Partly right.

It's not from Macbeth, it's from Henry VI, Part 2.

But yes, a lot of ideas are being thrown around for how great things will be after the crown is usurped: it'll be illegal to drink small beer (i.e. the barely-alcoholic stuff people drank as a safer substitute to water), everything will be owned in common, the king will provide for everyone, and they just need to all agree on Jack Cade, the rebel leader, being king.

While it is a criticism of lawlessness it also criticizes lawyers for tending to support existing power structures.

Heaven's Gate was also a bad movie and so for symmetry you should expect there to be a bad movie about Ocean's Gate

In general children can enter into contracts but they can usually void the entire contract at will until they reach their majority. There are some exceptions, but the result is that no one wants to enter into contracts with them because as soon as it's inconvenient for the kid, they'll void it which can leave the other party in a fix.

I can't believe they're only talking about this now.

Semi-feral children can't light a fire inside the shell of a flatscreen TV and watch it for entertainment. The sets are too thin! That only works in the shell of a bulky CRT TV set. But everyone already replaced theirs years and years ago.

This is not the war between man and machine we were always promised and I find it very disappointing.

If you're going to use books strictly for decoration you can at least show off a bit by using real yet uncut books. There is literary precedent.

Can't have been -- the 'I' stands for 'Intelligence'

He's in his 70s, actually. And probably more on the ball than you give him credit for.

No.

It's an incentive. There are many other incentives as well, and often they are even stronger. Also note that the incentive provided by copyright is somewhat more complex than one might initially imagine.

In any event, I agree that copyright shouldn't be based on the life of the author; it should be for a predictable term of years, perhaps with the option to renew periodically, if desired at the time.

That's a poor assumption. In the US, copyright treaties have no meaningful legal effect; federal copyright law is what's in Title 17 of the US Code. We are actually in violation of a number of treaty provisions, but we don't care. (For example, check out WTO Dispute 160)

That being said, your analysis is basically correct with regard to the prima facie case of infringement. Frankly, it was clear enough that the court didn't need to spend much time on it.

That is correct. You can only distribute a copy, and a copy is defined in 17 USC 101 as basically being a tangible object in which a work is embedded. So a paper codex with a work printed in it is a copy of that work; a flash drive with a work stored in it is a copy of that work.

A digital file, divorced from any particular medium it's stored in, is not a copy. When you upload and download you're really just making a new copy because nothing physical is transferred from the server to the client.

But courts have persistently been calling it distribution for decades, even though it really ought to be public performance and display and contributory infringement to the other party making a copy. It is probably a lost cause at this point.

I agree; they're not derivatives.

The fair use factor doesn't care why there's a market, just that there is one, or is likely to be one, and that the use is harmful to it.

Bah; I've yet to see an ebook that was decently formatted at all. So far it appears that good typography is available only in print.

Only if the making of the OCR'ed copy was legal. Fair use is a case-by-case analysis. Just because Diamond v. RIAA turned out well in 1999 doesn't mean space shifting to OCR would now. (In fact, I'd be very worried that a new round of anti spaceshifting litigation would turn out the other way)

Same as above. Once you have a legally made copy, it is subject to first sale. The question is whether the OCR copy is legally made.

Google Books succeeded, but then they don't lend out books.

I don't think so. Even then the relatively low-priced hardcopies, and scans of them that can be used indefinitely, would displace recurring licensing fees. There is a market for e-book licensing to libraries, and this would negatively affect it.

That's not an issue the court cares about in this case, and also that's a stupid system. Copyright term length should not be based on life of the author in any respect; a term of years, preferably short but with some additional terms if requested timely, is better. It's more predictable for everyone to arrange their affairs around, it's almost always just as good for authors and publishers, it's definitely better for the public, and it worked great for centuries so it's got that in its favor too.

Except it is cut and dry. Copyright law doesn't say you can only lend out as many copies as you have. It says you can't make copies without permission, or without falling within an applicable exception in the law, and it says that you can't lend copies unless they were lawfully made or again, you have permission.

That's how it keeps you from lending out more copies than you have -- you can't make more and can't lend any you made yourself, or you got permission (probably in exchange for a substantial licensing fee).