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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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Machinist's Handbook 26 as an e-Book
A friend of mine recently sent me a heads up. Someone posted
Machinist's Handbook #26 on newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book.flood on Dec. 18. as hundreds of ".rr" files. Not sure if they are usable or not. The FAQ for those newsgroups is located at: http://ebook.23ae.com/ Enjoy. -- Keith Bowers - Thomasville, NC |
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keith bowers wrote:
A friend of mine recently sent me a heads up. Someone posted Machinist's Handbook #26 on newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book.flood on Dec. 18. as hundreds of ".rr" files. Not sure if they are usable or not. The FAQ for those newsgroups is located at: http://ebook.23ae.com/ Copyright issues aside, I prefer one nice paid-for book. I like the way it develops it's own index marks to the tapping and threading pages (: |
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"keith bowers" wrote in message
... A friend of mine recently sent me a heads up. Someone posted Machinist's Handbook #26 on newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book.flood on Dec. 18. as hundreds of ".rr" files. Not sure if they are usable or not. The FAQ for those newsgroups is located at: http://ebook.23ae.com/ Enjoy. -- Keith Bowers - Thomasville, NC It may be useable or not, but it's highly illegal in either case. Industrial Press is pretty serious about protecting their copyrights. -- Ed Huntress |
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Ed Huntress writes:
It may be useable or not, but it's highly illegal in either case. Malum prohibitum, not malum in se. The "highly" is a religious sentiment. The US Supreme Court decided quite a while ago, you can't copyright facts, collections of facts, arrangments of facts, diagrams of facts, tables of facts, formulas, recipes, etc. The text of MH is largely such material, interspersed with some original commentary. The copyright covers only the latter. The Internet calls even that much into question. Copyright in practice only counts for some multiple of the cost of copying. The less it costs to copy, the less things can be copyrighted. Publishing on paper or discs in order to artificially boost costs is a hopeless copyright-reification strategy. The morality of copyright was based on (1) significant costs of copying, and (2) somebody making money on unauthorized copies. Both have vanished. The world has changed, Ed. |
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"Richard J Kinch" wrote in message
. .. Ed Huntress writes: It may be useable or not, but it's highly illegal in either case. Malum prohibitum, not malum in se. The "highly" is a religious sentiment. The US Supreme Court decided quite a while ago, you can't copyright facts, collections of facts, arrangments of facts, diagrams of facts, tables of facts, formulas, recipes, etc. The text of MH is largely such material, interspersed with some original commentary. The copyright covers only the latter. No. It covers every representation of the data, including its organization, selection, and (if this is really the MH's PDF version online, as someone said it was a year or two ago), the specific graphics, the proportions of the tables, and so on. This is stuff I've lived with for years, Richard. I had to review the status of copyright law just a couple of years ago. In publishing, we live and die by this stuff. The Internet calls even that much into question. Copyright in practice only counts for some multiple of the cost of copying. The less it costs to copy, the less things can be copyrighted. Publishing on paper or discs in order to artificially boost costs is a hopeless copyright-reification strategy. The morality of copyright was based on (1) significant costs of copying, and (2) somebody making money on unauthorized copies. Both have vanished. The world has changed, Ed. Try it and see what happens. Make sure you have a good lawyer when you do. -- Ed Huntress |
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Ed Huntress writes:
No. It covers every representation of the data, Like I said, malum prohibitum, not malum in se. You're correct in the sense of a legal theory, and a litigation tactic, only. But in conflict with _Feist_. Data in a table of, oh, thread data, is in the public domain. The aspect ratio of the table is an original work? Puh-leeze. The tap-drill table in MH is the same as any other I've seen. Are you claiming *that* is IP's property? Which mathematical formulas belong to them? Try it and see what happens. No thanks, I don't have to. MH has been on a.b.e for years. Who has been prosecuted? |
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"Richard J Kinch" wrote in message
