pjcamp’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Author Andrew Piper: Turning Pages Is Important, Therefore Reading Ebooks Isn't Reading

pjcamp ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2012 @ 11:24am

You don't own it

so someday Amazon will accidentally revoke your ebook and there will be nothing you can do about it.

My paper books, on the other hand, belong exclusively to me and Amazon can't turn them off remotely.

No DRM. Score one for paper.

On the post: Economist Notices That The US Is Getting Buried Under Costly, Useless Over-Regulation

pjcamp ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2012 @ 05:08am

"all new laws (and any re-authorizations of old laws) should come with clear and stated metrics that will be used the next time around to determine if the bill was successful. "

Used by whom? Congress? They'll do nothing else. A new bureaucracy? They'll be (a) huge and (b) seriously subject to regulatory capture.

All laws should sunset? Including laws against, let's say, treason and smuggling? Insider trading? Mortgage fraud?

I don't think you really thought this through before you wrote it.

On the post: MPAA Boss Chris Dodd Denies That Copyright Law Today Has Created Any Free Speech Issues

pjcamp ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2012 @ 10:47am

what do you expect?

Dodd left office minutes ahead of being kicked out by voters since he was up to his corrupt eyeballs in the mortgage bubble:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dodd#Controversies

The man is a lying sack of shit and always has been.

On the post: Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard

pjcamp ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2011 @ 10:11am

No, you would have thought

a company as successful and generally admired as Apple that regularly reveals its dictatorial and monopolistic tendencies would deserve neither its success nor its admiration.

What you would think is that people would notice this at some point and stop thinking of Apple as a shining, benevolent wizard.

On the post: Tweeting Juror Leads To Retrial For Guy Convicted Of Murder

pjcamp ( profile ), 14 Dec, 2011 @ 08:43am

purpose is not to prevent you from having thoughts

The purpose is to prevent you from influencing the thoughts of other jurors in any way until both sides have rested their cases.

On the post: Washington State Guarantees Cheap And Open Courses & Courseware For Students

pjcamp ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2011 @ 06:03am

it is only partly lack of market forces

The main effect on textbook pricing (and all other book pricing) was the Thor Power Tools decision, explained here:

http://www.sfwa.org/bulletin/articles/thor.htm

better than I ever could. Thor v. IRS is responsible for dramatically reducing print runs (thereby losing economies of scale) and dramatically shrinking editorial cycles (thereby increasing costs in a major way). Both of these, in turn, almost killed the used book market, which is a ghost of its former self.

I lived through that change. My intro physics book, Halliday and Resnick, cost $22 in 1977. It was the second edition. The first had been published in 1963. Today, physics texts are on a three year revision cycle, and fast changing fields like astronomy are revised every two years. Mostly, these revisions involve changing problem numbers and other trivia.

Mass market books changed in a similar way at the same time for the same reasons. Back lists essentially disappeared. Prices jumped from an average 75 cents for a mass market paperback to around $3. You can't plausibly attribute that to market forces since it preceded the mergers and acquisitions of the 90's.

On the post: Justice Department Drops Its Request To Be Allowed To Lie In Response To FOIA Requests

pjcamp ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2011 @ 05:49am

well I remember Ed Meese

and he was a stone cold idiot.

He was the first to promote the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka Star Wars), produced a report linking pornography to crime, was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, believed the Miranda ruling should be overturned, and resigned in disgrace because of his involvement in the Wedtech scandal.

If this administration wants to rely on his judgment to support their policies, that's just sad.

On the post: US Chamber Of Commerce Quickly Showing That It's Out Of Touch, As Google, CEA Consider Dropping Out

pjcamp ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2011 @ 05:41am

not to be confused with local chambers either

many of which are also dropping association with the US Chamber.

The US CoC was taken over by Republican-associated lobbyists years ago and basically serves as a means of cloaking Republican party interests in a veneer of respectability.

On the post: How Copyright Infringement Turned Vampires Into Big Business

pjcamp ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2011 @ 07:06am

Great moments in uncreative derivative works

Add to the list as needed:

James Joyce: Ulysses

Josquin des Prez: Missa Malheur me bat, Missa Mater Patris, and Missa Fortuna desperata

Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur

William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Coriolanus, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Winter's Tale, King John, Richard II, Henry Iv, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII

Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme from Haydn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concertos opus 297

Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony 15

Franz Schubert: C Minor Sonata, A Major Sonata and B flat Sonata

I'm bored at this point. Someone else pick it up from here.

