Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 09:25:59 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Copyright law, again... Message-ID: <20010523092559.B95221@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010522120432.04599e20@localhost>; from brett@lariat.org on Tue, May 22, 2001 at 12:08:50PM -0600 References: <20010522181937.I51400@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010522120432.04599e20@localhost>
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Brett Glass said on May 22, 2001 at 12:08:50:
> At 10:19 AM 5/22/2001, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
>
> >The chapter excerpted above is one of the strongest indictments of the
> >current copyright situation I have ever read. Even Stallman doesn't
> >get into the guts of today's system and savage it the way she does:
>
> You are misrepresenting Ms. Littman's position. Her indictment is not
> of copyright law per se but rather of the extreme positions taken by
> the combatants in the current content wars.
To quote from that chapter, second paragraph:
Copyright laws become obsolete when technology renders the
assumptions on which they were based outmoded. That has happened with
increasing frequency since Congress enacted the its first copyright
law in 1790.
It goes on to give examples through history -- piano rolls, for
example, which appeared in the 19th century. Does that fit with
your definition of "current"?
By the 1920s, the process (of encouraging content industries to
dictate copyright law) was sufficiently entrenched that whenever a
member of Congress came up with a legislative proposal without going
through the cumbersome pre-legislative process of multi-party
negotiation, the affected industries united to block the bill.
Copyright bills passed only after private stakeholders agreed with one
another on their substantive provisions.
I have to conclude that either you can't read, or you believe Richard
Stallman has been making mischief since 1790. (Well, ok I'm unfair.
He does say that his ideals go back to 1776, so maybe you're talking
about the same people he's talking about.)
- Rahul.
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