > with the end of the story. What country are you from? I know that virtually every English language edition of LotR includes the Appendices (they are certainly part of the official text of RotK). I'm not sure about foreign language editions, which I assume is what you've been reading. It's a moot point, though: LotR is still thoroughly under copyright and owned by Tolkien's family, and they haven't chosen to release an electronic text. That includes the Appendices, of course, so there's no legal (or ethical) electronic version out there. Your best bet is probably to buy a cheap English edition of RotK... the book itself should cost you less than $10, though shipping might be a bit of a pain depending on where you live. (Buying from England would presumably be a better deal than buying from the US if you live in Europe.) Best wishes. Steuard Jensen ###### From: "Koosh" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:26:15 -0800 Organization: Navix Internet Subscribers Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: pega2pp44.alltel.net X-Trace: iac5.navix.net 1014251470 1188 166.102.107.45 (21 Feb 2002 00:31:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@navix.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Feb 2002 00:31:10 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!uunet!lax.uu.net!news.navix.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78758 "Sean Murphy" wrote in message news:fuUc8.1447$eI1.392508@monger.newsread.com... > Does anyone know of a way to get a digital (computer text) version of the > appendices from RotK? All the copies of RotK I've seen end with the end of > the story. > > Thanks! > > Just yesterday I came across the very thing you are looking for while searching for some ebooks on TCP/IP. Try doing a search for "free ebooks"+"tolkien". If I come across this site again I'll be sure to post it. ###### Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? References: X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 12 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: news.uchicago.edu 1014321968 128.135.12.7 (Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:06:08 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:06:08 CST Organization: The University of Chicago X-SessionID: Qqcd8-13529-r4-2403@news.uchicago.edu X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: 7ac5c6b8 7763d78a 92ece33e 23107cbf c2df95a8 Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 20:06:08 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.uchicago.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78916 Quoth "Koosh" in article : > Just yesterday I came across the very thing you are looking for > while searching for some ebooks on TCP/IP. Try doing a search for > "free ebooks"+"tolkien". If I come across this site again I'll be > sure to post it. Oh, please do! (Sheesh... and Nebraskans are supposed to be ethical people, too.) Steuard Jensen ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 21 Feb 2002 23:59:10 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 50 Message-ID: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014332353 655 10.0.3.2 (21 Feb 2002 22:59:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Feb 2002 22:59:13 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78929 sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > Quoth "Koosh" in article > : > > Just yesterday I came across the very thing you are looking for > > while searching for some ebooks on TCP/IP. Try doing a search for > > "free ebooks"+"tolkien". If I come across this site again I'll be > > sure to post it. > > Oh, please do! WARNING: That is a trap! Do not post websites with (real) ebooks to this group. There exist a few copyright-worshipers here, who will try to destroy any (real) ebook site they get to know of. You have given an valid method for finding sites (whichever ones are existant at any time), you will not help by posting the URL. Other methods would be filesharing systems, IRC warez channels, Usenet warez groups, and so on, we are in the Internet age, of data over-abundance everywhere. Sean will have to learn the use of todays tools like everyone else who disagrees with the lawmaking crooks and their unthinking obedient bullies (police force and judges). > (Sheesh... and Nebraskans are supposed to be ethical people, too.) But Steuard. You have now twice in 2 days posted that false statement. Law does not define ethics! Breaching copyright may be illegal (= againt the law), but in many cases (such as this one, dead authors works) is not unethical (= destructive to society). The only unethical act involved here is corrupt politicians granting greedy publishers monopolies for 50 or 70 years after an authors death, in the name of "rewarding the author" (how exactly does one reward an dead person?). JRRT is dead. As bad as that is (no finished Silm), it is true. So he will not profit from any monopoly any more. And CT has his own books to profit from (and did not write LoTR anyway, and so has no part in the work of that and no right to demand continued profit from that). -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: Astrid Vollenbruch Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 23:52:47 +0100 Organization: T-Online Lines: 11 Message-ID: <3C757A3F.F2515835@t-online.de> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.t-online.com 1014332672 07 691 zXbITzvSOYLMB 020221 23:04:32 X-Complaints-To: abuse@t-online.com To: Neil Franklin X-Sender: 320026012277-0001@t-dialin.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [de]C-CCK-MCD DT (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: de Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsmm00.sul.t-online.com!t-online.de!news.t-online.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78949 Ah well. I always wondered why the hell anybody would be interested in the fact that Aragorn is the heir of a man 3,000 years dead. Whoever wrote that little quote, please start reading information and laws concerning inheritance, heritage, heirloom and whatever other english words there may exist. Basic knowledge might come in handy at times. > JRRT is dead. As bad as that is (no finished Silm), it is true. So he > will not profit from any monopoly any more. And CT has his own books > to profit from (and did not write LoTR anyway, and so has no part in > the work of that and no right to demand continued profit from that). ###### From: Lisa Virmigle Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 15:53:49 -0800 Organization: InterWorld Communications Lines: 17 Message-ID: <3C75888D.4AE79D83@libraries.claremont.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C757A3F.F2515835@t-online.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: 134.173.136.16 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: nntp1.interworld.net 1014335486 15752 134.173.136.16 (21 Feb 2002 23:51:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.interworld.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 23:51:26 +0000 (UTC) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!sjc1.nntp.concentric.net!newsfeed.concentric.net!news.interworld.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79104 Certainly his family -- or whomever Tolkien wished to benefit -- deserve to receive the book's current royalties? (Unless you wish them to be offered as grave goods ;) (which JRRT would not have approved!) If you happened to come into a fortune, wouldn't you want a say who it went to after your death?) Yours, LV A Librarian, entrusted with the stewardship of many books written by those now dead, who works in a library funded by a bequest, and who thus is unusually concerned with honoring the wishes of the dead... (that's no sig, that's a colophon!) ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 19:56:18 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!opentransit.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79117 Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >WARNING: That is a trap! > >Do not post websites with (real) ebooks to this group. There exist a >few copyright-worshipers here, who will try to destroy any (real) >ebook site they get to know of. The term is not "copyright worshippers", it is "people who look askance at thievery." It's too bad that you don't understand the difference between "I want something" and "I can take it without paying for it." -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: anon Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 20:42:10 -0500 Organization: iamthewalruspaulisdead Message-ID: <3C75A1F2.BDCA7969@nowhere.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 67 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!enews.sgi.com!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator-la!news-in-la.newsfeeds.com!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78967 Neil Franklin wrote: > sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > > > Quoth "Koosh" in article > > : > > > Just yesterday I came across the very thing you are looking for > > > while searching for some ebooks on TCP/IP. Try doing a search for > > > "free ebooks"+"tolkien". If I come across this site again I'll be > > > sure to post it. > > > > Oh, please do! > > WARNING: That is a trap! > > Do not post websites with (real) ebooks to this group. There exist a > few copyright-worshipers here, who will try to destroy any (real) > ebook site they get to know of. > > You have given an valid method for finding sites (whichever ones are > existant at any time), you will not help by posting the URL. Other > methods would be filesharing systems, IRC warez channels, Usenet warez > groups, and so on, we are in the Internet age, of data over-abundance > everywhere. Sean will have to learn the use of todays tools like > everyone else who disagrees with the lawmaking crooks and their > unthinking obedient bullies (police force and judges). > > > (Sheesh... and Nebraskans are supposed to be ethical people, too.) > > But Steuard. You have now twice in 2 days posted that false > statement. Law does not define ethics! > > Breaching copyright may be illegal (= againt the law), but in many > cases (such as this one, dead authors works) is not unethical > (= destructive to society). > > The only unethical act involved here is corrupt politicians granting > greedy publishers monopolies for 50 or 70 years after an authors death, > in the name of "rewarding the author" (how exactly does one reward an > dead person?). > > JRRT is dead. As bad as that is (no finished Silm), it is true. So he > will not profit from any monopoly any more. And CT has his own books > to profit from (and did not write LoTR anyway, and so has no part in > the work of that and no right to demand continued profit from that). ...so when you die, can I move into your house... seeing as you're not using it anymore. Hey, who cares about your heirs. -- anon ------------------------------------------------------------ "I find some of the webbies to be very entertaining, & they are most enjoyable when tossed by their tails for distance." Something I read on a newsgroup once ------------------------------------------------------------ ###### Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: srowe@cambridgebroadband.com X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> From: srowe@mose.org.uk (Simon J. Rowe) Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Lines: 15 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:08:55 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.254.213.145 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news2-win.server.ntlworld.com 1014379735 62.254.213.145 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:08:55 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:08:55 GMT Organization: ntl Business News Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!uninett.no!news.algonet.se!algonet!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!peernews!peer.cwci.net!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news2-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78972 In article , qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) writes: > The term is not "copyright worshippers", it is "people who look > askance at thievery." It's too bad that you don't understand the > difference between "I want something" and "I can take it without > paying for it." You're missing the point, all of the people who have asked for electronic copies probably already own the paper versions, all they wanted to do was 'media shift'. Now that may not be allowed under copyright law but tell me, have you never taped a CD or vinyl record to play in the car? Simon ###### From: Donald Shepherd Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 23:18:56 +1000 Organization: Sad Fuckers of the World Lines: 42 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 214-155-11-210-cns.nq.net X-Trace: gnamma.connect.com.au 1014384040 13872 210.11.155.214 (22 Feb 2002 13:20:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@connect.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Feb 2002 13:20:40 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.60 X-Virus: I am a header virus. Please add me to your headers. X-Ignore-Godwin: Yes Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.bri.connect.com.au!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79140 In article , Paul Kellaway (paul.kellaway@btinternet.com) says... > > "Steuard Jensen" wrote in message > news:mvWc8.41$r4.1416@news.uchicago.edu... > > Quoth "Sean Murphy" in article > > : > > > Does anyone know of a way to get a digital (computer text) version > > > of the appendices from RotK? All the copies of RotK I've seen end > > > with the end of the story. > > > > What country are you from? I know that virtually every English > > language edition of LotR includes the Appendices (they are certainly > > part of the official text of RotK). I'm not sure about foreign > > language editions, which I assume is what you've been reading. > > > > It's a moot point, though: LotR is still thoroughly under copyright > > and owned by Tolkien's family, and they haven't chosen to release an > > electronic text. That includes the Appendices, of course, so there's > > no legal (or ethical) electronic version out there. Your best bet is > > probably to buy a cheap English edition of RotK... the book itself > > should cost you less than $10, though shipping might be a bit of a > > pain depending on where you live. (Buying from England would > > presumably be a better deal than buying from the US if you live in > > Europe.) Best wishes. > > > > Steuard Jensen > > My copy has all the books in one and I believe it coincides with the release > of the film that dare not speak its name....however the end of ROTK and the > appendices have fallen off, would you say it's fair for me to download an > etext? Does it have Bakshi's Nazgul on the front? /me suspects I have the same copy. -- Donald Shepherd BALROG: Screw Gandalf! Where’s this Ralph Bakshi guy? - http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=534018 ###### From: "Sean Murphy" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 21 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:20:24 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.147.67 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: monger.newsread.com 1014387624 209.198.147.67 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:20:24 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:20:24 EST Organization: PrismNet, Inc. (prismnet.com) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feeder.qis.net!yellow.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!POSTED.monger.newsread.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79097 > Does it have Bakshi's Nazgul on the front? > > /me suspects I have the same copy. > -- I do indeed have several paper versions that have the appendices, but sometimes it's useful to have the text in e-form; for example, when one is looking up specific references to "Moria", it's nice to be able to do a global search rather than having to rely on spotty memory. Or when one is trying to find any use of the term "Olog-hai". I also have one complete bound edition which contains only the tale of Aragorn and Arwen. It appears to be a very old british printing (Allen and Unwin) and has a stylized green-hued painting of a landscape framed by two trees on the cover. This is the one I have at work, but since it lacks appendices, I was hoping to find an electronic version of them for reference here. ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 10:48:12 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 36 Message-ID: <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78997 "Simon J. Rowe" wrote: > > qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) writes: > > The term is not "copyright worshippers", it is "people who look > > askance at thievery." It's too bad that you don't understand the > > difference between "I want something" and "I can take it without > > paying for it." > > You're missing the point, all of the people who have asked for > electronic copies probably already own the paper versions, all they > wanted to do was 'media shift'. Now that may not be allowed under > copyright law but tell me, have you never taped a CD or vinyl record > to play in the car? > This is where it gets sketchy. Lawyers, please correct me. I believe taping a CD you own is legal under a fair use law. However, making a track from your CD into an mp3 is not legal under the DMC (Digital Millennium Copyright act). Under these restrictions, I am not sure if it would be legal for you to type up your copy of the LotR Appendix for your own use. It's a real shame that CT has not allowed a legal electronic form of Tolkien's texts. I doubt the existence of such would affect sales of published LotR material; most people who desire an etext want it for searching, as has already been mentioned. I believe his wishes should be obeyed, but at the same time, I am hoping that there will eventually be a revision of current copyright laws to reflect the changing situation of media in today's world. Under fair use, it should be legal for you to have an electronic copy of LotR if you have legal possession of the printed text. That this is not the case is a serious issue with the existing laws. This isn't to say those laws should be ignored. But it is not unethical to argue they should be changed. emilie ###### Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 67 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: news.uchicago.edu 1014396660 128.135.12.7 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 10:51:00 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 10:51:00 CST Organization: The University of Chicago X-SessionID: UFud8-22175-r4-4100@news.uchicago.edu X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: 66121ff4 b5e35bb4 eddfbf39 fc6b7b59 7f9ba5ca Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 16:51:00 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.uchicago.