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Comment Re:Asimov himself said nothing happens in Foundati (Score 1) 283

Years later, when a publisher was trying to persuade him to make a longer Foundation work

This notion set off a massive warning bell in my head. Nothing could be worse than something once finished which gets re-written into something 8 times longer, or something written specifically for length in the first place. Exhibit one: Moby Dick. Exhibit two: much of Charles Dickens. If this is true you've probably convinced me to never read Foundation, or at least to track down the original short stories rather than trudge through a novelization of a short yet clearly complete, cerebral, and influential story.

Comment Re:Plagiarism and copyright violation (Score 1) 449

Copy rights don't exist -- they are complete legal fictions, currently designed to make sure the Disney Corporation can keep profiting from any configuration of 3 intersecting circles.

The only valid concern here is attribution rights, which are natural in a social sense, and act as a consumer protection against fraud. Plagiarism is usually defined more in terms of proper attribution than "copying", because uses of the terms with the root "copy" are so ambiguous and problematic (esp. in the digital age) as to make it unusable in enforcement, even when limited to enforcement of social norms. Quotes, citations, footnotes, bibliographies, and now hyper-links are all valid methods to lend attributions to originating sources. None of these attribution methods were used in this case, which makes finding of fault very simple.

Please don't let this debate devolve into "fair use" definitions, which are still ambiguous after centuries of contradictory court findings. Defining fair use as less than 140 characters, a few sentences, a chorus, a bar, a frame, an act, or a page are all equally subjective and ambiguous. The variety of potential valid reuse contexts are just far too great to simplify by numerical means. Copyright laws in the U.S. have always been in conflict with the First Amendment, and "fair use" has never been a sufficient work-around.

Let's talk about attribution rights and forget the copy right fiction.

Comment Copyright shouldn't chill expression (Score 1) 449

I think the point is whether or not a distinctly new work is created by the use of the previously created material. I disagree with the Verve outcome because the song uses an excerpt from "The Last Time" recording to a create a new work that any reasonable person would never mistake for being by The Rolling Stones. When Disney lost their copyright defense against "The Air Pirates" it was because despite visual similarities, their were too many differences between them for one to be mistaken for the other. No one could read a Disney comic and think it was The Air Pirates. If Helene Hegemann were a student and plagiarized another person's work to save herself the effort, or to demonstrate a false knowledge of the material, that would obviously be wrong. However, it seems that she created a new work with a legitimate right to exist in its own right, as determined by both sales and acclaim. Many songs which use samples are also unique works, as any fan of Hip-Hop or Beck or the Beastie Boys would tell you. Requiring permission to use an excerpt or sample runs the risk of denying the rest of us the resultant work, should permission be denied or be prohibitively expensive. I personally quite like DJ Dangermouse's "The Grey Album", and could never mistake it for The Beatles or Jay-Z, but yet it is an illegal work nonetheless. I think the Hip-Hop genre as a whole was much better before samples had to be cleared. If a work is entirely plagiarized, it would likely prove redundant (such as with a plagiarized term paper on a generic topic) and be forgotten anyway. Her book doesn't seem to fall into this category.

Comment Re:nice, but (Score 1) 401

That is the argument that is often dismissed by people arguing *against* Apple - if you price up a Mac on features/price as was often the case - firewire, built in wireless, bundled software, gigE, bluetooth KB+mouse, webcam then the argument was always turned to bottom line price (back in the days before pretty much everything shipped with all those pieces on the motherboard as extra gravy - Apple were one of the first to ship computers with ethernet and wireless as standard, for example, and include FW even on the lowest models).

Not saying it's a bad argument - I'm sure that a tablet PC + netbook that share the same screen will have more features than the iPad, which is not even a tablet, but it cuts both ways. I can't imagine that it's going to be cheap though.

Comment Re:Don't be interested yet, headline is incorrect (Score 1) 297

That depends on the rocket.
The Redstone, Thor, Jupiter, Atlas, Delta, Saturn IB and the first stage of the Saturn V all used what is basically jet fuel. The USSR used liquid fueled rockets on subs and yes they did a few issues with that.
BTW the Navy was going use the Jupiter on subs but they decided that solid fuel was the way to go for the reasons you gave. In that case it wouldn't be the fuel so much as all that LOX and fuel together.
I do agree that there is a difference but If I had not included that statment you know that somebody would say, "What about the Regulus, Harpoon, and Tomahawk? They are liquid fueled."
And I really didn't want to deal with that today.

Comment The other side of the story (Score 2, Informative) 280

Mules, long noted for stubbornness, would seem to have nothing on either the music labels or Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Both sides have dug in deep and are prepared, almost unbelievably, to have a third trial on the question of whether Thomas-Rasset was a dirty P2P pirate... and of what she should pay if she was.

At the second trial, in 2009, Thomas-Rasset was again found liable, but the jury this time fined her $1.92 million. Last week, federal judge Michael Davis decided that this was "monstrous" in its disproportionality and slashed the damages to $54,000. The recording industry could either accept his decision or request a third trial.

The RIAA then sent a letter to Thomas-Rasset's lawyers with an alternate offer. Thomas-Rasset could settle for only $25,000 ("We are willing to negotiate a payment schedule for this sum," said a copy of the letter seen by Ars), and she wouldn't even need to pay the labels--all cash could go to a charity benefiting musicians. The entire settlement would be conditioned on the judge vacating his recent remittitur order.

"We do not believe embarking on a third trial is in anyone's interest," said the letter. "Continuing to use scarce judicial resources as well as spend our respective clients' time and money strikes as unwise and pointless."

It does not strike Thomas-Rasset that way. While the RIAA asked for an answer by Friday, January 29, Thomas-Rasset's lawyers have already responded: no deal.

I checked in with Kiwi Camara, one of Thomas-Rasset's lawyers. who confirmed that the settlement was ruled out. He added that Thomas-Rasset would likewise rule out any settlement asking her to pay damages, and that the Camara & Sibley law firm was ready to represent her pro bono once more.


It's hard to see how this will play out, but a few things are clear: Judge Davis, despite strong criticism of the damage award, had no kind words for Thomas-Rasset. He noted that "ThomasRasset's refusal to accept responsibility for her actions and her decision to concoct a new theory of the infringement casting possible blame on her children and exboyfriend for her actions demonstrate a refusal to accept responsibility and raise the need for strong deterrence." The judge even concluded that she "lied on the witness stand by denying responsibility for her infringing acts and, instead, blamed others, including her children, for her actions."

Given the facts in the case, which after two trials don't appear to be in dispute, it's hard to see how Thomas-Rasset hopes to prevail without paying a dime, but that appears to be the plan.


  If she had been willing to pay something, she would have done so long ago, when the RIAA offered her a settlement of a few thousand dollars. Instead, Thomas-Rasset has spent years of her life working with two law firms on two federal trials, and she's willing to risk a third.

The stubbornness isn't just on one side of the aisle, however. The RIAA is completely unwilling to abide Judge Davis' ruling that the jury's damage award was excessive. Accepting the ruling would set an unacceptable precedent for judges to alter jury awards in copyright cases at their whim. It's not the amount, but the principle--something shown by the fact that the trade group is willing to drop roughly a bazillion dollars more on the Denver law firm that has been prosecuting the case in order to do it all again. In addition, conversations with industry lawyers and executives over the years have also revealed a strong sense that Thomas-Rasset needs to take responsibility and pay something; there's a very real sense that, apart from issue of statutory damage law, Thomas-Rasset is thumbing her nose at the industry and hoping to get away with no penalty.

Thus--a third trial.

Thomas-Rasset vows to pay nothing, so third trial inevitable [Jan 28]

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