On the post: NY State Senators Say We've Got Too Much Free Speech; Introduce Bill To Fix That

pjcamp ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2011 @ 06:34am

rights or privileges?

Both the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution express the same point of view:

Declaration: ". . . that to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the just consent of the governed. . ."

Preamble: "We, the people . . . ordain and establish this Constitution for the government . . ."

In both cases, the view is that rights are inherent in our condition as human beings, and that power flow from the people to the government as a device for protecting these rights. There is no notion whatsoever of rights as something bestowed on the people by the government. Rather, it is power that is bestowed on the government by the people and may be taken away at any time.

On the post: Mainstream News Article Talks Up The Importance Of Fair Use

pjcamp ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2011 @ 06:53am

fair use is not a loophole

It is a right, designed in from the start.

Loopholes are odd quirks of the law, regarded as being somehow unfair or unintended, which the unscrupulous can exploit to their advantage.

Fair use is and always has been a part of copyright law since the Constitution first defined copyrights as intended for the benefit of society, not the protection of IP owners.

On the post: Appeals Court Arbitrarily Deciding What Is And What's Not Patentable

pjcamp ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2011 @ 06:13am

No

This is actually Congress' job.

If the courts have to step in to set boundaries, that indicates that far more is broken than just patent law.

On the post: Citizen Recording Of Police Proves Officer Lied About Arrest

pjcamp ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 06:40am

officers lie all the time

I've been the victim of that in more petty ways. They're intent on doing what is necessary to get the conviction. The question is what happens to them as a result? The answer is usually nothing. There are no real consequences for this sort of bad behavior because they are, after all, The Heroes (TM). The sad truth is that often, especially in small towns, the only thing separating police from perpetrators is that they managed to get through police training before being caught.

On the post: Shouldn't Unilateral Retroactive Copyright Extension Mean Copyright Is Void?

pjcamp ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2011 @ 06:48am

laws are not contracts

They aren't agreements. They are compulsory, backed up by the coercive power of the state.

So no. Duh.

On the post: Article About 'The Menace Of The Software Pirates' From 1985

pjcamp ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2011 @ 06:27am

why

is an article about software pirates illustrated by a picture of Smokey the Penguin?

On the post: Feds Insist That As Long As They Break The Law In A 'Classified' Way, They Can Never Be Sued

pjcamp ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2011 @ 07:48am

this is news?

Maher Arar was kidnapped, sent overseas and tortured. His lawsuit was tossed out of court because it would have revealed national security secrets.

German citizen Khalid el-Masri was similarly kidnapped and tortured in a case of mistaken identity. He was then released on a desolate road in Albania with no money, no identification, only the clothes on his back, and no passport. He was detained there as a terrorist due to his unkempt appearance and general lack of documents. He eventually sued (by video -- same mistaken identity resulted in him being denied entry to the US) which suit was dismissed. This suit was dismissed without being heard because it "would present a grave risk to national security."

The state secrets exception has a long history of being used to cover up government embarrassment. You can read more about it here:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/State_secrets_privilege

On the post: EMI Doesn't Pay Royalties, Or It Does, But To The Wrong People, Or It Doesn't, Or Maybe It Does…

pjcamp ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2011 @ 06:57am

class

Isn't this what class action lawsuits are for?

On the post: Modern Art: $5 Million Worth Of Unauthorized Downloads On A Hard Drive On Display

pjcamp ( profile ), 23 Aug, 2011 @ 06:15pm

interesting zen moment

If it is art, then it is fair use and is not a copyright violation. If it is a copyright violation, then it can't be art so what is it doing in a gallery?

On the post: 'What Idiot Wrote The Patent That Might Invalidate Software Patents? Oh, Wait, That Was Me'

pjcamp ( profile ), 23 Aug, 2011 @ 06:13pm

software patents

"If you go down this route, any patent that results in purely a change in stored information is invalid."

I think that is actually the correct position. Software is a written instantiation of an idea, not a manufactured one, and the proper protection is copyright.

Just not under the insane terms of current copyright law.

On the post: Samsung Cites 2001: A Space Odyssey As Prior Art For Tablet Design

pjcamp ( profile ), 23 Aug, 2011 @ 06:05pm

Steve

I wonder if Steve Jobs violates the copyright on Hal 9000?

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