I'm sorry, but when I started commenting on this I didn't know your father held any copyrights, so that could hardly be my point, now could it? I responded specifically to your statements about honoring copyright as it should be and then about how "old and abandoned" should be free. (I even AGREED with you, so yes, I deserve a long drawn-out argument about "old and abandoned" works being copyrighted for too long.) People who "honor copyright as it should be" by distributing the latest movies or TV shows aren't dealing with "old and abandoned", and nobody who argues that they're only breaking copyright laws because "the vendor won't sell it to me in the format I want" is coming even close to dealing with this "old and abandoned" issue.

If your argument is that "old and abandoned" works still have copyright thus all copyrights are invalid constitutionally, well, sorry, but that's just silly. The vast majority of copyrights are unregistered and expire (now) at "life+70", and if the material was produced prior to 1978 and hasn't been extended the material is already public domain. That's hardly "forever", and while it is perhaps longer than it should be, it is certainly not a reason to claim the system is unconstitutional.

I do believe if you read what I wrote you'll see I did answer that question, even though I certainly am not the right person to ask because I don't have any specifics. Here's the answers:

1. If your father's works were initially copyrighted prior to 1978, then NOBODY owns the copyright -- it's all public domain now. Remember -- 1978+28 = 2006. It's been public domain for at least 8 years. Was there an extension? I don't know -- ask the copyright office. Any extensions are not default, they must be requested.

2. If they were copyrighted after 1 Jan 1978, then someone holds the copyright until 70 years after he died. You didn't tell me when that was so I cannot answer with a specific date. Now, who holds that copyright? If you recall, I said that you, as the heir, probably do, or whoever the heir is. I said that all it would take is for you as the heir to put the material in public domain and the copyright would be ended and the books freely copyable.

So, you need to step up and accept the inheritance and solve the problem you complain of. In either case, those books are not "lost forever". The copyright will run out no later than, umm, 2014+70=2084, but it may have run out already, OR you (or the actual heirs) could decide to end it earlier.

Now, it is possible that your father assigned the copyright to someone else. You need to look in the books you fear are lost forever to see what the actual copyright statement says. Year and who -- two items that must be there. What do those copyright notices say?

Sigh. For anything copyrighted prior to 1978, anyone can reprint them now. For anything after that, anyone who the copyright holder authorizes can reprint them, unless the copyright holder (the heirs) rescinds copyright and turns the material over to the public domain and then the answer is "anyone". If you want a specific answer by name, I'm sorry, I can't tell you who the heirs were, nor have you said a word about what the actual copyright notice in the material says. I have a list of who "anyone" is, but the margins are too limited to allow inclusion here.

If the copyright holder doesn't know he is, then who is going to file a lawsuit for violation of copyright law? Do you really imagine that any of the material involved in the KDC legal hassles is based on copyright holders who don't know they are? I doubt it seriously.

Now, I understand that you are concerned about your father's works, to the extent that YOU are missing the point that very little to none of the arguments about copyright violations and reasons why people do violate copyright law involve truly "old and abandoned" works. "Old and abandoned" works, BY DEFINITION, have nobody who cares about the copyright status. By saying that "we" are only trying to honor copyright as it should be (as part of a discussion of how KDC was helping "us") and then imply that the only violations involve "old and abandoned" works is just ridiculous.

So, in addition to proving your claims wrong, I actually answered your questions. Now YOU need to do something if you want to keep your father's works from being "lost forever" -- either hire a publisher to reprint things, or turn the material over to public domain so others can do it, if copyright has not yet expired by age. And if anyone actually looks at the copyright notice and tracks you down so they can ask if they can copy the material, don't tell them that the copyright is forever because the material was produced after "Mickey Mouse" because they'll say that's what your answer is.

By the way, so what if "Happy Birthday" is still under copyright? It isn't like anyone dies if you cannot sing "Happy Birthday" in a commercial setting. It's an old, tired, hackneyed song and poem and if nobody ever sang it again it would be just fine. The world would continue on it's course; people would still grow older. You aren't even prevented from singing it to someone, only from doing so in a commercial venue. But I guess, if simply wishing someone "happy birthday" isn't good enough ...

I don't know what kind of comic book fantasy world you live in, but nobody who sells stuff gets money "up front" when nobody is buying anything from them. If someone else can knock off the movie I produced with my own money and sell it for 1/10 the price, then I don't get anything "up front" but the fun of spending a lot of money for a movie I can't get any money back on.

I'm sorry, does this have anything to do with what I said? Your "copyright cartel" cannot stop me from making a movie or selling it. They can only be a "copyright cartel" for other people who have made movies, and it doesn't matter if the other movies are under copyright or not, they're still competition. In fact, if they are under copyright, and the copyright owner is restricting distribution, those other movies are LESS competition because they will cost more and be harder to buy.

Your statement makes zero sense and has no relevance to the argument. Your ad hominem is boring.

Someone has to be on the rolls. It could be someone who is dead, or is known to be out of town. They moved, perhaps. All you have to do is pretend to be them and bingo, you get to vote.