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79052 Quoth Neil Franklin in article <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>: > sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > > Quoth "Koosh" : > > > Try doing a search for "free ebooks"+"tolkien". If I come > > > across this site again I'll be sure to post it. > > Oh, please do! > WARNING: That is a trap! Of course it is, and a pretty obvious one, too. :) I'm not shooting for subtlety here! > > (Sheesh... and Nebraskans are supposed to be ethical people, too.) > But Steuard. You have now twice in 2 days posted that false > statement. Law does not define ethics! And I've never said that it did. I have given considerable thought to the ethics of copyright, and I believe that on the whole, existing copyright laws do protect a valid ethical right of authors and other creators. Just as I think an entrepreneur has an ethical right to pass on a substantial fraction of her business to her heirs, I think an author has an ethical right to pass on a portion of his creative output. I'll agree that the ever-expanding extension of copyright periods is worrisome, certainly! I don't know that every detail of existing copyright law is perfectly ethical and right... but I'm reasonably convinced that the current state of the law comes far closer to protecting creators' ethical rights than unrestricted distribution of their work on the internet would. I know that you and others have made detailed arguments about how copyright law should be changed, which I can at least respect even if I disagree strongly with many of your conclusions (dropping copyright immediately upon a creator's death, for example). However, my strong impression has been that most (or at least many) of the actual copyright violators on the internet don't have such philosophies. Quite a few of the electronic texts of LotR that I've seen online (and attempted to get taken down) have been accompanied by the recent work of living authors (Robert Jordan, for example). Those who provide them are hiding behind respectable proponents of copyright change but actively abandoning copyright altogether. Eventually, I start to wonder just how many of those "respectable" people actually have the same agenda in the long term, and whether or not they are upset by the smokescreen others are making of their words. > The only unethical act involved here is corrupt politicians granting > greedy publishers monopolies for 50 or 70 years after an authors > death, in the name of "rewarding the author" (how exactly does one > reward an dead person?). By allowing them to provide for their heirs, just like the members of pretty much any other profession that involves creating things. If my father builds furniture for a living, he certainly has the right to pass along any of his unsold pieces to me when he dies! (Once I've sold them, of course, I have to find some way to support myself, which is why copyrights _do_ need to expire eventually.) I'll agree that the 50-70 year copyright periods after the author's death are pretty silly, and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the subject I'd like to see them reduced, but abolishing them altogether seems wrong to me. I know you disagree, but hey. :) Steuard Jensen ###### From: "Trek Barnes" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 63 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 17:36:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.54.68.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.fl.home.com 1014399414 68.54.68.8 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:36:54 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:36:54 PST Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!24.0.0.38!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.fl.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79119 "Emilie Karr" wrote in message news:3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu... > "Simon J. Rowe" wrote: > > > > qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) writes: > > > The term is not "copyright worshippers", it is "people who look > > > askance at thievery." It's too bad that you don't understand the > > > difference between "I want something" and "I can take it without > > > paying for it." > > > > You're missing the point, all of the people who have asked for > > electronic copies probably already own the paper versions, all they > > wanted to do was 'media shift'. Now that may not be allowed under > > copyright law but tell me, have you never taped a CD or vinyl record > > to play in the car? > > > This is where it gets sketchy. Lawyers, please correct me. I believe > taping a CD you own is legal under a fair use law. However, making a > track from your CD into an mp3 is not legal under the DMC (Digital > Millennium Copyright act). AFAIK, and I'm not a copyright lawyer either, making MP3's is perfectly legal, just not distrubing them. If it was illegal, I doubt Microsoft would relase a tool that lets you do so, thanks to the legal focus on their other activitties. I personally see no problem with haveing a e-text version of the books, as long as you have a legit copy as well. I personally hav a e-text version I got off of Morpheus specifically because of the ability to search for words/phrases. I also own 3 paper copies of the trillogy. I don't own a coppy of History of Middle-Earth, and thus haven't tried to get an e-text copy of them. That would be wrong. If/when CT releases a legit E-text copy, I'll get rid of mine and buy it. (I also have a copy of the movie on my hard drive, but having seen the movie 6 times in the theater so far (Once after downloading it) and planning to buy the DVD on day don't feel the slightest bit guilty about it.) > Under these restrictions, I am not sure if it would be legal for you to > type up your copy of the LotR Appendix for your own use. > > It's a real shame that CT has not allowed a legal electronic form of > Tolkien's texts. I doubt the existence of such would affect sales of > published LotR material; most people who desire an etext want it for > searching, as has already been mentioned. I believe his wishes should > be obeyed, but at the same time, I am hoping that there will eventually > be a revision of current copyright laws to reflect the changing > situation of media in today's world. Under fair use, it should be legal > for you to have an electronic copy of LotR if you have legal possession > of the printed text. That this is not the case is a serious issue with > the existing laws. > > This isn't to say those laws should be ignored. But it is not unethical > to argue they should be changed. > > emilie ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 13:31:41 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 30 Message-ID: <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78994 "Bob F." wrote: > > "Trek Barnes" wrote in message > > > > I personally see no problem with haveing a e-text version of the books, as > > long as you have a legit copy as well. > > > I don't disagree with your logic that it is appropriate for you to make an > electronic for your own use. But, you didn't do that did you? You > downloaded it off of Morpheus. This means of course it is accessible to > those who are less scrupulous than you. > The point of the matter is, how many unscrupulous types are going to download LotR online but not buy a copy of the book, who actually *would* have bought the book if it had not been available online? Most people don't read novels on computer screens. Printing it out would probably cost more than just picking up a cheap paperback, and the paperback is more convenient, too. Novels are probably one of the arts least threatened by the 'digital revolution' of media, at least for now. There's an electronic library which has authors voluntarily putting their novels--current novels in print--online for free, at least in part to prove that sales would not be affected by their electronic availability. This is a bigger issue for things like HoMe, I think--reference material which relatively few people are reading for fun, but more fans might want just to be able to look things up. Then again, most of those people probably wouldn't buy a paper copy anyway... emilie ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:58:02 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 50 Message-ID: <3C76A2CA.F662767D@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79003 "Bob F." wrote: > > "Emilie Karr" wrote in message > > > The point of the matter is, how many unscrupulous types are going to > > download LotR online but not buy a copy of the book, who actually > > *would* have bought the book if it had not been available online? Most > > people don't read novels on computer screens. Printing it out would > > probably cost more than just picking up a cheap paperback, and the > > paperback is more convenient, too. Novels are probably one of the arts > > least threatened by the 'digital revolution' of media, at least for > > now. ... > > It would be difficult at best to answer your first question. One some of > those questions are answered it might be proven reasonable to allow > distribution via this form, but you can't undo harm done. Also, while you > and I would prefer to read via a real book, we don't know how succesful > e-books will be. > Well, e-books have been around for several years now, but they haven't overtaken print by a long shot. I don't think they will for quite a few years yet, if ever, because of the convenience issue if nothing else... I don't have hard statistics, but I believe most people at this point still prefer reading print copy over words on a screen. This is from my own experience. I actually do quite a lot of reading on computers myself - I'm a fanfic reader; it's material only available online. And yet I know many people who choose to print out fanfic to read it, and I know people who will buy zines of material available for free online, because they prefer it in print. > > This is a bigger issue for things like HoMe, I think--reference material > > which relatively few people are reading for fun, but more fans might > > want just to be able to look things up. Then again, most of those > > people probably wouldn't buy a paper copy anyway... > > I would like to think it would be up to the owner of the type of material > you are describing. Shouldn't it be their choice? > Mm, maybe...I still believe that if you legally purchased something then you have a right to have a digital copy of the material. Fair use gets all fuzzy and gray here but it makes sense to me; you've paid your dues to the artist (or heirs) for the production, yes? It's not like you have to pay every time you reread a book you own, or rewatch a video. The problem is that there is no simple way to allow fair use while preventing "unfair" use, i.e. downloading a free copy without paying for an original. I can't see any way around this conundrum, unfortunately, as relying on the better part of human nature would be a very untrustworthy solution. emilie ###### From: andrews@csd.uwo.ca (Jamie Andrews) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 23 Feb 2002 00:12:06 GMT Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario Lines: 66 Message-ID: References: <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hyphocus.csd.uwo.ca X-Trace: panther.uwo.ca 1014423126 11970 129.100.11.51 (23 Feb 2002 00:12:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@julian.uwo.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 00:12:06 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!torn!newshost.uwo.ca!csd.uwo.ca!andrews Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78975 I promise to post only one article on this subject. In article <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu>, Emilie Karr wrote: >The point of the matter is, how many unscrupulous types are going to >download LotR online but not buy a copy of the book, who actually >*would* have bought the book if it had not been available online? Most >people don't read novels on computer screens. Printing it out would >probably cost more than just picking up a cheap paperback, and the >paperback is more convenient, too. I am confident that, if it were legal to download an electronic copy of any book and to print it out, there would spring up stores in malls (probably in those crappy little spaces next to the least-used entrances) whose purpose was to help you print out your e-book for cheap. And bind it. And put a nice cover on it. And actually, let you download it with that terminal in the corner. And probably they would eventually be all bought up by Kinko's or something like that. In a world like this, if you heard about a good book from a friend, and it wasn't in the first bookstore you went into, would you really order it? Probably not. You would instead go to the local custom book printing shop, download it and print it yourself. It's legal, less wait, and probably cheaper than the first hardcover printing. One source of revenue for the author -- word of mouth -- would be gone; and the books that this would affect the most would be the ones that the publishers didn't believe in enough to print huge numbers of copies of to flood the bookstores. In other words, if it were legal to download an electronic copy of any book and to print it out, the people who would get the profit from a really good book that comes like "a bolt from the blue" (such as _LOTR_) would be the Kinkos of the world, and little of the revenue would flow back to the "official" publisher or the author. Is that what we want? Writing is a very tenuous profession. Most novel writers do not score big like Tolkien and write one massively popular book which sustains them the rest of their and their children's lives. Most novel writers live on small advances given to them by their publishers, who in turn can give those advances only on the off chance that the book will become popular. If a book does become popular, the publisher can get the profit by printing more copies itself. The actually popular books then finance the less popular ones for the publisher. Furthermore, if a book becomes popular, then people might want to buy the previous books by the same author, allowing the publisher to profit from a continued investment and belief in an author. Getting rid of restrictions on digital copies would destroy this system, pushing out marginal publishers and writers who haven't happened to have had their big hit yet. Is that what we want? I'm not saying digital copies have always got to be restricted in the same way as they are now. However, any implementation of changes has got to set up an extremely complex set of checks and balances that makes sure that no unfortunate author gets ripped off by writing a book that becomes extremely popular -- and sees little of the profit because people are using ISPs and custom printing houses in order to access it. So far, I have seen no proposal that really addresses this problem. --Jamie. (nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita) andrews .uwo } Merge these two lines to obtain my e-mail address. @csd .ca } (Unsolicited "bulk" e-mail costs everyone.) ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 23 Feb 2002 18:37:19 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 71 Message-ID: <6ulmdkdrqo.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C757A3F.F2515835@t-online.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014485841 775 10.0.3.2 (23 Feb 2002 17:37:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 17:37:21 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79203 Note to Astrid Vollenbruch: do not send personal emails for messages you are also posting. Most people first read and answer email before reading Usenet. So they end up writing you an personal answer, and then have to write an second public one for the group. That wastes peoples time and is considered rude on the net. Only send personal email if you are not continuing the discussion on the newsgroup. Astrid Vollenbruch writes: > Ah well. I always wondered why the hell anybody would be interested in the > fact that Aragorn is the heir of a man 3,000 years dead. Because it gives the story an (pseudo-)historical depth? I regard it a one of the good features of LoTR, that it has such an elaborate world behind it. And many here do also. And JRRT also, else he would have not delayed the publishing of RotK to include the Appendices. > > JRRT is dead. As bad as that is (no finished Silm), it is true. So he > > will not profit from any monopoly any more. And CT has his own books > > to profit from (and did not write LoTR anyway, and so has no part in > > the work of that and no right to demand continued profit from that). Note, that this was an statement about economics (the bits about JRRT) and about right/wrong (the bit about CT), and not about law. And right/wrong ist not identical with law, as the former is about what people think while the later is about what law texts say. > Whoever wrote that > little quote, please start reading information and laws concerning > inheritance, heritage, heirloom and whatever other english words there may > exist. Basic knowledge might come in handy at times. I have a question you may be capable of answering: I have seen _at_least_ 5 pro-copyrightists, in different discussions, make this false assumption, that anyone who is critisizing an laws right to exist, must be someone who does not know what that law says. This has happened often enough, that I suspect some mechanism at work and not just randomness. Why is it, that copyrightists (I have never seen this behaviour from any other law group) are so often incapable of imagining that there exist people who have actually read the law, know what is says, know the arguments why it was made that way, and then disagree with the justification of those arguments? In this case, of course, you have the special case, that not copyright per se, but rather the application of inheritance law to copyright ist being critisised. But the fundamental question remains: Just because someone critisises inheritablility of copyright (which is legally a privilege, like say an title is, and not an property), does not make then unaware of the existance of inheritance laws. It just measn the disagree with this use of law. Which is something every person aiming for an law chage (which is an democratic right) does. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 23 Feb 2002 18:43:47 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 35 Message-ID: <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014486228 775 10.0.3.2 (23 Feb 2002 17:43:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 17:43:48 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79204 qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) writes: > Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: > > > >Do not post websites with (real) ebooks to this group. There exist a > >few copyright-worshipers here, who will try to destroy any (real) > >ebook site they get to know of. > > The term is not "copyright worshippers", it is "people who look > askance at thievery." And I regard lawmakers who rob (take away using armed force (the police)) the public of its ability to copy as worse than thieves. It is exactly people (in particularly you) who do not accept any criticism of an vastly over-reaching law, that I was referring to. Until I see you in one post agree that copyright has gone too far, and needs trimming, I will regard you as worshipper of this law. > It's too bad that you don't understand the > difference between "I want something" and "I can take it without > paying for it." It's bad that you don't understand the difference between an justifiable law (such as dont take away objects (= steal)) and an totaly over-dimensioned law (strip the public of its ability to copy even after the justified beneficiary (= author) is dead). -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 23 Feb 2002 18:56:14 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 83 Message-ID: <6ug03sdqv5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014486976 837 10.0.3.2 (23 Feb 2002 17:56:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 17:56:16 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79205 Emilie Karr writes: > "Simon J. Rowe" wrote: > > > > You're missing the point, all of the people who have asked for > > electronic copies probably already own the paper versions, all they > > wanted to do was 'media shift'. Now that may not be allowed under > > copyright law but tell me, have you never taped a CD or vinyl record > > to play in the car? > > > This is where it gets sketchy. Lawyers, please correct me. IANAL. But anyway: when making statements about law allways include which countries law. They differ. I will assume country=USA for the rest of this post. > I believe > taping a CD you own is legal under a fair use law. The AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act) legalises this. > However, making a > track from your CD into an mp3 is not legal under the DMC (Digital > Millennium Copyright act). It is legal under AHRA. DMCA only forbids breaking any copy prevention mechanism, if the CD has such. Or even making tools that could be used for that purpose, or even spreading information which could be used to make such tools. So much for democracy... > Under these restrictions, I am not sure if it would be legal for you to > type up your copy of the LotR Appendix for your own use. LotR Appendix is a book. AHRA ist about music recordings. AFAIK there is no equivalent exemption for books, unless the general "fair use" allows it. AFAIK it does not. > It's a real shame that CT has not allowed a legal electronic form of > Tolkien's texts. The general problem with copyright owners: so scared stiff from fear someone may profit without paying them, that they will pass up an large existing chance to make money, and drive people to use illegal copies instead. Legal etexts would make money (not from every copy, but from some) and any pirate can get illegal ones anyway. I call it stupidity. > be obeyed, but at the same time, I am hoping that there will eventually > be a revision of current copyright laws to reflect the changing > situation of media in today's world. Forget it. The "change to reflect the new situation" is the DMCA: 100% tightening, no freeing. Copyright law is written by the copyright profitees and then rubber stamped by congress (thanks for them campaing donaitions, or course we pass your law). > Under fair use, it should be legal > for you to have an electronic copy of LotR if you have legal possession > of the printed text. That this is not the case is a serious issue with > the existing laws. One of many serious issues. And given the non-existance of change for the better, I expect the general public to simply kill these laws by million-times breach. Serves the unreasonable buggers right. > This isn't to say those laws should be ignored. But it is not unethical > to argue they should be changed. At least one person with an brain. Thank you. