There is more nuance than the parent has allowed. The constitution balances individual rights with the public good through the creation, preservation, and release of information. I am a lawyer but not a copyright lawyer (IAALBNACL). I have a strong background in Constitutional, Treaty law, and civil rights law. I am also a CMSC. I have long had a growing suspicion that intellectual property law is due for a shake up based on the plain meaning and original intent of the US Constitution.

All US copyright law is passed pursuant to the copyright clause of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution, which provides: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" ArtI. S8. C8.

As a simple proposition, the US Constitution does not textually support statutory or decisional law that provides for infinite copyright protection (think encryption) or the loss of creative content (think anti-preservation). The clause is clearly aimed at preservation of knowledge: it says it in the text!

Further, Congress is only empowered to provide protections to creators "for a limited time". The history of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 does not support law providing for infinite protection and non-preservation either. Madison was clearly focused on preserving and sharing information with humanity by encouraging the production and, eventual, freeing of information. The English 1623 Statute of Monopolies limited protections to 14 years. At the August 18, 1787 drafting session, Madison proposed a provision “to encourage, by proper premiums & Provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries.” Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 resulted. In Federalist 43, Madison reasoned that: "The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of individuals." In other words, the public good is served by the creation and release of ideas, balanced with compensation to the creators.

Franklin was not a proponent of the protections and Jefferson disliked the monopoly of ideas. More could be written about the views of the Framer's (anti-monopoly views and the history of the Statute of Monopolies could be instructive as to why the Framers would constrain Congress' ability to provide for intellectual monopoly with the "for a limited time" limitation) but the essence is balance between natural rights concept of ownership of the fruits of labor and preservation and release of information. That balance was struck from the very beginning by limiting the time of IP rights and allowing for preservation of information (think libraries).

I believe there has been an ideological shift in American law that opens arguments of textualism and original intent. Consider the current composition of the USSCT: Thomas (originalist), Alito (originalist), Barett (originalist), Gorsuch (textualist), Kavanaugh (maybe textualist), the rest (make it up as you go along). The court has shown itself willing to re-examine whole lines of entrenched precedent based on principled approaches of interpretation, think Roe. Also, Gorsuch's re-examination of Indian law in McGrit v. Oklahoma is fascinating.

Copyright law has gone off the rails of the text and intent and is due for a reset.

If these providers were really treating me so incredibly unfairly, why wouldnâ(TM)t another option naturally emerge? Hasnt that always been the cycle of technology? Someone does something poorly and then someone else can do it better and make lots of money. This article is really about pricing of broadband service to rural areas. Being from a rural area, I can difinitively state that we are happy to have something- please donâ(TM)t take that away by getting government involved and depriving providers of an incentive to deliver services to agricultural towns with low population densities. While I appreciate these authorsâ(TM) concern for fly over country, it is misguided.

Jackie Spear says requiring ids in other contexts are racist. https://capac-chu.house.gov/pr.... Why not here?

Are you sure? Is that true for all offenders? Check out the John jay study for the Catholic Bishops.

What about prevention of recidivism? The Catholic priest abuse scandal happened because leaders turned a blind eye to recidivism and failed to warn or detect targets being groomed. Shouldn't treatment science or statistics be a basis for determining whether recidivism is an intolerable risk? Perhaps lists should be easier to exit based on psychological evidence but to advocate eliminating them entirely is to forget the hard lessons we have learned.

Go look up what a straw argument is. You are confused.

Mod up, I clicked on this thread explicitly to see if anyone caught this fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Socialism rests on the idea that the economic pie is static and can't grow and thus one group can acquire all the stuff . Ludites similarly believe there are a ridiculously small number of ideas for prodects or services and one group (machines) can take all the jobs. The agricultural revolution is a great example of the falicy of both ideas. Automation both grew the pie by making food cheaper and grew the number of types of jobs from nearly one to what we have today.

You have bought the "not marked" lie Clinton hoped would confuse uninformed people. General Petreus pled guilty to disclosing unmarked handwritten notes of meetings to his mistress. "Marking " is irrelevant. Knowing or being on notice is sufficient. Hillary's only real defense is "I didn't know". But that defense hurts her because it demonstrates utter incompetence so she hasn't been using it.

The cost of a credit protection service enrolled in as a precaution is damage enough. This is a forseeable injury regardless of actual fraud. The class representatives could have subscribed to some service and pled the class as existing of all persons that incurred this expense. The result is the negligent company is held accountable and other companies are on notice that they will be held accountable. If there was actual fraud for some persons, it would destroy the commonality requirement for class certification; the persons suffering fraud would all have had different levels and types of damages.

As usual for Slashdot, the article description doesn't track TFA (any of them) and misses the truth. First off, the cited article doesn't talk about this guy convincing banks to create products he bet against. Rather, he noticed that the market was using insane valuations for subprime mortgages and bet against them. That is smart, not evil. To use a tech analogy, what if IT Joe recognized a Zero Day exploit, implemented a fix, warned everyone, then sat back as his network survived and everyone else's were trashed? No one here would call IT Joe a villain. No the real reason Paulson is hated is envy. Just be real, he has more than you and you want it.

A government telco isn't a monopoly?

"Buying bits of corporations" does not avoid tax on income. Income is taxed when it is recieved. Investing after tax income allows dividends to be taxed at capital gains rates. This rate is set to encourage investment in the economy and to recognize the corporation already paid taxes on money distributed to investors.

Placing income producing assets in a corporation will, however, cause income to be taxed at the corporate rate and avoid tax.

You should be "buying bits of corporations" every chance you get. Not because it avoids taxation but because your money is rotting with the high inflation created to artificially lower interest rates.

The normal thing here is someone on Slashdot didnt read the TFA. The debate is about corporate taxation not "the rich". The individuals still pay the tax on wages.
It is fair (intellectually, not necissarily a correct posititon) to argue that income should be taxed twice, once at the corporation an once with the investor / employee. It is also fair (intellectually, not necissarily a correct posititon) to debate deductions. But it is knee jerk illogic to confuse a debate about corporate taxation with the debate whether "the rich" pay their fair share.

There are some Slashdot articles I click through just to ensure an obligatory remark is made. Good job.