Well, actually, yes they can. It's called a "provisional ballot" and it is federal law. It's meant to deal with the common situation where someone forgets their ID. It also covers mistakes in the voter list. The voter gets a ballot, but it isn't put in the box with all the rest. It's held until approved.

Yes, at some point in time, someone had to register. That happens once for each person. I registered here so long ago thatI don't remember when it was -- 15 years ago at least. If you think that my having to register would keep someone from using fake ID to keep voting my ballot after I die, you're looney. It's even easier here - all they have to do is forge my signature on the envelope the ballot is in. I have no doubt that there are dead people voting in Oregon, it is so easy.

And under "motor voter", it's getting easier to register, so even that small protection is being eroded.

Here's another bit of information you lack. Voter registration lists and whether or not you've voted are public record. That's how the political parties feed their robocall machines, for one thing.

No, they don't want to touch those because those are valid ballots cast by people who have the right to vote. But Democrats will happily attack both, especially after they are counted and it is known that by throwing them all out (even the Democrat votes) the Democrat will win instead of a Republican. That's the heart of many of the cases in Florida for Bush V. Gore. In one county, the Republican election official write the voter number (or some other similar thing) on the outgoing absentee requests so the voter didn't have to look it up; the Democrat did not. Gore lost, so the Democrat filed a lawsuit claiming that it was tampering with ballots to write the voter number on the application. In other words, the Democrat wanted to disenfranchise every absentee voter in that county because he wanted his guy to win.

So what if it happens with absentees, too? That's no excuse to take simple security measures to prevent it from happening with in-person voting.

I didn't say there wasn't. What I actually said was that I never hear anyone using "abandoned" as the excuse for skirting, or outright breaking, copyright law. Don't argue with me over things I didn't say.

Books printed with a short run aren't the definition of "abandoned". Lots of things are produced "with a short run" and are hardly abandoned. The phrase is "limited edition".

I doubt that. Can you cite any law that says that?

You're getting closer to abandoned, but haven't quite reached it yet. Let's see, how do we handle this situation legally? Maybe you ASK the copyright holder if the book can be archived? You know who it is even if they themselves don't. Educate them.

Here's what I see in the copyright law regarding length of copyrights. I'm going to paraphrase because it's full of legal twists, but the basics seem to be:

1. Copyright after 1978: life of author plus 70 years.

2. Before 1978 in initial copyright: 28 years from the initial copyright.

I'll not bother with "before 1978 already extended" or any of the optional extension mechanisms. I doubt your father had done that if it wasn't part of the estate papers. In either 1 or 2, the work is hardly "lost forever". All you have to do is not extend the copyright (and you seem unlikely to do that) and the copyright will expire. If there was a copyright, all you have to do as heir is release the material to the public domain. If it was initially copyright before 1978, it will have already become public domain! (1978+28=2006)

It will only be lost forever if someone throws up their hands and burns all his books as a protest to an incorrect belief that copyright lasts forever.

Now, your comment about "Mickey Mouse". I don't think anyone can use Mickey Mouse or any Disney property as an example of "abandoned".

I know I didn't say anything even close to that.

If "Happy Birthday" is still in copyright, it is only because it has not been abandoned. Arguing that abandoned works should not be under copyright anymore (an idea with which I've already told you I agree) and then using an example that is so clearly not abandoned is simply ridiculous.

We're still using all-paper balloting and we've been "permanent absentee voting" for several years now. Welcome to Oregon, where elections run for two weeks or more, political robocalls happen at least twice a day for the entire time, and if you want to vote just go to the post office and look in the trashcan for a discarded ballot.

Yeah, the "empty the cemetery" voting drives that the Daley machine in Chicago used to run on election day just can't possibly happen anymore. Especially when undocumented aliens can be found for $5 a pop at the local Home Depot and it costs almost nothing to drive a busload of them around to the polling places.

Anyone who doesn't think it happens is naive, and anyone who thinks it shouldn't be necessary to prove you have the right to vote someplace is asking for unauthorized votes.

There should already be little room for this. "Voter demonstrates intentions by poking hole in piece of paper. No hole, no intention to vote." Very simple. The failed assumption is that every person who cast a ballot intended on voting for every position and if there wasn't a hole there was a mistake. People who had no intention of voting for any candidate got their vote counted anyway.

This voting system was approved by both parties prior to the election. It wasn't a surprise dropped out of Heaven on an unsuspecting public. The time to say "gee, it's too hard to poke a hole" was before the election, not after.

We shouldn't have to find an excuse for preventing that kind of nonsense. It should be SOP that people can refuse to vote for a particular office and have it honored. It should be SOP that those who followed the instructions get their votes counted and those who don't don't.

Who is being disingenuous here? Why would they make a profit when anyone who does a quick google for what they're selling would find it for half price or even less from someone else? Other people can sell for those prices because they didn't have the production costs -- it costs almost nothing to dupe a DVD, but it costs a lot of money to produce a good quality movie. Nobody who is smart enough to have a couple of million dollars to spend on producing a movie would be dumb enough to accept the nonsense that he'll make anything back on it if anyone who wants to can copy and distribute it for him for free. That's why it isn't a standard model for movie production, not any "copyright cartel" stopping him.