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 23 Feb 2002 19:11:39 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 111 Message-ID: <6ubsegdq5g.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014487900 846 10.0.3.2 (23 Feb 2002 18:11:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 18:11:40 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79206 sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > Quoth Neil Franklin in article > <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>: > > sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > > > > (Sheesh... and Nebraskans are supposed to be ethical people, too.) > > > But Steuard. You have now twice in 2 days posted that false > > statement. Law does not define ethics! > > creators. Just as I think an entrepreneur has an ethical right to > pass on a substantial fraction of her business to her heirs, I think > an author has an ethical right to pass on a portion of his creative > output. OTOH any accademic has no right to pass on his titles. Nor do people have a right to pass on privileged positions (royalty excluded). > copyright law is perfectly ethical and right... but I'm reasonably > convinced that the current state of the law comes far closer to > protecting creators' ethical rights than unrestricted distribution of > their work on the internet would. Well, "after death" is not quite unrestricted. > immediately upon a creator's death, for example). However, my strong > impression has been that most (or at least many) of the actual > copyright violators on the internet don't have such philosophies. That is easily possible. OTOH why make it easier for them, by giving them so many examples of clearly overdone laws? People can easily poitn to them, say "crap law" and than go on breaking all of the law, inclusive the desirable parts. I have the strong fear that copyright will be completetly killed, even those parts that can be justified, because its profetees are so unreasonable with some of their demands. Any comprimise will require both parties stepping back. Perhaps those in control of the law should take a step back, to encourage the others? > Quite a few of the electronic texts of LotR that I've seen online (and > attempted to get taken down) have been accompanied by the recent work > of living authors (Robert Jordan, for example). Possibly. I have only found one so far. And that was an pure Tolkien site. > Those who provide > them are hiding behind respectable proponents of copyright change but > actively abandoning copyright altogether. The normal behaviour. > > The only unethical act involved here is corrupt politicians granting > > greedy publishers monopolies for 50 or 70 years after an authors > > death, in the name of "rewarding the author" (how exactly does one > > reward an dead person?). > > By allowing them to provide for their heirs, just like the members of > pretty much any other profession that involves creating things. Which they can do be inheriting all the physical objects they have got from their proceeds, like everyone else does. The author will have used his copyright to make money and aquire things with it, after all. > If my > father builds furniture for a living, he certainly has the right to > pass along any of his unsold pieces to me when he dies! Which are physical objects. Which by the laws of physics can only have one owner at a time. So everyone passing them on to their descendants is a simple and sensible course of action. But OTOH titles and privileges are not passed on. As there is no need for this, as they are not objects and so have no physical persistance, only socially gegerated existance. So we can (and often do) declare them to cease to exist on death of their owner. I htink copyright (which is a privilege and not an property, btw) should be treated like titles and any other privilege. > (Once I've > sold them, of course, I have to find some way to support myself, which > is why copyrights _do_ need to expire eventually.) Not to mention that you should already have an lifes income before inheriting them. You don't have that many parents to die convieniently every time you need income! > I'll agree that > the 50-70 year copyright periods after the author's death are pretty > silly, and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the subject I'd > like to see them reduced, but abolishing them altogether seems wrong > to me. I know you disagree, but hey. :) So any suggestion what amount of after-death you regard as acceptable? -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 08:46:05 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 27 Message-ID: <3C779D1D.C7C0989E@swva.net> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> <3C76A2CA.F662767D@law.harvard.edu> Reply-To: eroot@swva.net NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-005-ct12.citizens.swva.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1014471966 168880 66.37.76.5 (23 Feb 2002 13:46:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 13:46:06 +0000 (UTC) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!newsfeed.frii.com!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79386 Emilie Karr wrote: (snip) > Mm, maybe...I still believe that if you legally purchased something then > you have a right to have a digital copy of the material. Fair use gets > all fuzzy and gray here but it makes sense to me; you've paid your dues > to the artist (or heirs) for the production, yes? It's not like you > have to pay every time you reread a book you own, or rewatch a video. > The problem is that there is no simple way to allow fair use while > preventing "unfair" use, i.e. downloading a free copy without paying for > an original. I can't see any way around this conundrum, unfortunately, > as relying on the better part of human nature would be a very > untrustworthy solution. > > emilie Well, I believe you have a right to a digital copy of something you already paid for; the difficulty here is that, unlike with CDs, if you don't have OCR, you have to do a lot of work to get the copy. However, you _are_ free to prop the book next to your computer and start typing away! <8^) -Eric Root ###### From: OrionCA Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Organization: Starship Enterprises Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> <3C76A2CA.F662767D@law.harvard.edu> <3C779D1D.C7C0989E@swva.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 18 Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 17:08:10 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.205.171.46 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1014484090 24.205.171.46 (Sat, 23 Feb 2002 09:08:10 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 09:08:10 PST X-Received-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 09:08:09 PST (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79385 On Sat, 23 Feb 2002 08:46:05 -0500, Eric Root wrote: >Well, I believe you have a right to a digital copy of something you already >paid for; the difficulty here is that, unlike with CDs, if you don't have OCR, >you have to do a lot of work to get the copy. However, you _are_ free to prop >the book next to your computer and start typing away! <8^) No, you're not. Reproduction of a copyrighted work in any form w/o permission is forbidden. You could get a fireproof blanket and a large supply of lumber to transcribe LotR to smoke signals and you'd still be in trouble. "Fair Use" implies short, specific, accurate quotes published for commentary and discussion. Reproducing entire chapters or appendices to a copyrighted work w/o permission has never been held to be "fair use". -- It only _looks_ like a little stick. Until you see it up close. ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 13:20:35 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C76683C.174C0CD3@law.harvard.edu> <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> <3C76A2CA.F662767D@law.harvard.edu> <3C779D1D.C7C0989E@swva.net> X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!lnsnews.lns.cornell.edu!paradoxa.ogoense.net!sn-xit-04!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79339 Eric Root wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >Well, I believe you have a right to a digital copy of something you already >paid for; the difficulty here is that, unlike with CDs, if you don't have OCR, >you have to do a lot of work to get the copy. However, you _are_ free to prop >the book next to your computer and start typing away! <8^) I did that, as a matter of fact, during a dark winter when I had too much time on my hands. It's very useful for searching. Technically it's a copyright violation, but the damage to the Tolkien estate is nil since I did it from my purchased copy and won't hand out e- copies. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 16:56:32 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C757A3F.F2515835@t-online.de> <6ulmdkdrqo.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 18 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79340 Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >Note to Astrid Vollenbruch: do not send personal emails for messages >you are also posting. A case of "do as I say, not as I do"? If you have a personal message for someone, the correct thing is to send it to that person. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: const32@hotmail.com (Constantine) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 24 Feb 2002 06:39:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 40 Message-ID: <915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.251.0.5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014561598 25784 127.0.0.1 (24 Feb 2002 14:39:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Feb 2002 14:39:58 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feeder.qis.net!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79361 sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote in message news:... > I have given considerable thought to > the ethics of copyright, and I believe that on the whole, existing > copyright laws do protect a valid ethical right of authors and other > creators. Just as I think an entrepreneur has an ethical right to > pass on a substantial fraction of her business to her heirs, I think > an author has an ethical right to pass on a portion of his creative > output. Copyright laws do indeed protect the intellectual property of authors as well as the income of publishers. However, I don't see how an e-text version of Tolkien's works, even if it's illegal, could have a negative effect on the sales of the hard copies. As far as I know, there are very few, if any, people who would be willing to read the thousands of pages that constitute Tolkien's works on a computer screen. Also, the cost of having an e-book printed is far greater than the retail price of the book. I agree that the newsgroup should not encourage the distribution of e-text versions of Tolkien's books. On the other hand, hunting down the sites that host them seems to me a bit far-fetched. And after all, I would really like to know the reason CT does not wish to have the books published in an electronic form. Considering the demand on this newsgroup, which consists of people who own multiple copies of LotR, Silm, and other books, it would probably be not only harmless, but also quite profitable! I don't mean to be rude or offensive here, just wondering... have all those people who are appalled by the idea of there being an unauthorised e-text version of a book never in their lives copied a borrowed music record on tape? Never photocopied a couple of chapters from a textbook? Never downloaded an evaluation copy of a piece of software and 'forgotten' to register? Constantine ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 38 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:29:20 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.23.189 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014586160 12.79.23.189 (Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:29:20 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:29:20 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!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:79442 "Constantine" wrote in message news:915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com... > And after all, I would really like to know the reason CT does not > wish to have the books published in an electronic form. Who said he didn't? Indeed, it is the hope that the book will eventually be published in as an authorized e-book which motivates many of the people who object to the illegal copies. These illegal copies clearly damage the potential sales of an authorized version. As to why we haven't seen an authorized e-book of LotR yet... the same reasons that most books are not available in this way. There is currently no way to protect them from widespread theft. > I don't mean to be rude or offensive here, just wondering... have all > those people who are appalled by the idea of there being an > unauthorised e-text version of a book never in their lives copied a > borrowed music record on tape? I haven't actually, but I wouldn't object to it. It also happens to be legal. > Never photocopied a couple of chapters from a textbook? Nope, but again no objection and not illegal (fair use). > Never downloaded an evaluation copy of a piece of software and > 'forgotten' to register? This I've probably done (depending on exactly what sort of software you are referring to - 'shareware', 'freeware', 'postcardware', 'public beta', et cetera) - and again, neither objectionable to me (in most cases) nor illegal. ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 34 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:40:24 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.23.189 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014586824 12.79.23.189 (Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:40:24 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:40:24 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!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:79438 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > It is exactly people (in particularly you) who do not accept any > criticism of an vastly over-reaching law, that I was referring to. And where did Stan say that he would accept no criticism of the law? > Until I see you in one post agree that copyright has gone too > far, and needs trimming, I will regard you as worshipper of this law. In which case you are being rather illogical. Does everyone you have not seen denounce copyright law "worship" it? I can't imagine anyone 'worshipping' it. > It's bad that you don't understand the difference between an > justifiable law (such as dont take away objects (= steal)) and > an totaly over-dimensioned law (strip the public of its ability > to copy even after the justified beneficiary (= author) is dead). It is bad that you take such a simplified view of 'right and wrong' and personal opinion. I must disagree with your above assessment since it would mean (amongst other absurdities) that a masterwork completed but not published before an author's death would probably NEVER be published. What would be the point of spending the money to print and distribute it when it was no longer under copyright and could be freely copied? As with any other field the profits of an author's work should pass to their heirs - not be given over to the public just because the person has died. ###### From: const32@hotmail.com (Constantine) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 24 Feb 2002 20:10:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 37 Message-ID: <915989d9.0202242010.4515bc62@posting.google.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.251.0.8 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014610258 11500 127.0.0.1 (25 Feb 2002 04:10:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Feb 2002 04:10:58 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!nntp.abs.net!feeder.qis.net!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79484 "Conrad Dunkerson" wrote in message news:... > "Constantine" wrote in message > news:915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com... > > > I don't mean to be rude or offensive here, just wondering... have all > > those people who are appalled by the idea of there being an > > unauthorised e-text version of a book never in their lives copied a > > borrowed music record on tape? > > I haven't actually, but I wouldn't object to it. It also happens to > be legal. Despite the fact that most people do not object to it, I'm not sure whether it's legal to copy a _borrowed_ music record (one you do not own). Any lawyers out there? > > Never photocopied a couple of chapters from a textbook? > > Nope, but again no objection and not illegal (fair use). You're right, it looks like 'fair use' is the key issue here. The problem is that something which is considered as fair is not always legal. Suppose I buy a copy of a book, OCR it for my own private use and then give my e-text version to a few people who also own a hard copy of the book. Depending on whether there is a licensed e-book available, is what I've done fair or legal or both or neither? Anyway, I'd really like to see an authorised e-version of Tolkien's books some day; it'll be very handy for searching - especially the Silmarillion (probably more names per page than any other book!) Let's hope it will not be outrageously priced (keeping in mind that a CD-ROM costs significantly less to produce than a book), as this will indeed drive people towards the pirate versions that will inevitably appear at that time. Constantine ###### From: conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 25 Feb 2002 04:33:45 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 16 Message-ID: <1178b6d1.0202250433.68fb3ecf@posting.google.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com> <915989d9.0202242010.4515bc62@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.42.51.27 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014640426 21994 127.0.0.1 (25 Feb 2002 12:33:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Feb 2002 12:33:46 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79510 const32@hotmail.com (Constantine) wrote in message news:<915989d9.0202242010.4515bc62@posting.google.com>... > Despite the fact that most people do not object to it, I'm not sure > whether it's legal to copy a _borrowed_ music record (one you do not > own). Any lawyers out there? Whups, I missed the 'borrowed' part there. Not as certain about that one, but I think it would still fly. I know that you can make a tape of songs from a record you have purchased for yourself, and my understanding is that you can even then share that tape with someone else. The argument Napster made in their copyright infringement case was that just this sort of legal swapping of songs between individuals was going on, but it was ruled that they were allowing mass distribution rather than individual sharing. There might be a grey area where you could get into trouble if the person doing the copying weren't the actual owner of the record, but I doubt it. ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 09:37:36 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 58 Message-ID: <3C7A4C30.D0F45A00@law.harvard.edu> References: <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!netnews.com!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79432 Jamie Andrews wrote: > > I promise to post only one article on this subject. > > In article <3C768E8D.99424020@law.harvard.edu>, > Emilie Karr wrote: > >The point of the matter is, how many unscrupulous types are going to > >download LotR online but not buy a copy of the book, who actually > >*would* have bought the book if it had not been available online? Most > >people don't read novels on computer screens. Printing it out would > >probably cost more than just picking up a cheap paperback, and the > >paperback is more convenient, too. > > I am confident that, if it were legal to download an > electronic copy of any book and to print it out, there would > spring up stores in malls (probably in those crappy little > spaces next to the least-used entrances) whose purpose was to > help you print out your e-book for cheap. And bind it. And put > a nice cover on it. And actually, let you download it with that > terminal in the corner. And probably they would eventually be > all bought up by Kinko's or something like that. > This isn't going to happen. Have you ever checked the cost of printing? Binding a book like this costs substantially more than a paperback. Paperbacks are cheap mainly 'cuz they're printed en masse. That's why a fanzine, though it may be only 200 photocopied pages with a plastic ring binding, cost upwards of $20, even though zine publishers make little to no profit. A greater worry is in a couple decades, when everyone possesses full-color Palm Pilots and is used to using them, people will read on those more than regular books. Hard to say if this will happen or not; print's got centuries of history to support it, but computers have it over the old methods in certain conveniences. Digital media is not yet a significant threat to the more traditional 'hard copy' forms. How many years have mp3s been around? But despite the record companies' squawking, CDs still sell like hot-cakes. Heck, at this point nearly everyone online has access to a CD burner, but CDs continue to sell. People recommend CDs to friends, and rather than burning them a copy, the friends go out and buy the original CD. I frankly have no idea what's "keeping them honest". I don't even know what's keeping me honest, because I'm one of those less-rare-than-might-be-believed animals that downloads mp3s and then buys CDs of what I like - there's at least a couple groups who have gotten money from me that wouldn't have seen a red cent if their music hadn't been online. It's not a quality issue for me; I can't hear the difference between a good mp3 and a CD. It is an honesty thing, an desire to support artists I appreciate. At least that's what I tell myself, because I can't see why else I'd be shelling out the bucks. Then again, CD companies haven't failed in Japan, despite the prevalance of minidisk players...if the record companies were worried about mp3s, MDs are enough to send them gibbering under their desks. There's a *reason* they're only just coming out here... emilie ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 10:01:53 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 30 Message-ID: <3C7A51E1.3A340962@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <915989d9.0202240639.50aaeb56@posting.google.com> <915989d9.0202242010.4515bc62@posting.google.com> <1178b6d1.0202250433.68fb3ecf@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79426 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > const32@hotmail.com (Constantine) wrote: > > > Despite the fact that most people do not object to it, I'm not sure > > whether it's legal to copy a _borrowed_ music record (one you do not > > own). Any lawyers out there? > > Whups, I missed the 'borrowed' part there. Not as certain about that > one, but I think it would still fly. I know that you can make a tape > of songs from a record you have purchased for yourself, and my > understanding is that you can even then share that tape with someone > else. The argument Napster made in their copyright infringement case > was that just this sort of legal swapping of songs between individuals > was going on, but it was ruled that they were allowing mass > distribution rather than individual sharing. There might be a grey > area where you could get into trouble if the person doing the copying > weren't the actual owner of the record, but I doubt it. I'm another not-lawyer (we need a real one on this thread!), but if what I've been trying to study is correct, there is in fact a huge fat grey area here. "Fair use" has been specifically defined only for certain types of media in certain situations. Which is why the Napster thing was such a big deal; the law was fuzzy, and either side had a decent case. Most lawyers do not agree on all the copyright issues out there; the laws are becoming so complicated in their efforts to cover their bases that people end up breaking them unintentionally - as well as flaunting their disregard through file-sharing programs and the like. emilie ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 25 Feb 2002 22:53:39 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 166 Message-ID: <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014674021 548 10.0.3.2 (25 Feb 2002 21:53:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Feb 2002 21:53:41 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79540 "Conrad Dunkerson" writes: > "Neil Franklin" wrote in message > news:6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > > It is exactly people (in particularly you) who do not accept any > > criticism of an vastly over-reaching law, that I was referring to. > > And where did Stan say that he would accept no criticism of the law? He has never accepted any criticism of it. He has so far called every single criticism aimed at it, an attempt to steal. His behaviour is therefore indistinguishable from that of an worshipper. So bar any other signs that he does accept some critique, it is rational to regard him as such. > > Until I see you in one post agree that copyright has gone too > > far, and needs trimming, I will regard you as worshipper of this law. > > In which case you are being rather illogical. Does everyone you have > not seen denounce copyright law "worship" it? I can't imagine anyone > 'worshipping' it. Worshiping (in the intended use of the word) is defined as supporting something religiously, without any acceptance of critique, even when it is justified critique. Which he has up until now done. > > It's bad that you don't understand the difference between an > > justifiable law (such as dont take away objects (= steal)) and > > an totaly over-dimensioned law (strip the public of its ability > > to copy even after the justified beneficiary (= author) is dead). > > It is bad that you take such a simplified view of 'right and wrong' Law, like everything else, comes with costs and benefits. Simple book keeping. If the former are larger than the later, then no intelligent life form whould voluntarily want it. And not deliberately create it. So what sophisticated version do you prefer over that simple one? Law should be accepted, so long your friends profit, suck everyone else? You do have a personal relationship with the estate after all. Do you prefer that one? > and personal opinion. I must disagree with your above assessment > since it would mean (amongst other absurdities) Demonstrate them "absurdities". No handwaiving. > that a masterwork > completed but not published before an author's death would probably > NEVER be published. Or publish it the way CT did with Silm: mixed with his own editing work. As living co-author he has copyright on Silm. Or if it really is fully finished do it as in HoME, mixed with commentary. People do buy that, some like me even have full HoME I-XII. Why is it that pro-copyright people have so little imagination when it comes to seeing all the possible sources of money? Mental lazyness bread by relying on monopolies? > What would be the point of spending the money > to print and distribute it when it was no longer under copyright and > could be freely copied? In case you have never heard of it before: There exist entire publishers that live off of printing and distributing out-of-copyright stuff, such as Dover Press, or the Penguin Classics. They do not seem to be dying of no profit. Perhaps because people are prepared to pay (gosh!) for the _service_ of them printing and distribution the stuff? Guess where my copies of Alice in Wonderland, Gullivers Travels, Frankenstein, Dracula, Civil Disobedience, etc come from. New prints, bought in book shops, and they did not fall from an UFO! Of course if a book becomes large enough volume for the market to take an second distributor, one will arise. That is called competition. But in this case the first distributor must be making quite an profit. For just digging out and printing that is enough (no author to pay after all, just his own service costs). Outside of the little world of publishing everyone else works for the pay they get for service. Everyone expects that customers will pay for it. There is no reason to not assume that people will pay for printing books, any less as they do for manufacturing objects. The rest of the world regards this as normal. This may be an astonnishing thing for you, and a large section of the publishing industry, to learn about. > As with any other field the profits of an author's work should pass > to their heirs - not be given over to the public just because the > person has died. No one is objecting to the heirs getting the money made while the author was alive (= the authors profits). Objection is to passing on an privilege (which exists at cost to the public) justified by the benefit of "supporting authors", which at the time (author dead) is not doing any justifying benefit any more. For the case you have not noticed it yet: Copyright is presently going down the drain - real fast. 60 mio Napster users were 10-50% of the possible target audience (must have computer with sound card, low volume cost internet, like music, not put up with radio, accept time cost of napstering). That is 10-50% of the applicable populace willfully ignoring even the most basic tenet of copyright (pay for copy of recent works of living musicians). That should be alarming. That points to an _massive_ acceptance problem that copyright has. The typical result of lawmakers making (and repeatedly extending) an law, without any public discussion of its cost/benefit, instead of having an discussion and then codifying what the public regards as right (as was done with murder or real theft or fraud laws, which do have public support). One can immagine 3 future scenarios for copyright: 1. Further on, as up to now, rampant piracy, copyright dies soon, in effect, if not in writing. Entirely. Nothing left. 2. Publishers try to ram copyright down the publics throat, by means of an police state, like the communists tried to force their ideology on an unwilling public, see DMCA for the implementation 2a. fail at stopping pirates, result same as in 1 2b. succeed, goodby democracy, revolution in future, after as in 1 in either case whatever existing support there is for copyright will be eroded by this power abuse, see ex soviet union for anti-communism 3. Attempt Copyright reform, cut its over-reaching abuses back _massively_, to an level the public is prepared to accept as beneficiary 3a. it is already too late, result same as in 1 (or possibly 2) 3b. public can be convinced of an small justifiable copyright, WIN! At the present 1 is the most likely thing to happen. This is an _very_ likely future. And people like you and Stan are, by ignorance, "we have law, it says we are allowed, we demand it, fuck you", doing everything you can to help get there. I am, at least for the moment, still trying to aim for 3b. Thanks for the "thief" bit, nice reward for trying to help you. I suppose that is the typical fate of moderates when facing compromiseless extremists who do not ever recognize how extreme their position is. Perhaps I should just give up and accept 1 as inevitable (possibly via 2). After all I am not dependant on copyright and have only an small and not important gain from copyright (more works to buy from). Would you prefer that? -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: kern@grinnell.edu (Chris Kern) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 00:19:04 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 68 Message-ID: <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-156.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news.stealth.net!209.98.3.200.MISMATCH!priapus.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!news-in-sanjose!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!165.113.238.17!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79686 On 25 Feb 2002 22:53:39 +0100, Neil Franklin posted the following: >> that a masterwork >> completed but not published before an author's death would probably >> NEVER be published. > >Or publish it the way CT did with Silm: mixed with his own editing >work. As living co-author he has copyright on Silm. > >Or if it really is fully finished do it as in HoME, mixed with >commentary. People do buy that, some like me even have full HoME >I-XII. But under your system, anyone could extract the original author's text (which is what most people will be reading HoME or like works for) and post them on a web page, or do their own publication of it. Or if you are suggesting that CT would gain the copyright of JRRT's works by virtue of "co-author", then someone could protect the copyright just by issuing a new edition of a dead author's works with a few pages of commentary. >Why is it that pro-copyright people have so little imagination when it >comes to seeing all the possible sources of money? Mental lazyness bread >by relying on monopolies? Why are you so antagonistic about this? Ad hominem attacks don't help your case at all. The entire tone of your posts is rude and insulting -- you have a viewpoint worth airing, and I don't see why you feel the need to foul it up with attacks and absurdities. >For the case you have not noticed it yet: Copyright is presently going >down the drain - real fast. This does not mean that the law is not necessary! >60 mio Napster users were 10-50% of the possible target audience >(must have computer with sound card, low volume cost internet, like >music, not put up with radio, accept time cost of napstering). That is >10-50% of the applicable populace willfully ignoring even the most >basic tenet of copyright (pay for copy of recent works of living >musicians). And that should be a sad state of affairs -- 10-50% of people are thieves (I include myself here, I downloaded many songs from Napster but I have no excuse for that behavior, I suppose I could hide behind some pseudo-ethical argument like "I wouldn't have bought these CDs anyway, so the artists didn't lose any money", but I don't like those arguments.) >2. Publishers try to ram copyright down the publics throat, by means > of an police state, like the communists tried to force their > ideology on an unwilling public, Can there be some sort of second-tier Godwin's law here? >3. Attempt Copyright reform, cut its over-reaching abuses back _massively_, > to an level the public is prepared to accept as beneficiary > 3a. it is already too late, result same as in 1 (or possibly 2) > 3b. public can be convinced of an small justifiable copyright, WIN! > >At the present 1 is the most likely thing to happen. Get a book (or look on the internet) and find out what the logical fallacy called "false dilemma" is. Try again later. -Chris ###### From: Donald Shepherd Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 12:44:56 +1000 Organization: Sad Fuckers of the World Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 220-155-11-210-cns.nq.net X-Trace: gnamma.connect.com.au 1014695737 15195 210.11.155.220 (26 Feb 2002 03:55:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@connect.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Feb 2002 03:55:37 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.60 X-Virus: I am a header virus. Please add me to your headers. X-Ignore-Godwin: Yes Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!newsfeed01.tsnz.net!news.xtra.co.nz!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.bri.connect.com.au!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79793 In article <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com>, Chris Kern (kern@grinnell.edu) says... > >2. Publishers try to ram copyright down the publics throat, by means > > of an police state, like the communists tried to force their > > ideology on an unwilling public, > > Can there be some sort of second-tier Godwin's law here? No, he never mentioned the Nazis. -- Donald Shepherd BALROG: Screw Gandalf! Where’s this Ralph Bakshi guy? - http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=534018 ###### From: kern@grinnell.edu (Chris Kern) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 06:23:07 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 17 Message-ID: <3c7b297e.58000266@news.newsguy.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-946.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79685 On Tue, 26 Feb 2002 12:44:56 +1000, Donald Shepherd posted the following: >In article <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com>, Chris Kern >(kern@grinnell.edu) says... >> >2. Publishers try to ram copyright down the publics throat, by means >> > of an police state, like the communists tried to force their >> > ideology on an unwilling public, >> >> Can there be some sort of second-tier Godwin's law here? > >No, he never mentioned the Nazis. Thus the "second-tier"...comparisons to communism are not as common as comparisons to nazis, but they do happen. -Chris ###### From: conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 26 Feb 2002 09:52:18 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 96 Message-ID: <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.42.51.50 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014745938 3619 127.0.0.1 (26 Feb 2002 17:52:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Feb 2002 17:52:18 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!nntp-relay.ihug.net!ihug.co.nz!