Here you go. An entire list of responses to climate denialists. Now you have a reference so you wont sound just like a paid-off concern trolling douche who needs to go fuck himself.

Maybe have a remotely relevant response?

No it didn't. Pirates have never had a technological edge over legitimate publishers. At best there's parity, but usually publishers have an edge over pirates.

If you wanted to pirate a book before the invention of movable type, you could copy it longhand -- just like you'd have to do if you wanted to make an authorized copy.

And people did this all the time. In fact, the only reason that any books (other than those written on clay, stone, or metal) survive from antiquity is because they were copied, the copies were copied, and the copies spread far and wide. Often only one copy survived long enough for more to be made. Paper of various kinds has been in use for a long time, but the oldest paper book is only about 1700 years old.

There was no exclusivity. Some places, like the city of Alexandria, in Egypt, had an official policy that all books that entered the city had to be made available for copying.

The very idea that authors should have exclusive rights in their works is only a few centuries old.

The American Taliban, who will prosecute women for miscarriages between conception and birth, after which the newborn can go fuck herself. And during the pregnancy, the mother and the fetus can go fuck themselves as well if they need health care.

People would still use AdBlock if ads were unobtrusive and static.

Hardly. If people weren't annoyed, they wouldn't have been motivated enough to download Adblock/NoScript/host files that hard code doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1.

Well, all the people who published works before 1710 had no copyrights. All the people who published after that, but not in England had no copyrights until various countries slowly adopted copyright (the US picked it up in 1790, the French after that, and most of Europe in the 19th century -- and they only exported it to the rest of the world by means of colonialism, not on its own actual merits).

Plus there were various limits, e.g. the US only granted copyrights to Americans until almost the end of the 19th century; British authors had no option to get an American copyright at all... unless they became American citizens.

More recently, various classes of work were ineligible. For example, architectural works (in practice, buildings) were uncopyrightable in the US until 1990. Were no buildings designed and built in this country until architects were given copyrights?

What I think you're missing here is that there are a plethora of incentives for an author to create and publish a work. Money gained by exploiting a copyright on the work is but one of those incentives, and often is not the most important one, and also often is not an essential one.

I certainly agree that it can be useful, but that doesn't mean that we ought to go hog wild with it; as with many other things, a little might be beneficial, but too much can be harmful.

The point is to grant authors copyrights as an additional incentive in order to entice them into creating and publishing works which they would not have created and published, but for copyright. If they would've done it anyway, the copyright is superfluous, and granting it would be wasteful. If they require more copyright than is healthy for society, all things considered, we're literally better off not granting it even though it means we'll be bereft of the work in question.

It's not intended to give authors control over works for their own sake. That's just the means by which it functions. It's intended to produce a public benefit. And while the public does benefit from having works created and published, it also benefits from not having anyone controlling works.

Well, that's how it operated in the US from 1790 through to the end of 1977. Turns out that relatively few published works were copyrighted. Further, since there was a renewal term (that is, the copyright would be good for an additional number of years if you re-upped in a timely fashion) we also know that most authors of copyrighted works didn't bother to get a renewal, and let their works enter the public domain sooner than they had to.

It worked fine. We got great literature and the golden age of Hollywood on both film and tv, as well as tons of great music.

And frankly, a system of strict formalities to get copyrights is a more important thing to change in the law than shortening the term length.

Why should the rest of us aid them in doing so? E.g. by conferring upon them some sort of legal rights that pertain to how the work is used by others.

While I think it could potentially be beneficial for the public to grant rights to authors, it's surely not always beneficial under every circumstance, and every permutation of works and rights.

And if the author doesn't like the terms under which the public might deign to give them rights, they're free to not create the work.

America's modern left often argues that portions of the US Constitution can be safely ignored because it's old and was written by white dudes. Here's a (fairly calm) piece that explores that argument. (Also look up "constitution living document".)

America's wingnuts often pass around chestnuts of "wisdom" like this and slap each other on the back for how clever they are.

Nevermind the "living Constitution" stuff is what considers your emails to be your "papers" and thus subject to the same protections from government searches.

Still think you're clever? Want to go on being all literalist? Explain how the U.S. Air Force is Constitutional, since Congress "only" has the authority to fund an Army and a Navy under a literal reading of Article I, Section 8.

Who do you think cops brutalize? Local taxpayers. Who do Libertarian Loons whine about when the city is forced to pay out damages? Local taxpayers. What piece of technology would reduce the affects on both?

Libertarians: penny wise, pound stupid.

there would probably be a lot less looting

There was very little looting to begin with. It's the same media amplification that allowed 200 Teabaggers hanging outside a congressional office to get more coverage than 200,000 people protesting the invasion of Iraq.

Where's your evidence that the "private citizen" isn't a retired cop or friend/relative of one? Nah, it's just very very very convenient that this story always pops up about the worrisome costs of cop body cams.

That's not what the federal government is for.

It's what it's for since the passage of the 14th Amendment. You can give the Libertarian Loonery a rest while you google "Bill of Rights" and "equal protection clause".

As a question, why is this a federal problem?

One simple question for another: ever take remedial civics? There's this thing called the Bill of Rights, which state and local authorities have proven themselves incapable of enforcing.

Dumbfuckery. First, where does the Constitution lay out a right to drink alcohol? You no more "need" to show ID to enter a church or to post on Slashdot. Second, voter fraud for all practical purposes simply does not exist. Just about every case that dumbfucks bring up to support ID laws were either cases of someone double voting (in person and absentee), a person with a felony record, or failing to establish residency before voting.

None of which would be prevented by ID.