From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Mon Oct 29 2001 - 12:21:58 MST
> > Why is protection of publishing industries more important to American
> > politicians than ammendments I, IV, V, and X?
>
> How does the 1st Amendment apply? Your right of free expression does not
> mean you have the right to express other people's expressions without
> their consent.
It also prohibits derivative works: I cannot produce a translation,
adaptation, or a work in another medium based on a copyrighted work
(such as, say, a book comparing short stories by different authors,
or a rap song sampling differing tunes). I can't use a song as the
soundtrack to a movie, or make a remix, or many other creative things.
And this is true even if the artist is long dead and cannot possibly
benefit from copyright protection, because most copyrights are owned
by publishing companies. Just ask anyone who has tried to make
undergound cartoons with Disnet characters. Copyright stifles
expression as much, if not more, than it encourages it. Likewise
patents prevent me from making a minor improvement to an existing
invention, or combining inventions in useful ways.
> The 4th? Considering an artist who never makes any money because his art
> is stolen by millions of ungrateful fans starves to death, I propose...
That one's been batted out of the park so many times I won't even
bother with it, except to say that I'm surprized how many otherwise
libertarians, who would otherwise never assume that a law actually
accomplishes what the politicians who passed it says it will, are so
willing to assume that copyrights and patents actually accomplish
what they claim, or even that the real reasons for their passage
are the same as the claimed reasons. And what do you say, Mr. Lorrey,
to the former admins of anon.penet.fi, who used to run a popular
anonymization service that was shut down by the feds at the request
of the Church of Scientology over copyright issues? Was that a
reasonable seizure of criminal taking money from the pockets of
artists? What do you say to Dmitri Sklyarov, now in jail under the
DMCA for publishing security information about a piece of software?
Was that seizure reasonable?
> The 5th? dont' see it
I'm not sure I see his point there either.
> The 10th? that is states rights.
...and the unenumerated rights of the people. Such as the basic
human right to use the information in your head to improve your
life, without having to know where every little piece of it came
from or which uses are legal and which aren't.
> One could say that
> intellectual property rights, because they exist within the
> constitution, are the 0th Amendment rights.
That section of the constitution enumerates the rights of congress,
one of which is the right to make laws estabishing intellectual
property rights. It does not require them to do so, it only allows
them to (and they have chosesn to pass such laws). The Bil of Rights
enumerates those things that congress _cannot_ legislate away from
the people, because they are basic human rights. When sections of
the constitution conflict, the courts and congress are expected to
compromise. It is not at all unreasonable to suggest that present
copyright law should be re-evaluated in the light of its effect
on free speech and other rights.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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