[GRLUG] I hate DRM - NOT LINUX RELATED

[Bob Kline]

On 9/11/06, Ron Lauzon <rlauzon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bob Kline wrote:
> > Not likely?  Look at what the senate did
> > for Disney: it extended the copyright period
> > another 25 years,  to 95,  just so DIsney could
> > keep control  of its cartoon movies for a while
> > longer.
>
> Not just "a while longer."  They are looking at perpetual copyright on
> the installment plan.  As soon as that extension was passed, they
> started lobbying for yet another extension.

No doubt.
>
> > If you think they
> > aren't in on this,  look at the fuss they are
> > making about Google putting books online.
> >
>
> I believe that the reason for this is not copyright issues.
>
> If Google puts all these books up, it will highlight how many works are
> still under copyright but their authors are long dead.  It will make
> public what they don't want everyone to know: that they have locked up
> our culture.

Being dead doesn't matter much if you're
a corporation.  As long as there is a Disney,
someone owns the cartoon movies,  and in
that sense there is never a lack of owner.

I don't know the copyright law in any detail,
but I'm lead to believe that copyright privileges
can be passed on to other family members
now.  If I'm not mistaken,  there are different
copyright periods for different things.  One for
corporations,  one for individuals,  etc.  One
is 95 years,  the other still 70 - but I'm not
positive about this. Or it might be here too
that corporations,  here book companies,
actually hold the copyrights,  and simply give
the royalties to the author until dead,  and
then perhaps to relatives for a while,  although
it's not clear it would have to.  Probably depends
on some contract made up in the beginning.

Fortunately the Founding Fathers got around
to setting a specific patent period,  although
corporations get around this in part by buying
competitors,  and playing the "just enough"
game.  Change a product just enough,  as a
court or patent attorney sees it,  to get another
patent for essentially the same thing.  Doesn't
always work,  but even sometimes can be
good enough.

And yes y'all,  this kind of thing can impact
our PC's and the Internet. But for our
good luck,  Caldera might have tied down Linux.

For a while anyway.  It sure did try.

   -Bob

>
> --
> Ron Lauzon - rlauzon at acm dot org
>    Homepage: http://7lauzon.home.comcast.net/
>    Weblog: http://ronsapartment.blogspot.com/
>
>    DNRC: Lord of All Things That Are Fattening
>
>    "To be sure, conservative radio talk show hosts have a built-in
>    audience unavailable to liberals: People driving cars to some
>    sort of job." - Ann Coulter
>
> Microsoft Free since July 06, 2001
> Running Mandriva Linux 2006
>
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