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79778 Neil Franklin wrote in message news:<6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>... I had written of 'copyright expires upon death'; >> I must disagree with your above assessment since it would mean >> (amongst other absurdities) > Demonstrate them "absurdities". No handwaiving. In addition to works not getting published late in (or after) the author's life there'd be problems of an author dying in an accident (or being killed by a greedy publisher) shortly after a book came out in one country and publishers in other countries then copying the work and selling it for great profit without having to give a penny to the author's heirs. Or consider it in relation to music - a record company puts up the money for equipment, recording time, mass production, et cetera and then the artist dies; suddenly the music can be freely copied and distributed by anyone who cares to do so? An even more extreme case of the same sort of thing can be seen in the movie industry. Studios would be VERY loathe to put up the millions it takes to make a big movie if the death of one person could take it all away. > Or publish it the way CT did with Silm: mixed with his own editing > work. As living co-author he has copyright on Silm. > Or if it really is fully finished do it as in HoME, mixed with > commentary. People do buy that, some like me even have full HoME > I-XII. Oh, well then... see, I thought you were OPPOSED to extended copyright. Since the scenarios you suggest above would make copyright eternal I see that I must have completely mis-understood you. I apologize entirely for my mistake. Who knew that you were in favor of making it possible to keep a dead author's works under copyright by adding some commentary? Never occurred to me. So, Christopher goes back and adds a new foreword to 'The Hobbit'... it is under copyright until he dies. But before that happens he has HIS son write a new foreword... copyright keeps going until HE dies. And so on ad infinitum. This is great. Excellent plan. > Why is it that pro-copyright people have so little imagination when it > comes to seeing all the possible sources of money? Mental lazyness bread > by relying on monopolies? Simple common sense? > In case you have never heard of it before: There exist entire publishers > that live off of printing and distributing out-of-copyright stuff, such > as Dover Press, or the Penguin Classics. Certainly... but they are printing established classics and best sellers that are guaranteed to be purchased. It is quite a different matter to put down the money to print something which may or may not sell well - and which any schmo can then copy and cut into your profits if the book DOES start to take off. > No one is objecting to the heirs getting the money made while the > author was alive (= the authors profits). Objection is to passing on > an privilege (which exists at cost to the public) justified by the > benefit of "supporting authors", which at the time (author dead) is > not doing any justifying benefit any more. And just so soon as you support the distribution upon death of ALL assets (every dollar of savings, every parcel of land, every item of property, every share of stock, et cetera) to the general public rather than the person's heirs I will cease considering you grossly hypocritical on this issue. Then I'll just think you're a nut. Example: Person A writes a book. Person B builds a toll road. Person A and Person B both die immediately upon completion of these projects. The heirs of person A get nothing while the heirs of Person B get all profits from the road. Really fair and balanced plan. Definitely encouraging artists to create there by setting up laws which keep their heirs from receiving the profits. Why would they EVER look into other lines of work when they could write books and at the end of the day have absolutely nothing to show for it? > I am, at least for the moment, still trying to aim for 3b. Thanks for > the "thief" bit, nice reward for trying to help you. Check a dictionary. I use the dictionary definitions of 'the', 'frog' and lots of other words too. Not just 'thief'. > I suppose that is the typical fate of moderates when facing > compromiseless extremists who do not ever recognize how extreme their > position is. Heh. You consider yourself a moderate do you? Fortunately, your tone is not AT ALL indicative of extremism. Nope, calm and rational discussion - that's you. ###### From: mdw@ncipher.com (Mark Wooding) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> Organization: nCipher development Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Date: 27 Feb 2002 17:11:08 GMT Lines: 55 NNTP-Posting-Host: gate.ncipher.com X-Trace: 1014829868 reading.news.pipex.net 8505 62.190.84.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!bnewspeer01.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!auucp0.ams.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewsifeed01.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79751 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > Since the scenarios you suggest above would make copyright eternal I > see that I must have completely mis-understood you. I apologize > entirely for my mistake. > > Who knew that you were in favor of making it possible to keep a dead > author's works under copyright by adding some commentary? Never > occurred to me. So, Christopher goes back and adds a new foreword to > 'The Hobbit'... it is under copyright until he dies. But before that > happens he has HIS son write a new foreword... copyright keeps going > until HE dies. And so on ad infinitum. This is great. Excellent > plan. No, that wouldn't work. Copyright in `pre-foreword Hobbit' will lapse as before. Just because there's now a new version which is still under copyright doesn't mean that copyright applies to all versions. > Example: Person A writes a book. Person B builds a toll road. Person > A and Person B both die immediately upon completion of these projects. > The heirs of person A get nothing while the heirs of Person B get all > profits from the road. On the other hand, Person B's heirs have to maintain the toll road and pay people to collect tolls. Person A's heirs can just sit on their arses while the cheques roll in. > Really fair and balanced plan. Definitely encouraging artists to > create there by setting up laws which keep their heirs from receiving > the profits. Why would they EVER look into other lines of work when > they could write books and at the end of the day have absolutely > nothing to show for it? Of course, avarice is the only reason anybody ever does anything creative. While I'm a respectable (ish) programmer at work, I'm rather more proud of the Free Software[1] I write in my own time. I'm also a rock guitarist, and when I get around to recording stuff, I'll want copies to be circulated under copyleft[2]-like terms. On this topic, also see . > Check a dictionary. I use the dictionary definitions of 'the', 'frog' > and lots of other words too. Not just 'thief'. Ah, but you're not. See [1] See [2] See -- [mdw] ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 27 Feb 2002 23:19:50 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 145 Message-ID: <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014848391 1451 10.0.3.2 (27 Feb 2002 22:19:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Feb 2002 22:19:51 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79858 kern@grinnell.edu (Chris Kern) writes: > On 25 Feb 2002 22:53:39 +0100, Neil Franklin > posted the following: > > >> that a masterwork > >> completed but not published before an author's death would probably > >> NEVER be published. > > > >Or publish it the way CT did with Silm: mixed with his own editing > >work. As living co-author he has copyright on Silm. > > > >Or if it really is fully finished do it as in HoME, mixed with > >commentary. People do buy that, some like me even have full HoME > >I-XII. > > But under your system, anyone could extract the original author's text > (which is what most people will be reading HoME or like works for) and > post them on a web page, or do their own publication of it. Assuming the readers want an pieces-of-text collection without any bridging commentary telling them what was when. HoME would be quite confusing without the comments. And they are worth reading, no matter what some people here claim. So people will buy the books for them. Also people can identically extract the text of Alice in Wonderland from the Penguin Classics edition, or simply fetch it from the Project Gutenberg website. But despite that they (including me) still buy the books. And people can also cook their own food. But restaurants seem to still survive just nicely. People do pay for service. Copyright may be usefull to reward the author. But for feeding an publisher of out-of-copyright books it is definitely not neccessary. > Or if you are suggesting that CT would gain the copyright of JRRT's > works by virtue of "co-author", The co-author applies to an case like Silm, where the final text is edited (and partially written) by CT, and as such he is a co-author. Of yourse he should have stated that, instead of just publishing it under JRRTs name. And separating the CT parts from the non-CT parts was impossible pre-HoME. And after senseless, as HoME already has them separate. > then someone could protect the > copyright just by issuing a new edition of a dead author's works with > a few pages of commentary. Then the "new edition" is copyrighted. Just like an commented Alice in Wonderland is. The non-commented text (extracted from the new edition, or taken full from an copy of the old edition) is out of copyright, and remains so. > >Why is it that pro-copyright people have so little imagination when it > >comes to seeing all the possible sources of money? Mental lazyness bread > >by relying on monopolies? > > Why are you so antagonistic about this? Ad hominem attacks don't help > your case at all. The entire tone of your posts is rude and insulting > -- you have a viewpoint worth airing, and I don't see why you feel the > need to foul it up with attacks and absurdities. I tend to adopt my style of writing to that of those I am writing/replying to. They set the style with "thief" and similar. Quite apart from that, the above was intended as a question. I have observed far too many pro-copyrightists who immediately cry "we/authors will have no income" instead of trying to find some. From my place the pro-copyrightist simply look under-average when it comes to looking for income sources. OTOH perhaps that it is because I am used to the style of open-source programmers, who seem to have no large problem finding income, and I am simply used to being among over-average people. > >For the case you have not noticed it yet: Copyright is presently going > >down the drain - real fast. > > This does not mean that the law is not necessary! But it does make it prudent to look for an solution that has a chance of surviving. Going on unchanged just does not cut. > >60 mio Napster users were 10-50% of the possible target audience > > And that should be a sad state of affairs Far more important than lamenting: Recognizing it is the world we are in, and so the world any future strategy must work in. Theoretical solutions that work in ideal worlds are not much use. The world can teach us a lot, but only if we are prepared to read it. > >2. Publishers try to ram copyright down the publics throat, by means > > of an police state, like the communists tried to force their > > ideology on an unwilling public, > > Can there be some sort of second-tier Godwin's law here? Unlikely. As you have not even understood the original Godwin. Godwin stated, that if a poster compares some group with the Nazis (an comparison which is apt to be totally out of scale, as the compared behaviour is usually not an mass murder), one can assume that there will be no further usefull content in that thread (because it has all become hype). Here the result of an group (publishers) actions (trying to suppress noncomplying public by making oppressive laws) ist being compared with an other groups (the communists) exactly identical action. So I am pointing out, that both are using the same strategy. So we can look at the faillure of the first as likely outcome of the second. > >3. Attempt Copyright reform, cut its over-reaching abuses back _massively_, > > to an level the public is prepared to accept as beneficiary > > 3a. it is already too late, result same as in 1 (or possibly 2) > > 3b. public can be convinced of an small justifiable copyright, WIN! > > > >At the present 1 is the most likely thing to happen. > > Get a book (or look on the internet) and find out what the logical > fallacy called "false dilemma" is. Try again later. No dilemma here. Nor did I claim one. Just a listing of (projected) consequences of different possible behaviours. And an suggestion that one particular one (3b.) carries the best chances. And the observation that that is not where the story is heading at present. Perhaps you should look up something on statistics and hedging bets. Or on the type of "what happens if" thinking that characterises engineering. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 28 Feb 2002 00:15:08 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 196 Message-ID: <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014851721 1487 10.0.3.2 (27 Feb 2002 23:15:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Feb 2002 23:15:21 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79859 conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) writes: > Neil Franklin wrote in message news:<6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>... > > I had written of 'copyright expires upon death'; > >> I must disagree with your above assessment since it would mean > >> (amongst other absurdities) > > > Demonstrate them "absurdities". No handwaiving. > > In addition to works not getting published late in (or after) the > author's life That argument has been killed. There is money in publishing it. > there'd be problems of an author dying in an accident That happens with any business investment. Have your head designer, or top manager, or most important financial backer die. Not to mention an fire in your manufacturing unit or an earthquake, or political instability, or any of many reasons that can kill off an project. It is call risk. Either shoulder it in those few cases it happens (by not putting all your eggs in one basket), or find out about an financial-effects-of-risk-sharing business call insurance. > (or being killed by a greedy publisher) shortly after a book came out There exists perfectly valid laws against murder. And they are only broken by an very small percentage of people, so the police have more than an snowball-in-hell chance of solving them, and so detering them. > author's heirs. Or consider it in relation to music - a record > company puts up the money for equipment, recording time, mass > production, et cetera and then the artist dies; suddenly the music can > be freely copied and distributed by anyone who cares to do so? That is again risk. Insure yourself. External insurance company or internal splitting of risk on multiple projects. The public not liking an new artist is far more risk than the occational death of an artist. > even more extreme case of the same sort of thing can be seen in the > movie industry. Studios would be VERY loathe to put up the millions > it takes to make a big movie if the death of one person could take it > all away. Same as above. Cost of Film (say 100 mio dollar) times risk of death in filming time (say 1%) plus insurance companies profit (say times 2) gives one 2 mio dollar budget item. Comparable in size with the capital costs (also a few percent). Not at all magic. IIRC from your statements about reading original Tolkien manuscripts you are some type of literary researcher. Perhaps you should take your head out of the books and get a bit familiar with business. How actual business is done. Risk assessment, Profit calculations, that sort of stuff. > > Or publish it the way CT did with Silm: mixed with his own editing > > work. As living co-author he has copyright on Silm. > > > Or if it really is fully finished do it as in HoME, mixed with > > commentary. People do buy that, some like me even have full HoME > > I-XII. > > Oh, well then... see, I thought you were OPPOSED to extended > copyright. I am. As stated in words, and deductable from my writings. > Since the scenarios you suggest above would make copyright eternal I Your misconception has been debunked by Mark Wooding. > > Why is it that pro-copyright people have so little imagination when it > > comes to seeing all the possible sources of money? Mental lazyness bread > > by relying on monopolies? > > Simple common sense? Since when is lack of immagination sensible? > > In case you have never heard of it before: There exist entire publishers > > that live off of printing and distributing out-of-copyright stuff, such > > as Dover Press, or the Penguin Classics. > > Certainly... but they are printing established classics and best > sellers that are guaranteed to be purchased. It is quite a different > matter to put down the money to print something which may or may not Many a masterwork of an living author was not recognized as such and not published. See the Silm in the 1930s for one. Publishers allways need to look at an work an decide. An dead authors work has no monopoly, but also no royalties. So it is an pure manufacturing vs selling proposition, liek that faced by any other business which has no monopoly to hide behind. Remember: the copyright is there to feed the author, not the publisher. The later have an service (printing) to make money from. > sell well - and which any schmo can then copy and cut into your > profits if the book DOES start to take off. Assuming anyone wants to read from the web. Most people seem to prefer paper. Just look at the faillure of ebooks to take off. > > No one is objecting to the heirs getting the money made while the > > author was alive (= the authors profits). Objection is to passing on > > an privilege (which exists at cost to the public) justified by the > > benefit of "supporting authors", which at the time (author dead) is > > not doing any justifying benefit any more. > > Example: Person A writes a book. Person B builds a toll road. Also already handled by Mark Wooding. > Really fair and balanced plan. Definitely encouraging artists to > create there by setting up laws which keep their heirs from receiving > the profits. Why would they EVER look into other lines of work when > they could write books and at the end of the day have absolutely > nothing to show for it? Because they do have something to show for it? Their own gains while they are living. > > I am, at least for the moment, still trying to aim for 3b. Thanks for > > the "thief" bit, nice reward for trying to help you. > > Check a dictionary. I use the dictionary definitions of 'the', 'frog' > and lots of other words too. Not just 'thief'. Is "The New Penguin English Dictionary", published 2000, good enough? ---------- thief /theef/ noun (pl thieves /thievz/) somebody who steals, esp secretly and without violence. steal /steel/ verb (past ...) 1 to take (something) without permission or illegally, with no intention of returning it. 2 to use (someone else's ideas, work, material, etc) without acknowledgment, so passing them off as one's own. 3 to take (a look) ... 4a to gain ... advantage ... b in sport ... 5 in baseball ... ---------- So 1 is about objects, not ideas, and 2 is about plagiarism, and the rest are totally off court. So where exactly is suggesting that copyright is over-extended and needs reducing in there? Even outright piracy is not in there. > > I suppose that is the typical fate of moderates when facing > > compromiseless extremists who do not ever recognize how extreme their > > position is. > > Heh. You consider yourself a moderate do you? In a world where one extreme is total abbolishment and the other extreme no reduction at all, everyone who aims for an middle path is a moderate. > Fortunately, your tone > is not AT ALL indicative of extremism. Nope, calm and rational > discussion - that's you. You may go before with an good example. Shall we look at some of your non-rational conclusions, just in the one post I am replying to: - equalling non-inheritance with non-reward? - equalling an risk of loss on authors death with allways loss? - claiming that publishers (an manufacturing business) can not exist without an monopoly (what do all them non-publishing businesses do)? - calling people to read an dictionary when you are standing in contradition to what the dictionary says? Rational discussion doesn't seem to be you. I adopt my level to the person I an discussing with. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 20 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 22:20:17 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.23.219 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014848417 12.79.23.219 (Wed, 27 Feb 2002 22:20:17 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 22:20:17 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!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:79946 "Mark Wooding" wrote in message news:slrna7q4p5.h70.mdw@mull.ncipher.com... > No, that wouldn't work. Copyright in `pre-foreword Hobbit' will > lapse as before. Just because there's now a new version which is > still under copyright doesn't mean that copyright applies to all > versions. In which case adding commentary to a book written by a recently dead author would not keep that text under copyright (as Neil implied his 'solution' would)... getting us back to the original problem. > On the other hand, Person B's heirs have to maintain the toll road > and pay people to collect tolls. Person A's heirs can just sit on > their arses while the cheques roll in. No, they have to get the book printed and distributed. ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 12 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:41:56 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.23.247 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014853316 12.79.23.247 (Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:41:56 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:41:56 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!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:79934 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > I tend to adopt my style of writing to that of those I am > writing/replying to. They set the style with "thief" and similar. Nonsense. Go back and look at the textual history. You set the tone from your very first post / rant against the "copyright worshippers" in this thread. ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 19 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:50:48 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.23.247 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014853848 12.79.23.247 (Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:50:48 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:50:48 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.stealth.net!204.127.161.2.MISMATCH!wn2feed!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:79944 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > IIRC from your statements about reading original Tolkien manuscripts > you are some type of literary researcher. No, you are probably confusing me with David Salo or Wayne Hammond. > Perhaps you should take your head out of the books and get a bit > familiar with business. How actual business is done. Risk assessment, > Profit calculations, that sort of stuff. Yeah. I'll get right on that. - Conrad Dunkerson Systems Manager, Business Administration - Prudential Financial ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 21:43:00 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 27 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80018 Conrad Dunkerson wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >"Neil Franklin" wrote in message >news:6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > >> I tend to adopt my style of writing to that of those I am >> writing/replying to. They set the style with "thief" and similar. > >Nonsense. Go back and look at the textual history. You set the >tone from your very first post / rant against the "copyright >worshippers" in this thread. Conrad, don't you realize you're handicapped in trying to have any sort of discussion with Neil Franklin? You're limited by consistency with what you said before logic the truth when raising new points There's no way you can win. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: kueikutzu@-remove-hotmail.com Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Organization: Cryptic Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 37 Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 03:28:39 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.88.92.204 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014866919 12.88.92.204 (Thu, 28 Feb 2002 03:28:39 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 03:28:39 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!upp1.onvoy!onvoy.com!newsengine.sol.net!wn1feed!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:80063 On Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:50:48 GMT, "Conrad Dunkerson" wrote: >"Neil Franklin" wrote in message >news:6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > >> IIRC from your statements about reading original Tolkien manuscripts >> you are some type of literary researcher. > >No, you are probably confusing me with David Salo or Wayne Hammond. > >> Perhaps you should take your head out of the books and get a bit >> familiar with business. How actual business is done. Risk assessment, >> Profit calculations, that sort of stuff. > >Yeah. I'll get right on that. > > - Conrad Dunkerson > Systems Manager, Business Administration - Prudential Financial > > HAHAHAHAHA!!!! LOL! It was noted, after Conrad's snickersnee had deftly removed Franklin's head from his shoulder, that the headless body continued to gesticulate, as though the absence of a cranium proved no impediment to carrying on much as it did before. ::bowing to Conrad:: -- Sindamor Pandaturion [remove -remove- to reply] ###### From: conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 28 Feb 2002 04:00:32 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 11 Message-ID: <1178b6d1.0202280400.5e857@posting.google.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.42.51.27 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014897632 3015 127.0.0.1 (28 Feb 2002 12:00:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Feb 2002 12:00:32 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!priapus.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!wesley.videotron.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!falcon.america.net!news.gv.tsc.tdk.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80011 qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) wrote in message news:... > Conrad, don't you realize you're handicapped in trying to have any > sort of discussion with Neil Franklin? You're limited by > consistency with what you said before > logic > the truth when raising new points > There's no way you can win. Yeah, I'd reached much the same conclusion after his last posts. At least on the issue of copyright law. Far too militant / dogmatic to even consider other perspectives. ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:29:19 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 40 Message-ID: <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!feedme.news.mediaways.net!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!feed.ac-versailles.fr!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator-la!news-in-la.newsfeeds.com!nntp-relay.ihug.net!ihug.co.nz!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79936 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > "Mark Wooding" wrote in message > > > On the other hand, Person B's heirs have to maintain the toll road > > and pay people to collect tolls. Person A's heirs can just sit on > > their arses while the cheques roll in. > > No, they have to get the book printed and distributed. Not if the book is already in print, they don't. The publishers handle that and they just take the cut. If you're talking about a postmortem author's text, then the copyright should belong to whoever digs out the material and does the editing, as with CT and the Silm. Which most likely would be the author's heirs. But for a book already in print...maybe it shouldn't be an issue of copyright, but a contract with the publisher? The work becomes public domain and theoretically anyone could reprint it, but the publishing company which already has it out has a distinct advantage. They can owe a cut to the author's heirs for a period of time... Of course there's way too many ways to find loopholes in this. I think an author's heirs should get something...but not for forever, and how can one set a time-limit? I think with Tolkien the case is more twisted than usual because it isn't just 'intellectual property' - CT has a very personal stake in Middle-earth, and his defense of the copyright isn't entirely based in financial reasons. Witness his outrage at the movie, even if he had no legal grounds to prevent it. I suspect the reason many Tolkien fans are so loyal to that copyright is because we perceive that CT has a right to JRRT's creation that goes beyond simple inheritance law. That may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that present copyright law is ridiculous. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been in the ground for over 70 years and not all Sherlock Holmes is yet in the public domain. There's somethin' screwy here... emilie ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:37:12 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 24 Message-ID: <3C7E4EA8.23AB6150@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79935 > On Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:50:48 GMT, "Conrad Dunkerson" > wrote: > > >"Neil Franklin" wrote in message > > > >> Perhaps you should take your head out of the books and get a bit > >> familiar with business. How actual business is done. Risk assessment, > >> Profit calculations, that sort of stuff. > > > >Yeah. I'll get right on that. > > > > - Conrad Dunkerson > > Systems Manager, Business Administration - Prudential Financial > > Sigh...may I say that this is why I hate debates getting personal? Someone puts their foot down the wrong prairie dog hole and in a single swift stroke they and everyone who falls on their general side of the argument is instantly discredited, whether or not their actual points have any merit. Pfui. That being said, that was one heck of a rejoinder... emilie ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 28 Feb 2002 21:19:26 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 20 Message-ID: <6upu2p5pgx.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014927568 365 10.0.3.2 (28 Feb 2002 20:19:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Feb 2002 20:19:28 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80071 "Conrad Dunkerson" writes: > "Neil Franklin" wrote in message > news:6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > > I tend to adopt my style of writing to that of those I am > > writing/replying to. They set the style with "thief" and similar. > > Nonsense. Go back and look at the textual history. You set the > tone from your very first post / rant against the "copyright > worshippers" in this thread. Nonsense. Go back and look at the textual history. And don't forget to include previous threads. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 28 Feb 2002 21:35:03 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 56 Message-ID: <6un0xt5oqw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014928504 538 10.0.3.2 (28 Feb 2002 20:35:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Feb 2002 20:35:04 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80072 "Conrad Dunkerson" writes: > "Neil Franklin" wrote in message > news:6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > > IIRC from your statements about reading original Tolkien manuscripts > > you are some type of literary researcher. > > No, you are probably confusing me with David Salo or Wayne Hammond. Carl F. Hostetter actually. And for the resord: I do admit errors when I do them. Including recording who I confused you with. Re-added the part that you snipped: ---------- > movie industry. Studios would be VERY loathe to put up the millions > it takes to make a big movie if the death of one person could take it > all away. Same as above. Cost of Film (say 100 mio dollar) times risk of death in filming time (say 1%) plus insurance companies profit (say times 2) gives one 2 mio dollar budget item. Comparable in size with the capital costs (also a few percent). Not at all magic. ---------- > > Perhaps you should take your head out of the books and get a bit > > familiar with business. How actual business is done. Risk assessment, > > Profit calculations, that sort of stuff. > > Yeah. I'll get right on that. > > - Conrad Dunkerson > Systems Manager, Business Administration - Prudential Financial So financial institutes today employ administrators that do not know about the elementals of risk calculation and insurance? Or are you just deliberately playing the dummy? But ah, there is the solution: you are just Systems Manager (= run their computers) for the business administration dept (= personel, payroll, etc) and not one of the businessmen (those who do the actual financial risk calculations). Nice flashy title though. You even managed to fool Sindamor Pandaturion with it. Actually fooled me also for a few seconds. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 28 Feb 2002 21:51:33 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 43 Message-ID: <6uk7sx5nze.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1014929494 547 10.0.3.2 (28 Feb 2002 20:51:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Feb 2002 20:51:34 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80073 qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) writes: > Conrad, don't you realize you're handicapped in trying to have any > sort of discussion with Neil Franklin? You're limited by Sure, he is very handicapped. > consistency with what you said before Particularly after blunders like equalling non-inheritance with non-reward or equalling an risk of loss on authors death with allways loss. Staying consistant with them and regaining credibility is difficult. Nay impossible. > logic Yes, a large problem for non-logical people (see above "equivalences") when faced with logic (someone pointing them out). P.S. Stan: the word you most likely were looking for is not logic, it is "consistency with preconcieved notions". The lack of logic you believe to see in my arguments is just non-consistency with your preconcieved notions about what is neccesary in copyright. > the truth when raising new points You mean such "truths" as contradicting a dictionary. Or claiming publishers will murder authors. Or ignoring that businessmen know risks of a project going wrong and about insurance as solution to them. > There's no way you can win. Certainly not after such massive mistakes. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch <6un0xt5oqw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 19 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:01:29 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.24.21 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014933689 12.79.24.21 (Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:01:29 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:01:29 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!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:80179 "Neil Franklin" wrote in message news:6un0xt5oqw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > But ah, there is the solution: you are just Systems Manager (= run > their computers) for the business administration dept (= personel, > payroll, etc) and not one of the businessmen (those who do the > actual financial risk calculations). No, I'm the guy responsible for making sure the systems get built and the calculations are correct. I write the specifications for the programmers and test the final results for accuracy. In other words - I translate BusinessSpeak into Programmerese and vice versa. ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 84 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:25:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.29.179 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014935106 12.79.29.179 (Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:25:06 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:25:06 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!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:80190 "Emilie Karr" wrote in message news:3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu... > Not if the book is already in print, they don't. The publishers > handle that and they just take the cut. Oi! I'll make this simple. No road. Painting instead. Person A writes a great book. Person B paints a great portrait. Both die. Family of Person A gets nothing. Family of Person B gets full value of painting. See the difference? It is actually the same with the road, but less room for distraction by trivialities. If text cannot be copywritten once the author has died then the work of authors is valued less than any other profession on the planet once they have died. Any other asset (whether 'immediate' cash compensation or goods, property, rights, et cetera) maintains its value after the 'owner' has died... but the argument is that a book should not, and that strikes me as completely unjust. > But for a book already in print...maybe it shouldn't be an issue of > copyright, but a contract with the publisher? The work becomes > public domain and theoretically anyone could reprint it, but the > publishing company which already has it out has a distinct > advantage. They can owe a cut to the author's heirs for a period > of time... This is better than cutting off the value entirely, but it still vastly reduces the value of the work for the heirs of the person who actually created it. Meanwhile the publisher (or multiple publishers) get something that they can sell for considerable profit (in the case of a popular book). It discourages writing late in life, it discourages publishers from taking on a 'risk' book because if it DOES take off other publishers can cut into their profits, and it just doesn't make sense. > Of course there's way too many ways to find loopholes in this. I > think an author's heirs should get something...but not for forever, > and how can one set a time-limit? Exactly. A far more rational approach to the issue than we've seen so far. There are problems with the copyright system, but the proposed 'solution' is vastly worse. My own suggestion might be something like 'copyright for the later of 50 years or the author's death', but it IS difficult to set a time limit which is going to be fair for all instances. > I think with Tolkien the case is more twisted than usual because it > isn't just 'intellectual property' - CT has a very personal stake in > Middle-earth, and his defense of the copyright isn't entirely based > in financial reasons. Witness his outrage at the movie, even if he > had no legal grounds to prevent it. I suspect the reason many > Tolkien fans are so loyal to that copyright is because we perceive > that CT has a right to JRRT's creation that goes beyond simple > inheritance law. That's part of it certainly since Christopher had a hand in LotR and even The Hobbit, but beyond that I think it is also just loyalty to both JRRT and CT in general. We appreciate what they both have done, and thus are ready to defend their legal rights. > That may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that present > copyright law is ridiculous. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been in > the ground for over 70 years and not all Sherlock Holmes is yet > in the public domain. There's somethin' screwy here... No arguments here, but the alternative under discussion is even MORE ridiculous. Having copyright end at the author's death might be reasonable if the book had been in publication for many years... but applying that standard all the time would be horribly unjust. Nor do I think it right to take 'ownership' of a story/world away from an author while they are still alive. That's why I'd suggest a 'later of' type arrangement... it guarantees that a book will be under copyright for at least 50 years, and limits it to longer than that only up to the lifespan of the author. ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 00:29:08 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C7E4EA8.23AB6150@law.harvard.edu> X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!feedme.news.mediaways.net!hub1.nntpserver.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feeder.qis.net!sn-xit-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80316 Around Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:37:12 -0500, the angels dropped their trumpets and gasped in amazement as Emilie Karr wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >Sigh...may I say that this is why I hate debates getting personal? >Someone puts their foot down the wrong prairie dog hole and in a single >swift stroke they and everyone who falls on their general side of the >argument is instantly discredited, whether or not their actual points >have any merit Don't worry about it -- Neil Franklin was discredited long before he put his foot in this particular gopher hole. :-) It may be worth noting that the people who have logic and the facts on their side have no need to "get personal", in your words. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 10:44:51 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 106 Message-ID: <3C7FA1F3.434D4BE5@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80176 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > "Emilie Karr" wrote: > > > Not if the book is already in print, they don't. The publishers > > handle that and they just take the cut. > > Oi! > > I'll make this simple. No road. Painting instead. Person A writes > a great book. Person B paints a great portrait. Both die. Family > of Person A gets nothing. Family of Person B gets full value of > painting. > > See the difference? > But there is a difference. If Person B had already sold his painting, then his heirs would get nothing, save the money earned from the sale. Dang, I don't know art sales. If a painter sells a painting, does he get any reimbursement if the painting is reproduced in a book or on a postcard? Or does the painting's owner? [note: I'm using 'he' as a gender-neutral pronoun. Just want to establish that because I really am a rampant feminist among everything else...] The equivalent to this would be for an author to sell manuscripts. No copyright involved; the author sells the manuscript to a publisher and the publisher gets full control. Therefore the author's heirs could sell an unsold manuscript. The trouble with this is that a painting is not equivalent to a novel. A painting is, in this respect, a commodity; it is a physical object which exchanges hands. A novel is, in the purest sense, an abstract concept. The money is made on reproducing the idea, but the phyiscal copies of that idea must be purchased by many many people for any money to be made. So the question becomes, who has a right to possess an idea? According to the extreme anti-copyright crew, no one - ideas are the property of society as a whole. (Now, I think they make a difference between posessing an idea, and creating an idea - plagerism is a whole 'nother animal from copyright, and I don't think the free software people and such support it.) I'm not quite as extreme as that, but I admit to bias; I have authorly aspirations, and I sure the heck would like to make money on my ideas. At the same time, there is truth to the maxim that an idea, once shared, can be possessed by no one. This newsgroup is proof of that - CT may hold the LotR copyright, but we all have Tolkien's ideas, for discussions, re-interpretations, and the rest. Push that envelope a little further and you have fanfiction, heading toward the legal gray. Push more and you have movie interpretations, which does require a copyright. Keep going down this path and I'll find myself arguing for the abolishment of copyright altogether, which isn't where I want to go. Except perhaps that it leads to this point - copyright law was designed to protect an author's rights, not to line lawyers' pockets with expensive suits. And so authors don't sign away everything - I wouldn't want the implementation of the scheme I suggested in the beginning of this post, for authors to sell their manuscripts and basically lose their rights to their work. The creator has an inherent right to what they create which should be respected. But once the creator is gone, who deserves that right - or should everyone have it? > No arguments here, but the alternative under discussion is even MORE > ridiculous. Having copyright end at the author's death might be > reasonable if the book had been in publication for many years... but > applying that standard all the time would be horribly unjust. Nor do > I think it right to take 'ownership' of a story/world away from an > author while they are still alive. That's why I'd suggest a 'later > of' type arrangement... it guarantees that a book will be under > copyright for at least 50 years, and limits it to longer than that > only up to the lifespan of the author. "Horribly unjust"? An author dying - especially dying young, or in the middle of a work - could also be "horribly unjust"...as my gaffer always tells me, "Life's not fair!" I can see the point - someone who spends years working on a novel, then dies just as it becomes a best-seller...it does seem that someone should receive the benefits of that labour, and the people the author chooses as his heirs would be the most deserving. It's especially irksome to think some faceless publishing corporation would be the only one to reap the rewards. I'm just not sure what's the best way around this. A shorter copyright expiration date, perhaps...but the trouble is one, how can you determine the length? "50 years" is terribly arbitrary...I would go for 20 years myself, on the assumption that worst case scenario the author dies with a baby, the kid will be supported until adulthood if the copyright is that profitable. But then you still have the special 'copyright ending' day (somehow I'm picturing a big party here, or maybe a memorial service, with jackal publishers gathered around drooling as they prepare to snatch up the manuscripts...er, how is this done in actuality, when things become public domain? Is there often a flurry of reprints which were on the shelf ready to go to print?) The author's death gives a convenient, sensible marker. The other trouble is the legal issues which happen now, whereupon lawyers are hired to find loopholes to extend copyright indefinitely. Having the copyright absolutely end at the author's death might be the only way to stop this, even with all the problems it raises. emilie Shakespeare had it right - "let's kill all the lawyers." Yes, I know this isn't what he meant. Still, if lawfirms back then were like today's, Henry VI probably wouldn't yet be in the public domain! ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 11:01:00 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 35 Message-ID: <3C7FA5BC.E7FD8645@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C7E4EA8.23AB6150@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80183 Stan Brown wrote: > > Around Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:37:12 -0500, the angels dropped their > trumpets and gasped in amazement as Emilie Karr > Hontou? cor! I think...[I'm sorry, this was just one of the more unusual attribution statements I've encountered, and there have been several good ones 'round these parts...] > Don't worry about it -- Neil Franklin was discredited long before he > put his foot in this particular gopher hole. :-) > That's the trouble, though...*he* may be discredited, but I still think he had several good points. Though for that matter I don't consider him discredited, at least not from his behavior in this thread; he might have lapsed into bickering, but not flaming. > It may be worth noting that the people who have logic and the facts > on their side have no need to "get personal", in your words. > True, but that doesn't mean that they *won't*. A lot of people have attitudes. Even people who are right. It's worth noting that the post Conrad Dunkerson was replying to had several impersonal, relevent arguments, which CD ignored in favor of his snappy rejoinder - admittedly most of those were retreads of former arguments, but to my mind NF was justified in raising them again because they had not yet been debunked. emilie Er, speaking of getting personal, I have an OT netiquette question - when referring to other posters as I did above, what's the norm? Using full names? First names, last names? Lapsing into the net-habit of acronyms, as I did? Any advice? ###### From: mdw@ncipher.com (Mark Wooding) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Supersedes: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Organization: nCipher development Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Date: 01 Mar 2002 16:11:33 GMT Lines: 84 NNTP-Posting-Host: gate.ncipher.com X-Trace: 1014999093 reading.news.pipex.net 8512 62.190.84.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!bnewsfeed00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewsifeed01.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80272 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > "Emilie Karr" wrote in message > news:3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu... > > > Not if the book is already in print, they don't. The publishers > > handle that and they just take the cut. > > Oi! It's true. > I'll make this simple. No road. Painting instead. Person A writes > a great book. Person B paints a great portrait. Both die. Family > of Person A gets nothing. Family of Person B gets full value of > painting. > > See the difference? No. Family of Person A has the manuscript. In both cases, copies of the work might circulate; and the family retains the original. Here's a little question for you. Person A writes a book. It takes him about year, but it's worth it. He snuffs it in some kind of unlikely exploding inkpot accident while writing the sequel (which wasn't very good anyway) and his descendants, who don't have a single creative bone in their bodies, live nicely off royalty cheques until the Richard Stallman Copyright Reform Act is finally passed in 2050. At this point, A's son actually has to queue up at the Job Centre. Person B is a jeweller. He makes and repairs gold things with sparkly diamonds and such. He's been doing it for many years, he's very good at it, and he gets lots of well-paying customers. Until he sadly passes away in that unpleasant business with the diamond-encrusted petrol tank and the blowtorch. Unfortunately, B's son is talentless, and can't continue the business. Surely this is unfair. A's family get the royalty cheques through the post, regular as clockwork; B's get the proverbial diddly. Either copyright is silly for rewarding the worthless progeny of A, or there should be a fund for supporting the talentess descendents of master craftsmen. Let's hear it. > If text cannot be copywritten once the author has died then the work > of authors is valued less than any other profession on the planet once > they have died. It's `copy/right/', not `copy/write/'. Copy-writers do exist (e.g., in advertising), but I don't think we're talking about them in particular. I don't think that's a valid statement to make, unless you're incapable of considering the value of something as a concept distinct from its price-tag. For example, I greatly value the works of Shakespeare, though I don't have to pay very much for them. I similarly value the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, but that too is not protected by any copyright (though performances may of course still be protected, as might specific engravings of his scores -- music is messy like that). > Any other asset (whether 'immediate' cash compensation or goods, > property, rights, et cetera) maintains its value after the 'owner' has > died... but the argument is that a book should not, and that strikes > me as completely unjust. Your problem is that you've been hoodwinked into thinking that `intellectual property' has some kind of /intrinsic/ worth. It hasn't. Instead, through various bits of legislation (usually cooked up by those with an established interest in the status quo -- see Jessica Litman's excellent book `Digital Copyright') an artificial and time-limited scarcity is created in a rather hamfisted attempt to make standard scarcity economics work. Oh, and to contradict something someone else was saying elsewhere in the thread, the copyright laws are there, in general, to promote the interests of publishers and distributors rather than those who actually do the creative work. They're the ones who actually get invited to the meetings which draft new copyright legislation; not the authors, or musicians, or whatever. -- [mdw] ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 08:36:34 -0800 Lines: 20 Message-ID: <3C7FAE11.90C84384@erols.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinasNoSpam@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVb4MvopJBO2A30o9ApZhZ7GXFKCagzLbvRgZHraJ1Ie23MJLi1LjRjq X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Mar 2002 17:43:45 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!netnews.com!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80105 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > Perhaps you should take your head out of the books and get a bit > > familiar with business. How actual business is done. Risk assessment, > > Profit calculations, that sort of stuff. > > Yeah. I'll get right on that. > > - Conrad Dunkerson > Systems Manager, Business Administration - Prudential Financial *LOL!* Conrad's secret identity revealed! -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 08:42:02 -0800 Lines: 24 Message-ID: <3C7FAF5A.534D8F85@erols.com> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <1178b6d1.0202280400.5e857@posting.google.com> Reply-To: jsolinasNoSpam@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVamfvZvQia7H6AosMUF52vqI/o79dWktfQ1a0VniE0Fyy8H/nxojaVR X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Mar 2002 17:43:47 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80110 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > Yeah, I'd reached much the same conclusion after his last posts. At > least on the issue of copyright law. Far too militant / dogmatic to > even consider other perspectives. OTOH, it must be admitted that the Content Nation is overplaying its hand. I heard Michael Eisner of Disney testify before Congress yesterday, and he pushed the current line that *all* media playing equipment, including computers, must be hobbled so they can't play unmarked music, etc. Their stated agenda is to prevent digital theft, but they define that to include backing up your own CD's and DVD's. They want to extend the current situtation, where you cannot back up your DVD's on your computer, to all digital content. They really want to make you *rent* their music and software rather than buying it. Much more profitable for them, the heck with you. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth. ###### From: Emilie Karr Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 13:26:32 -0500 Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lines: 23 Message-ID: <3C7FC7D8.F7B7BF2D@law.harvard.edu> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: net-38395.law.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.fas.harvard.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80188 Mark Wooding wrote: > > Oh, and to contradict something someone else was saying elsewhere in the > thread, the copyright laws are there, in general, to promote the > interests of publishers and distributors rather than those who actually > do the creative work. They're the ones who actually get invited to the > meetings which draft new copyright legislation; not the authors, or > musicians, or whatever. > Okay - theoretically, copyright should be constructed for the sake of the artists. In practice civil laws rarely are written to benefit individuals. Welcome to capitalism! I am beginning to suspect that the reason many copyright supporters give that support is out of an honest desire to see artists get their due. Hence the argument about an author dying young - it's not that they want copyright to belong forever to the heirs; it's that they want to see the author rewarded for his efforts, and if he's gone, rewarding his chosen heirs is the next best thing, surely favorable than simply adding to the coffers of an uncreative publishing corporation. The problem is that actual copyright law doesn't have this goal. emilie ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <3C7FA1F3.434D4BE5@law.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 114 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: <3dWf8.8974$106.576994@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2002 01:49:51 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.29.27 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1015033791 12.79.29.27 (Sat, 02 Mar 2002 01:49:51 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2002 01:49:51 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!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:80175 "Emilie Karr" wrote in message news:3C7FA1F3.434D4BE5@law.harvard.edu... > But there is a difference. If Person B had already sold his > painting, then his heirs would get nothing, save the money earned > from the sale. Hrrrrm? They either inherit the money from the sale of the painting or inherit the painting and can then sell it. Either way, they get the full value of the painting. At present that is also true for the family of the author. The proposed change to copyright law would end that. > The equivalent to this would be for an author to sell manuscripts. Which might be a viable option EXCEPT that they'd likely get less overall because the publisher wouldn't know how well the book was going to sell and would thus pay a minimal amount - so the publishers get alot when a book does well, but the author does not. This could be solved by having contracts which specify additional payments to the author at various sales levels (pretty much what we have), but there is still a problem... the publisher would then OWN the book, and could theoretically get another author in to write a sequel. Effectively taking the story away from it's creator. > I'm not quite as extreme as that, but I admit to bias; I have > authorly aspirations, and I sure the heck would like to make money > on my ideas. Therein lies the problem. I believe authors should be able to make money on their creations AND to control how those creations are used. Copyright does those two things. Abolishing copyright (either completely or in some instances - such as early death) thus strikes me as very wrong. > At the same time, there is truth to the maxim that an idea, once > shared, can be possessed by no one. This newsgroup is proof of that > - CT may hold the LotR copyright, but we all have Tolkien's ideas, > for discussions, re-interpretations, and the rest. The idea itself is not 'owned'. The right to profit from it and alter or expand upon it is... for a limited time. > "Horribly unjust"? An author dying - especially dying young, or > in the middle of a work - could also be "horribly unjust"...as my > gaffer always tells me, "Life's not fair!" We can seldom control life and death. Human law is another matter, and thus it CAN be 'unjust' where simple 'fate' is not. > I would go for 20 years myself, on the assumption that worst case > scenario the author dies with a baby, the kid will be supported > until adulthood if the copyright is that profitable. That would probably be sufficient in most cases, but I'm inclined to grant more; > Having the copyright absolutely end at the author's death might > be the only way to stop this, even with all the problems it raises. Quite frankly I consider the 'problems' of the current copyright system fairly minor. Yes, copyright is unreasonably long. Yes, in later years much of the profit goes to big corporations of various sorts rather than the creators. No, that isn't proper. HOWEVER, the creator and their heirs ARE protected and receive fair profits from the creation... and to me that seems to be the most important concern. I'm willing to forego the right to get a free copy of something and/or muddle about in a fictional setting for many years to protect the rights of authors and their heirs. "Emilie Karr" wrote in message news:3C7FA5BC.E7FD8645@law.harvard.edu... > It's worth noting that the post Conrad Dunkerson was replying to had > several impersonal, relevent arguments, which CD ignored in favor of > his snappy rejoinder - admittedly most of those were retreads of > former arguments, but to my mind NF was justified in raising them > again because they had not yet been debunked. I had already addressed them - whether 'debunked' or not, my views on the matter had been given. > Er, speaking of getting personal, I have an OT netiquette question - > when referring to other posters as I did above, what's the norm? > Using full names? First names, last names? Lapsing into the > net-habit of acronyms, as I did? Any advice? I find all of these acceptable and in my experience most other people do as well. There was one exception, but he objected to anything and everything. "Emilie Karr" wrote in message news:3C7FC7D8.F7B7BF2D@law.harvard.edu... > I am beginning to suspect that the reason many copyright supporters > give that support is out of an honest desire to see artists get > their due. Hence the argument about an author dying young - it's > not that they want copyright to belong forever to the heirs; it's > that they want to see the author rewarded for his efforts, and if > he's gone, rewarding his chosen heirs is the next best thing, surely > favorable than simply adding to the coffers of an uncreative > publishing corporation. Of course. > The problem is that actual copyright law doesn't have this goal. Not entirely, no... however, it DOES have that >effect<. Think about it. Yes, copyright law has been extended because of the greed of corporations. However, the rights of the author and heirs are preserved. Such would not be the case with the proposed alteration. ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 56 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2002 02:04:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.29.27 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1015034646 12.79.29.27 (Sat, 02 Mar 2002 02:04:06 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2002 02:04:06 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!rockie.attcanada.net!newsfeed.attcanada.net!204.127.161.4!wn4feed!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:80186 "Mark Wooding" wrote in message news:slrna7v9bp.h70.mdw@mull.ncipher.com... > No. Family of Person A has the manuscript. Which, if anyone can copy and distribute it, is not worth much unless the book is hugely successful. > Surely this is unfair. A's family get the royalty cheques through > the post, regular as clockwork; B's get the proverbial diddly. Not true. The family of Person B inherits the money that the jeweler was making as an immediate result of the work. The profit from writing a book is delayed - the profit from a service job is not. > Either copyright is silly for rewarding the worthless progeny of > A, or there should be a fund for supporting the talentess descendents > of master craftsmen. > Let's hear it. There is. It is called inherittance. They get the full value of all the years of work the jeweller did. Just as the family of the author CURRENTLY gets the full value of all the years of work he did... but under the proposed change the author's family would NOT get that value. That is the imbalance. > I don't think that's a valid statement to make, unless you're > incapable of considering the value of something as a concept > distinct from its price-tag. For example, I greatly value the > works of Shakespeare, though I don't have to pay very much for them. > If you still can't see the difference, then I feel very sorry for > you. Don't be obnoxious. That I am discussing the financial aspects of the matter does not mean that those are the only ones I perceive. Keep your insulting straw-man arguments to yourself and try concentrating on the actual issues at hand. > Your problem is that you've been hoodwinked into thinking that > `intellectual property' has some kind of /intrinsic/ worth. It does... or have you already forgotten Shakespeare? Works of fiction and other 'intellectual property' DO have intrinsic >artistic< worth. Yet people can't feed themselves on artistic merit. How many plays do you think Shakespeare could have written if he made no profit from them? If we as a society value art and literature then we have to be willing to pay for them. If we refuse to pay for them then few people will be able to devout themselves to creating such things and we all suffer the lack. ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 22:40:19 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C7E4EA8.23AB6150@law.harvard.edu> <3C7FA5BC.E7FD8645@law.harvard.edu> X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 25 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80299 Around Fri, 01 Mar 2002 11:01:00 -0500, the angels dropped their trumpets and gasped in amazement as Emilie Karr wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >Er, speaking of getting personal, I have an OT netiquette question - >when referring to other posters as I did above, what's the norm? Using >full names? First names, last names? Lapsing into the net-habit of >acronyms, as I did? Any advice? Just as you would do in any other informal context. I myself must admit I am not consistent: very well known posters like Conrad and Steuard get single-name reference, like Cher and Oprah; others tend to get first+last, or last only, or first only, or just "PP" (previous poster). I don't think it makes a much difference as the general tone of the article. Just refer to me as "Lord Brown". :-) -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm 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: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 03 Mar 2002 00:26:05 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 124 Message-ID: <6uvgcewnzm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <3C7FA1F3.434D4BE5@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1015111567 2908 10.0.3.2 (2 Mar 2002 23:26:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Mar 2002 23:26:07 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80368 Emilie Karr writes: > Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > > > I'll make this simple. No road. Painting instead. Person A writes > > a great book. Person B paints a great portrait. Both die. Family > > of Person A gets nothing. Family of Person B gets full value of > > painting. > > > > See the difference? A painting is an single object. Not replicatable (unless you consider an photograph of the painting equivalent with the painting itsself), and so only good for an single sale. A book is 2 things: A manuscript (also an single object like above), single sale. And the copyright that comes with it (an license to get royalties), good for unlimited sales. > But there is a difference. Yes. A large one. > get any reimbursement if the painting is reproduced in a book or on a > postcard? Or does the painting's owner? The paintings owner. Dito with photos of buildings. > The trouble with this is that a painting is not equivalent to a novel. > A painting is, in this respect, a commodity; it is a physical object > which exchanges hands. A novel is, in the purest sense, an abstract > concept. The money is made on reproducing the idea, but the phyiscal > copies of that idea must be purchased by many many people for any money > to be made. At least someone here that understands this. Object not equal license. It is surprising how many people here are having trouble understanding the difference, and that the difference makes different economics, and that that demands different treatment by the law. > So the question becomes, who has a right to possess an idea? Nitpick: not an idea (that would be patent law), but the expression of an idea (an text covered by copyright). You can take the same idea (say a quest to destroy an dangerous object) and write an different text about it, and you are not violating any copyright. > (Now, I think they make a difference between > posessing an idea, and creating an idea - plagerism is a whole 'nother > animal from copyright, and I don't think the free software people and > such support it.) Yes (difference), and yes (not supported). Plagiarism is making false claims and that is universally reprehended among the free software guys. > At the same time, there is truth to the maxim that an idea, once shared, > can be possessed by no one. This newsgroup is proof of that - CT may > hold the LotR copyright, but we all have Tolkien's ideas, for > discussions, re-interpretations, and the rest. Push that envelope a > little further and you have fanfiction, heading toward the legal gray. > Push more and you have movie interpretations, which does require a > copyright. > > Keep going down this path and I'll find myself arguing for the > abolishment of copyright altogether, which isn't where I want to go. And have no need to go. Just give up the (legally not supported anyway) interpretation of copyright as "intellectual property" and regard it as what is legally actually is: an grant of privilege to the author. > their rights to their work. The creator has an inherent right to what > they create which should be respected. But once the creator is gone, > who deserves that right - or should everyone have it? Like every privilege (titles, offices, etc): It should cease to exist. And so everyone gets to make copies, the same as if it had simply run out due to time limit. And that is exactly what I have been arguing for in this thread. > as his heirs would be the most deserving. It's especially irksome to > think some faceless publishing corporation would be the only one to reap > the rewards. With end-of-copyright everyone gets it, not just one corporation. No privilege any more means no limit to copying anyone, for no one. > The other trouble is the legal issues which happen now, whereupon > lawyers are hired to find loopholes to extend copyright indefinitely. Or politicians lobied/bribed into changing the law to a bit more "just extra 20 years, it has been 20 since we last time asked for more". Gives infinite, when repeated (which we can rely on). > Having the copyright absolutely end at the author's death might be the > only way to stop this, even with all the problems it raises. Yes. Coypright _was_ once intended as an deal, as an time limited (in the US originally 14 or 17 or 20 years from publication, depending on who one believes) privilege, to give an author income, for which he can give society more works. Law revisions have delayed societes profit more and more, and are now threatening to cancel it alltogether. The risk of that (losing all) will be far more damaging than a few lost works from died before publication of an completed work authors. (Non complete works, such as Silm, require an editor to complete them, such as CT, and can therefore be considered co-authored.) -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 03 Mar 2002 00:38:38 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 59 Message-ID: <6usn7iwnep.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <6ur8n6a54z.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3C7E4EA8.23AB6150@law.harvard.edu> <3C7FA5BC.E7FD8645@law.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1015112320 2917 10.0.3.2 (2 Mar 2002 23:38:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Mar 2002 23:38:40 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80369 Emilie Karr writes: > Stan Brown wrote: > > > > Don't worry about it -- Neil Franklin was discredited long before he > > put his foot in this particular gopher hole. :-) > > > That's the trouble, though...*he* may be discredited, but I still think > he had several good points. Thank you. > Though for that matter I don't consider him discredited, You can rest in piece: I have not been discredited here. That is just Stan Brown confusing his view of me with the rest of the groups. > at least not > from his behavior in this thread; he might have lapsed into bickering, > but not flaming. And is roughly average me for such (political) discussions. I do have an fairly direct and frank style, typical in technical newsgroups. Some people here miss-take that to be insulting. > > It may be worth noting that the people who have logic and the facts > > on their side have no need to "get personal", in your words. And that is why you then decided to call me "thief" for suggesting that not all is right with current copyright, and calling for an serious reduction to some size that can be rationally defended? > It's worth noting that the post Conrad Dunkerson was replying to had > several impersonal, relevent arguments, which CD ignored in favor of his > snappy rejoinder - admittedly most of those were retreads of former > arguments, Unsolved arguments. He was just trying to brush them under the carpet. After claiming my suggestion will lead to "absurdities", and using that for justification against it, he then did not even enter on the arguments against his arguments. > but to my mind NF was justified in raising them again because > they had not yet been debunked. Thank you. At least this whole thread has had one good effect: I have found in you and Mark Wooding two sensible people here. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Date: 03 Mar 2002 00:54:07 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 50 Message-ID: <6upu2mwmow.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3c7ad309.35864117@news.newsguy.com> <6uu1s2a7p5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <89ef8.4130$106.233615@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <1178b6d1.0202280400.5e857@posting.google.com> <3C7FAF5A.534D8F85@erols.com>NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1015113248 2926 10.0.3.2 (2 Mar 2002 23:54:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Mar 2002 23:54:08 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80370 Flame of the West writes: > Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > > Yeah, I'd reached much the same conclusion after his last posts. At > > least on the issue of copyright law. Far too militant / dogmatic to > > even consider other perspectives. > > OTOH, it must be admitted that the Content Nation is overplaying > its hand. I heard Michael Eisner of Disney testify before Congress > yesterday, and he pushed the current line that *all* media playing > equipment, including computers, must be hobbled so they can't > play unmarked music, etc. The historical term for it is Luddite. For those who do not know that chapter of history: the Luddites where 18th century pre-industrial workers who tried to stop industrialisation (and the threat of its lower price products to their jobs) by raiding and destroying factories and machinery. They failled miserably. Like everyone who tries to turn back progress to protect their status quo. Millions of consumers who will profit from the new are an tough enemy. There is only one thing worst than an multi-front battle: an battle of millions of bee stings. No matter how many you swat the rest will get you. Extra bad if the enemy is/was your source of income. The horse and coach guys who tried to stop cars ("safety" laws that declared cars dangerous and required an person with an warning flag to walk before the car, slowing it and driving up costs) failled the same way. Now it is the publishing industry that is faced with superior distribution technology. Same silly reaction. Same failure will follow. > for them, the heck with you. Exactly. Only (their) share holder value counts. Stuff society. For those who want to follow up on this: the law is called SSSCA, do an web search on that name and you will find enough info. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: mdw@ncipher.com (Mark Wooding) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Organization: nCipher development Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Date: 04 Mar 2002 15:08:19 GMT Lines: 9 NNTP-Posting-Host: gate.ncipher.com X-Trace: 1015254499 reading.news.pipex.net 232 62.190.84.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!newsgate.cistron.nl!news.tiscali.nl!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!bnewspeer00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewsifeed02.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80638 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > Don't be obnoxious. I'm sorry: you got the original version of my article. A few minutes afterwards, I superseded it with a new version which omitted that line. My apologies for any offence. -- [mdw] ###### From: "Conrad Dunkerson" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 12 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:48:04 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.24.231 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1015282084 12.79.24.231 (Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:48:04 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:48:04 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!prairie.attcanada.net!newsfeed.attcanada.net!204.127.161.4!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80530 "Mark Wooding" wrote in message news:slrna873eo.ci.mdw@mull.ncipher.com... > I'm sorry: you got the original version of my article. A few > minutes afterwards, I superseded it with a new version which > omitted that line. My apologies for any offence. Fair enough. I've got whole folders of drafts that were never sent upon calmer reflection. :) ###### From: mdw@ncipher.com (Mark Wooding) Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Digital appendices? References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Organization: nCipher development Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Date: 05 Mar 2002 13:11:50 GMT Lines: 63 NNTP-Posting-Host: gate.ncipher.com X-Trace: 1015333910 reading.news.pipex.net 233 62.190.84.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!deine.net!newsfeed.online.be!195.129.110.18.MISMATCH!bnewspeer00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewsifeed02.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80637 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > "Mark Wooding" wrote in message > news:slrna7v9bp.h70.mdw@mull.ncipher.com... > > > No. Family of Person A has the manuscript. > > Which, if anyone can copy and distribute it, is not worth much unless > the book is hugely successful. And a painting isn't worth much unless it's also `successful' in some sense. In either case, there are two things which we must consider separately: * the merit, and success, of the actual creative work, in abstract -- how good the novel or picture actually is -- and hence how desirable /copies/ of it are; and * how desirable the original instantiation is. I agree that the tradeoffs between these two things tend to differ between paintings and novels, but I don't see them as qualitatively different. (Now that I think about it, I suspect that a much better objection to my point would have been to mention word-processors. ;-) ) > It does... or have you already forgotten Shakespeare? Poor wording on my part; sorry... > Works of fiction and other 'intellectual property' DO have intrinsic > >artistic< worth. This is true, and what I meant to say, though it got muffled by my foot. > Yet people can't feed themselves on artistic merit. How many plays do > you think Shakespeare could have written if he made no profit from > them? The money he made was what was given to him directly by theatre producers putting on performances. I seem to recall that there wasn't a copyright in those days. > If we as a society value art and literature then we have to be willing > to pay for them. If we refuse to pay for them then few people will be > able to devout themselves to creating such things and we all suffer > the lack. I think you mean `devote', though the typo is interesting. I note, in passing, that copyright actually hasn't been with us forever, though art pretty much has been. Anyway, I think I'm with you on the basic idea that creative types should be given money. After all, I'm not going to say `No, free money, don't want that.' But copyright really isn't a good tool for ensuring that this happens, and in fact I'm not really sure that the idea of /enforcing/ this kind of remuneration is a good one. I'm sure there was something else I intended to write here, but I want this window for something else now... -- [mdw] ###### From: "Öjevind Lång" Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <6uofiimog1.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uit8odrfw.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6uvgclfct7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1178b6d1.0202260952.68d1313d@posting.google.com> <3C7E4CCF.7B203567@law.harvard.edu> <67yf8.4936$gK2.379962@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: Digital appendices? Lines: 18 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.151.28.32 X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@swip.net X-Trace: nntpserver.swip.net 1015365578 212.151.28.32 (Tue, 05 Mar 2002 22:59:38 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 22:59:38 MET DST Organization: A Customer of Tele2 X-Sender: s-774765@d212-151-28-32.swipnet.se Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 23:02:30 +0100 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!proxad.net!proxad.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!nntpserver.swip.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:80829 Mark Wooding wrote: [snip] >Anyway, I think I'm with you on the basic idea that creative types >should be given money. After all, I'm not going to say `No, free money, >don't want that.' But copyright really isn't a good tool for ensuring >that this happens, and in fact I'm not really sure that the idea of >/enforcing/ this kind of remuneration is a good one. As a professional translator whose meagre income has been repeatedly augmented over the years because there is such a thing as copyright, I could not disagree more strongly with you. Öjevind Lång