[conspire] Book Burning continues thanks to the Feds

[Ruben Safir]

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 06:39:33PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):
> 
> > Copyright under US law and under English Common Law is not property
> > and it is only a matter of time that the Bern Convention is found
> > unconstitutional.
> 
> I've already explained to you why it's totally _irrelevant_ whether you
> are willing to apply the label 'property' to copyrights (or patents, or
> trademarks, or trade secrets, or bonds, or stocks, or stock options, or
> leaseholds, or fiat currency, or company scrip, or credit default swaps,
> or mineral rights).  The relevant fact is that there are exclusive
> rights under law (which is what sane people happen to call 'property', a
> point I'll return to, below).  It is incontrovertible that Google's
> now-failed settlement proposal would have given it special,
> unprecedented, court-ordered, proprietary access to exploit other people's
> rights for purposes of its own corporate profit -- other people who
> weren't even part of the lawsuit.
> 
> You decided to ignore that relevant underlying facts, and try to sucker
> me into a symbolic ideological battle over the word 'property'.
> 
> This is, of course, ritualised Internet combat at its worst, and is
> one of the several ways you tend to make yourself obnoxious and somewhat
> notorious on Internet mailing lists, Ruben.  By yammering on ideology,
> and falling back on verbose preprepared talking points, you usually wear
> most people down, and you walk away thinking you've impressed people,
> after they merely got tired of arguing.
> 
> And, as my saying goes, 'It's easier than thinking.'  However, being the
> sadistic bastard I am, I'm going to _force_ you to think.  Watch me.
> This is at least a little reminiscent of the way it's done in law class.
> 
> 



"Theft"
An unskippable anti-piracy film included on movie DVDs equates copyright
infringement with theft.

Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as "theft".
In law copyright infringement does not refer to actual theft, but an
instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the
copyright holder without authorization.[5] Courts have distinguished
between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the
United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that
bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that
"...interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft,
conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of
art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of
the copyright.'" In the case of copyright infringement the province
guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e.
exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over
the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the
copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held.[6]


Right off of Wikipedia

So where are we now Rick?  Should we get Moglin on the phone and do a
three way conference call?  I think I can arrainge it.

