arstechnica.com — The US Department of Justice has until mid-September to decide whether it wants to help the RIAA defend the constitutionality of its claim that it is owed damages of $750 for each copyrighted song infringed.
Jul 31, 2007 View in Crawl 4
generalledgerAug 1, 2007
Did you check the Eighth Amendment?
smokalotAug 1, 2007
it's right between abortion and affirmative action
nondescryptAug 1, 2007
gwinerreniwg said "Gee, can anyone guess how this is going to turn out? Get out the KY now for more fun with the Bush administration."I nominate this for "best comment ever" award.
markofthedeadAug 1, 2007
now afraid of word "fun"
gwinerreniwgAug 1, 2007
I completely disagree - You are mixing quality with creativity. A creative work does not have to be of good quality, and not all creative works need to appeal to mass audiences. My point is that the democratizing effects of technology have facilitated all kinds of new creative works by people who in the past have not had access to the tools to allow themselves to express their creative intentions. Need a concrete example? You're using it right now. The amount of new creative work based on the internet did not even exist 15 years ago, and vast quantities of people who never had a creative thought in their lives, are producing their own art. Smut and trash though (some) of it may be, I believe it is much more beneficial to society to release the works to the public domain sooner, than to restrict use for the benefit of a few "arcane wizards" of creativity and their masters. Your argument is essentially to starve the public because they would do no good with it anyway. I just can't support that - and I think neither does history.
honoredmuleAug 2, 2007
"Need a concrete example? You're using it right now. The amount of new creative work based on the internet did not even exist 15 years ago, and vast quantities of people who never had a creative thought in their lives, are producing their own art."That's a grand, and faulty, assumption. Just because you didn't see creativity doesn't mean it wasn't there, and creativity comes from within, not from access to material to inspire clones. Art/creativity does require access to material, but that material is experience, which comes not from a communication portal, but from time itself. I've no doubt there are artists or entertainers who form their art based on what they take away from the digital age or produce their work from information technology itself...but without these tools, they would produce something else. You're essentially saying sources make the artist, which ultimately means there are no true artists.I wouldn't however wish to give you the wrong impression. "Your argument is essentially to starve the public because they would do no good with it anyway. I just can't support that - and I think neither does history." I'm not making an argument for or against long, restrictive copyright laws (although for the record I'm highly against them and advocate movement into public domain as quickly as is reasonable). I wasn't even commenting on copyright law at all....and yes, "smut and trash" have their places as well.
unabashedguyNov 2, 2007
<a class="user" href="http://www.gift-lover.com">http://www.gift-lover.com</a>
lnitrolSep 10, 2008
<a class="user" href="http://www.snowpage.de">http://www.snowpage.de</a>