Mike Linksvayer 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (38) comment rss

  • On the post: Sometimes It's Better To Just Let People Copy Your Content Than Deal With Licensing

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2011 @ 05:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Even if "Take it for free!" was written in bold, red letters...

    In theory. In practice public copyright licenses are accepted constantly, Wikipedia and all open source software being the best known examples. Doubtless there are some parties that require further assurance, but most don't.

  • On the post: Sometimes It's Better To Just Let People Copy Your Content Than Deal With Licensing

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2011 @ 07:51am

    Re: Re: Re: Even if "Take it for free!" was written in bold, red letters...

    Creative Commons licenses are perfectly valid copyright licenses.
    No, they're not. Creative Commons is a non-profit and has no ties to federal jurisdiction to circumvent copyright law.

    CC licenses don't "circumvent" copyright. They are copyright licenses, grants of permission from the copyright holder to the public. Public copyright licenses have been upheld many times around the world. http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Law has some relevant links.

    https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17422 addresses some previous Techdirt posts on CC.

  • On the post: Can A Contract Remove Fair Use Rights?

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 12 Feb, 2011 @ 02:52pm

    Re: Re:

    No CC license has ever been designed to be more restrictive than default copyright; they only grant permissions. If fair use or other exceptions and limitations apply, one can ignore any CC license offered. If this is not the case for any CC license, it is a severe bug. See ?public domain? and ?other rights? on license explanations, eg http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ and the relevant FAQ at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Do_Creative_Commons_licenses_affect_fair_use.2C_fair_dealing_or_other_exceptions_to_copyright.3F

  • On the post: Yet Another Book Comes Out Celebrating Copying… But Refuses To Let You Build On It

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2010 @ 12:17pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: You won't stop until the artists include the first born

    BY-NC-ND permits format shifting. The license says:

    "The above rights may be exercised in all media and formats whether now known or hereafter devised. The above rights include the right to make such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights in other media and formats, but otherwise you have no rights to make Adaptations."

    Still, it is unfortunate that the book is under a restrictive license, though nowhere near as unfortunate/restrictive as default copyright, under which a number of other recent books about copying fall (as noted by Felix Pleșoianu in another comment on this post). Perhaps though authors of such books and blogs figure that based on content most people will figure out sooner or later that they're free to help promote their content by reusing it however they want.

  • On the post: Library Group And Others Issue Declaration For Consumer Friendly Copyright In Europe

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 09 May, 2010 @ 09:22pm

    evidence awaits discovery

    Part of the problem we have with copyright laws today is that there is so little evidence on the actual impact of stronger or weaker copyright laws. It's an area that needs more widespread experimentation with very different models (or no copyright at all) to see what really happens so that there is real evidence.

    Amen, but I wonder if the seeming lack of evidence isn't as much due to lack of looking by researchers as it is lack of policy diversity in the world.

    Obvious places to look for the impact of different policies include different copyright lengths, exceptions, DMCA-like laws, levels of enforcement of all of these, and especially dates of implementation for each.

    There's been lots more policy variation over the ~300 year history of copyright, the impacts of which could be studied.

    Public licenses have also introduced variation in levels of copyright restriction that ought be ripe for finding evidence.

    Just be sure to evaluate costs as well as benefits -- concentrated and diffuse.

  • On the post: If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It?

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2008 @ 07:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A:

    The copyright holder is a third party to the conversation between someone publishing infringing material and the person downloading the material. The copyright holder wants the state to prevent this conversation, just as a censorious churchlady wants to prevent the conversation between a porn distributor and porn reader. You may think the copyright holder is a just censor.

  • On the post: If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It?

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2008 @ 04:48pm

    Re: Re: Re: A:

    Censorship would be if they told you that you couldn't sing along.

    You have got to be kidding me.

  • On the post: If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It?

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2008 @ 04:46pm

    Re: Re: A:

    Censorship is when a third-party stops you from communicating ideas to a second party.

    As is precisely the case in nearly every copyright-based takedown, suit, or other attack on websites and p2p.

    Not only is copyright enforcement censorship, but so-called piracy fights what everyone censorship.

  • On the post: If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It?

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2008 @ 03:21pm

    A:

    Censorship.

  • On the post: The Language Indicator: If You Want To Stay On Top Of Technology, You Need To Speak Chinese

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2007 @ 12:11pm

    1.2 billion, not 3 billion

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologue_list_of_most_spoken_languages

    And of course the way to ensure the continued dominance of English in technical and scientific fields is to let an unlimited number of grad students and engineers into the US, UK, Australia, and NZ.

  • On the post: Economists Want Legal Protection For Prediction Markets

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 09 May, 2007 @ 04:58pm

    Re:

    I don't know a single person out there that is complaining about gas prices. Different crowds I guess. As to the rest of your wild speculation, please follow http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/energy/index.html for awhile.

  • On the post: Economists Want Legal Protection For Prediction Markets

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 09 May, 2007 @ 01:29pm

    Policy Analysis Markets

    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, you're thinking of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market which was a very good idea that was killed because a few people had a "terrorism futures!?" reaction similar to yours. Please see http://hanson.gmu.edu/policyanalysismarket.html and especially the analysis of press coverage -- the longer and further out the press is, the more favorable it is.

    Also see http://www.midasoracle.org/2007/05/07/economists-petition-on-prediction-markets/ for ongoing coverage of the petition.

  • On the post: Public Service Message: Opening Up Your WiFi Does Not Guarantee You A Free Pass Against RIAA

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2006 @ 06:50pm

    close your wifi

    If opening your wifi is no protection it follows directly that opening your wifi puts you at serious risk, no?

  • On the post: On Broken Windows, Pointless Patents, Standard Battles And DVDs No One Wants

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2006 @ 08:02pm

    Does anyone claim the Blu-ray/HD-DVD battle does g

    For example, by providing employment opportunities for more engineers? I don't think so. The broken window fallacy isn't being invoked by anyone here, though I'm glad you're aware of it so you can call it out when it is used, which is frequently.

  • On the post: Worrying About Offshoring Has Been Offshored To India

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 31 May, 2006 @ 01:57pm

    Not offshoring

    If I read the article correctly government employees are worried about their functions being "outsourced" to the private sector -- typical of government employees worldwide. No indication of worry about outsourcing to Bangladesh or wherever.

    It'll probably be awhile, but I look forward to the day when wages have risen enough in India and infrastructure good enough in even poorer locales to make outsourcing from India a boon.

    That won't be "poetic justice" or "karma is a bitch", that'll be good for both India and wherever Indians outsource work to.

  • On the post: Shocker — Cell Phone Driving Bans Don't Really Make Roads Safer

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 22 May, 2006 @ 11:30am

    ban human-driven vehicles

    I look forward to the day only robots can drive.

    http://ideas.4brad.com/node/410

  • On the post: How Jealousy Could Destroy The Internet

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2006 @ 01:26pm

    Mix of envy, jealousy, and greed

    Jealousy is "I wish I had what X has -- let's see how I can steal it." Envy is "I don't have what X has -- let's see how I can destroy it." Obviously envy is more destructive, as it can only be negative sum.

  • On the post: Launching Your Music Career On eBay

    Mike Linksvayer ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2005 @ 08:12am

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    No, the present value of revenues collected decades from now is the same for anyone (modulo different individual discount rates) -- a tiny fraction of the value of revenues collected now. Participation by investors doesn't change the arguments for or against perpetual copyright at all.