What competition? If you can make a quality movie under CC licensing, then what competition is there? Oh, yes, the competition from people who will copy your movie and sell it for you, keeping the profit instead of giving it back to you. But there's no competition from the "copyright cartel". They can't stop you from making your movie or distributing it. So what if they make other movies that compete for eyeballs with yours? You've made the movie, you're distributing it. It doesn't matter if they are CC or analy-restrictive licensed -- under either licensing scheme their movies will compete for sales with yours, so how it is licensed doesn't matter.

It's odd that you think that you as a producer of a CC movie would have competition enough to stop you from other movie producers, but that you wouldn't have significant direct and immediate competition from other people selling your movie for you. That's just, well, weird. We live in a world of Chinese knock-offs causing significant damage to US technology firms and yet you think allowing everyone to knock-off a major motion picture would not harm the original investors at all.

I have no argument with you when it comes to truly "old and abandoned" works where there is no possible way the original copyright holder could benefit from copyright protections. But I don't believe that the latest episode of Dr. Who, or the finale to Breaking Bad, or most of what is pirated today, are "old and abandoned" in any sense of the word. I've yet to hear the excuse "the copyright holder isn't selling that movie made 40 years ago anymore, so I feel it's ok to pirate it". What I do hear is "the copyright holder doesn't want to sell that current content in my region, or in the format I want it in, so I feel it's ok to pirate it. I'd happily pay for it, but the seller doesn't want my money!"

I think it's a bit disingenuous to imply that the piracy issue is all about "old and abandoned works", and I don't think any of the case against KDC has anything to do with content that has been abandoned or is older than 20 years, much less old enough to be public domain under previous versions of the copyright law. I don't think the **AA has gone after anyone for pirating "It's A Wonderful Life" or "Zero Hour", but they seem to find a lot of targets for violations of modern, currently published work's copyright.

No, moron, let's not "give it to him", unless "it" refers to "a firm tongue lashing for getting it wrong wrong wrong." He's just created exactly the precedent that you don't want created: "the IP address identifies specific computers". It's not "close enough" when **AA claims it in court, it's not "close enough" when a judge says it regarding a FOIA case.

Just because you cannot distribute other people works without their permission doesn't mean you are not free to "communicate", you just have to communicate your own speech.

If is isn't your speech, then why do you think you should have a right to repeat it when the person who did say it says you can't? It is quite relevant if the words are your own or not.

What you think is absurd isn't relevant. The concept of "freedom of speech" is what we're talking about here. If the words belong to someone else, they aren't yours to exercise "freedom of speech" over, they're someone else's. If it isn't your "person, papers, or property", then you can't claim your fourth amendment rights are being violated when the cops confiscate your neighbor's car. You can jump up and down and yell about hey they violated HIS fourth amendment rights, but they didn't violate yours.

What a remarkable red herring. Making copies of things has nothing to do with "freedom of speech", especially when it isn't your own speech you are copying, and when the issue isn't copying but distributing.

Cop out. Nothing in the "copyright cartel" (whatever that is supposed to be) stops you from producing a big-budget motion picture under CC licensing, nor does it stop anyone else. You'll claim that it is a viable model, but when challenged to use it you'll admit that you don't know that it is because nobody else has done it yet. The fact nobody else has done it yet is your excuse it cannot be done.

What does stop people from doing this is the knowledge the people who actually have the money to do such a thing have: that they'd be spending a lot of money and never get it back. They couldn't charge for a DVD of the movie because lots of someone's who didn't have a huge up-front cost of producing the movie could undercut their pricing. Any "merchandising" opportunities would be filled by a similar large number of companies where the costs of developing the characters and advertising the initial concepts didn't need to be recouped from the chachkis. Some people would go to see the movie in theaters, but many more would simply wait for it to appear for free on TV, just like what happens today.

No, it isn't a viable model. THAT'S why nobody has done it yet. Not because of some mythical "copyright cartel" that prevents someone from doing it.

Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to reproduce the speech of others when those others do not wish you to do so. It means the freedom for YOU to speak YOUR WORDS, not using a copy of a movie produced through a great deal of hard work and much money by someone else.

of something that has artificial value. None of the pirated video or audio has any real intrinsic value, it is only valued for its transient entertainment value. It's the "new hobbit movie" or "hot band's latest track". It's the final episode of a series that didn't enrich society in the long run anyway. It's the latest Henry Potter or vampire/zombie/apocalypse book. People who think they are owed a copy of such works and will take them for free if the copyright owner doesn't see fit to sell it to them, well. The work cost money to produce, it costs the user nothing if they never get to view or hear it.

Do all of those deserve copyright protection? Of course, simply because you don't want government determining what is "valuable" enough to merit protection and what isn't.

If you don't want people to worry about getting "a piece of what you've got", you are free to give it all away for free. (Use of the word "free" in both major senses, intentional.) Of course you aren't free to demand that others give away what they've got for free. If you've accepted a license that says you won't give away what they've given you from their stash of "got", then you aren't free to give that away for free, either.