Ruben
> 
> _Despite_ your problem with the word 'property' being an irrelevant
> side show by which you attempted to sidestep the entire point, I'm not
> going to stand for that sort of ideological bullshit, either:
> 
> > Copyright under US law and under English Common Law is not property
> 
> Title 17, Chapter 106 of the United States Code is suddenly _not_
> 'US law'?
> 
>   106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
> 
>   Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this
>   title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the
>   following:
> 
>   (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
>   [...]
> 
>   (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to
>   the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease,
>   or lending;
> 
>   (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic
>   works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works,
>   including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual
>   work, to display the copyrighted work publicly;
> 
> What, if not property, -=is=- an 'exclusive right' guaranteed by law?
> Again, we'll get back to that point, but first, I have to blow up
> another bullshit objection:
> 
> > It is a limited monopoly for the expressed purpose of assuring only a
> > single purpose
> 
> No.  _Nothing_ in law requires that the exclusive rights be used for any
> 'single purpose'.   Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 states
> a general _rationale_ for legal recognition of the general category of
> legal concepts implemented separately as copyrights, patents,
> trademarks, and trade secrets:  'promote the Progress of Science and
> useful Arts'.  You will not be able to cite a single court decision or
> statute where the courts or Congress said 'Hey, you can't have that
> copyright ownership, because it doesn't promote the progress of science
> and useful arts'.  You can't, because it doesn't happen.
> 
> Back to exclusive rights.
> 
> Let's consider a 10-year 10k municipal bond that my mother bought back
> in 1982.  It's intangible, just like a copyright.  It's an exclusive
> right, just like a copyright.  It exists for a limited time, just like
> a copyright (Church of Scientology and the Sonny Bono Copyright
> Extension Act permitting).  It is abstract and exists only because a
> legal framework for that purpose permits it to, just like a copyright.
> It can be sold, rented, and monetised in sundry ways, just like a
> copyright.
> 
> _It's a property_.  Why is it a property?  Because it acts like a
> property.  In business law, we are taught that any property is 'a bundle
> of rights'.  Even real estate is a bundle of rights.  That nice house in
> Brooklyn?  You don't own the mineral rights, in all likelihood.  That
> isn't in the bundle you own.  Maybe there's an encumbrance for a utility
> line.  That was carved out of the bundle you own.  You have a bundle of
> some rights; you don't have others.  They come attached to a long
> retinue of woeful obligations, too.  
> 
> Life is complex, and there are also taxes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > [Google scanned books 'largely out of print']
> 
> >> Sorry, this _doesn't even contradict_ what I said.
> >
> > Yes - but it was recognized by the court as a factor, Chin just didn't
> > think it was important enough because he has his head up his tuchas,
> 
> You seem to be at some pains to ignore what I said.  Let me restate it:
> The fact that the books Google scanned and republished on the Web under
> proprietary terms without the copyright owners' permission included
> out-of-print works, which you cited as an objection to what I said
> upthread, _doesn't even contradict_ what I said in any way.
> 
> It's irrelevant, and in fact you were basically repeating what _I_
> said as if it were an -objection- to what I had said.
> 
> _Who_ here is having a problem distinguishing his punim from his tuchis,
> Ruben?  I don't think it's just Judge Chin, bubeleh.
> 
> 
> >> Untrue unless you mean 'and thereby commit copyright violation and
> >> risk owing huge damages'.
> >
> > They are lazy.  Anyone can scan it.  There is no copyright violation
> > in scanning it no matter how much twittle-bots wanted the court to
> > bring Google to bankrupcy because they had the nerve to scan whole
> > libaries for the first time, which until now had no public access.
> 
> Again, Title 17, Chapter 106 of the United States Code is suddenly _not_
> 'US law'?
> 
> 
> > And a lot of those works, it turned out, ended up being lost Jewish
> > Religious works, such as the Sifri.
> 
> The Sifre I'm aware of (and of course I have roughly bupkes in the
> way of yeshiva bucher credentials, other than my goyisher kopf),
> including the lost ones, date form the Talmudic era, and thus are beyond
> the reach of even the late Congressman Bono's bought-and-paid-for
> legislation.
> 
> If someone wrote some sort of midrash in the 20th Century based on the
> extant two Sifre (on Bamidbar = Numbers and Devarim = Deuteronomy), then
> the 'patch' would be under copyright.  I hesitate to suggest promoting
> 'free culture' licensing ideas to the dossim, as they're probably way
> ahead of me on that.  (You tell me.  I'm just the blond gentile agnostic 
> guy with the Lutheran ancestors.  ;->  )
> 
> 
> 
> >>> Law that thinks about this as "property" needs to be reversed and
> >>> google should start to lobby for a change in the law.
> >
> >> Maybe yes, maybe no, but completely irrelevant to present discussion.
> >
> > It is essential to the current discussion.  Google's approach to this
> > has been naive.
> 
> {choke}  In what universe has Google's legal team ever been naive?
> 
> They tried an amazingly cheeky land-grab in _their own interest_ -- not
> because they're angels trying to get greater rights for anyone else
> (which in fact THEY DIDN'T).  It might have worked, at least until
> challenged in higher courts.
> 
> 
> 
> >> Finally, I notice you have so far disregarded my other serious
> >> points, e.g., the summary jettisoning in the now-rejected settlement
> >> of antitrust concerns, censorship protection, and privacy.  Sorry to
> >> see that.
> >
> > The only antitrust that concerns me is the one there publishers
> > prevent the publics access to information.
> 
> Then, you weren't paying attention.  The now-rejected settlement
> would have given Google, Inc. privileged access to other people's
> copyrights, privileged and arbitrary rights to users' private access
> data, and give them a near-total lock on Internet search.
> 
> 
> 
> >> [1] History's first recorded instance of two-factor authentication:
> >> Sefer Shoftim 12:5-6.  Fortunately, I have an excellent Gileadic
> >> accent.
> >
> > I'll look into it.
> 
> I'm afraid this was just my deadpan Scandinavian sense of humour.
> 
>   And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites:
>   and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, "Let
>   me go over"; that the men of Gilead said unto him, "Art thou an
>   Ephraimite?"  If he said, "Nay"; Then said they unto him, Say now
>   "Shibboleth": and he said "Sibboleth": for he could not frame
>   to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the
>   passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the
>   Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
> 
> The tribe of Ephraim had a problem pronouncing the letter shin ('sh'),
> which they pronounced identically with samekh ('s').  So, they got
> put to the sword on account of failing two-factor authentication:
> the password 'shibboleth' = stem, stalk (thus, something you have)
> plus the politically correct accent (thus, something you are).
> 
> 
> > But under current Copyright, the Gemora could [not have] even come
> > into existence
> 
> Had it arisen under the current Berne-oriented copyright regime, the
> Gemara would have required license from Yehuda ha-Nasi (or heirs
> thereof).  ;->
> 
> 
> > Technically speaking all the copyrighted works do go to the government
> > when they are registered, hence the LOC.
> 
> No.  As someone else has pointed out, the Library of Congress's
> Copyright Office is merely a place where one may optionally register
> one's copyright assertion by filling out a form and submitting a $35
> fee.  The benefit is that the copyright owner has now, in the eyes of
> the law, carried out constructive notice of his/her copyright to any
> infringers.  Thus, if the owner ever sues, he/she can collect statutory
> damages plus attorney's fees.  Without registration, the owner can sue
> only to enjoin further infringement, and for proven actual damages.
> 
> -- 
> Rick Moen               "If you watch Black Swan backwards, it's a movie about 
> rick at linuxmafia.com     a psychotic girl who benefits from ballet therapy."
> McQ!  (4x80)                                           -- knnth_dh
> 
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"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"

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"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt.  I guess you missed that one."

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