. .. Ed Huntress writes: No. It covers every representation of the data, Like I said, malum prohibitum, not malum in se. You're correct in the sense of a legal theory, and a litigation tactic, only. But in conflict with _Feist_. Data in a table of, oh, thread data, is in the public domain. The person who posted the message was not talking about thread data. He was talking about a multi-part copy of _Machinery's Handbook_. The tap-drill table in MH is the same as any other I've seen. Are you claiming *that* is IP's property? Which mathematical formulas belong to them? I said representations. You can't copy their pages, whether they were electronic or printed. I have the CD of the 26th Edition. The copyright declarations are all over it, and the trademarks are registered. How far do you want to try pushing it? -- Ed Huntress |
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Richard,
You seem to be educated; are you TRYING to confuse others into doing the wrong thing? Copyright protects the FORM of the presentation. The facts as presented in Machinist's are not what is copyrighted, it is their PRESENTATION. If someone copies the presentation (hwether in print or electronically) without the beneift of a license, then they are operating illegally. End of story. How in the world do you think any publication becomes a viable venture for profit under your way of operating? -- Regards, Dewey Clark http://www.historictimekeepers.com Restorations, Parts for Hamilton M21s, Products for Craftsmen Makers of Historic Timekeepers Ultrasonic Clock Cleaning Solution "Richard J Kinch" wrote in message . .. Ed Huntress writes: No. It covers every representation of the data, Like I said, malum prohibitum, not malum in se. You're correct in the sense of a legal theory, and a litigation tactic, only. But in conflict with _Feist_. Data in a table of, oh, thread data, is in the public domain. The aspect ratio of the table is an original work? Puh-leeze. The tap-drill table in MH is the same as any other I've seen. Are you claiming *that* is IP's property? Which mathematical formulas belong to them? Try it and see what happens. No thanks, I don't have to. MH has been on a.b.e for years. Who has been prosecuted? |
#9
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In article ,
keith bowers wrote: A friend of mine recently sent me a heads up. Someone posted Machinist's Handbook #26 on newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book.flood on Dec. 18. as hundreds of ".rr" files. Not sure if they are usable or not. The FAQ for those newsgroups is located at: http://ebook.23ae.com/ Enjoy. I found my copy at a used books store--got it for $8, IIRC. -- B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/ |
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Ed Huntress writes:
The tap-drill table in MH is the same as any other I've seen. Are you claiming *that* is IP's property? Which mathematical formulas belong to them? I said representations. You can't copy their pages, whether they were electronic or printed. I have the CD of the 26th Edition. The copyright declarations are all over it, and the trademarks are registered. Representations of public domain facts may or may not be protected, depending on whether there is any original authorship in the presentation per se. For much of the information in MH, there just isn't any genuine originality possible for the presentation. There are not that many ways to present a mapping of one set (standard tap sizes) to another set (118 standard drill sizes). So one could theoretically (and I am certainly not the one to be attempting this as the guinea pig) copy all the "facts" out of MH and present it as the most plain of HTML tables on Web pages. The argument reduces to which elements of the book are facts vs which are original authorship. In _Feist_, it was a table of names vs phone numbers. In MH, it is taps vs drills. I would expect you could publish, say, an HTML version of that table on the Web all you like. Indeed, Google will find many instances of identical tabulated facts on the Web. Yet preceding that table are a few paragraphs of prose, discussing how drilling and tapping is performed, how twist drills typically oversize the hole, how reaming is better for larger diameters and finer threads, etc. This sort of prose has some originality of authorship and might be protected. Even then, the ideas therein are not protected and must be freely publishible. The latitude of original expression in technical information is highly restricted compared to ordinary literary works. Agreed, one cannot now scan the paper MH and publish images of it, verbatim, legally. Likewise the CD. But much of the content is just facts, not original expression. One could publish a somewhat thinner book, entitled, "Every Dry Fact in MH". The argument would be simply details about which items were facts versus which were original, and that is an impossibly complex judgment. Some publishers (not IP, of course) use exactly that complexity to their advantage to bully the world into accepting their text as the proprietary version. That is exactly what _Feist_ was supposed to clear up, but apparently some haven't heard. How far do you want to try pushing it? Not very far at all. I am perplexed by how a book that is 4/5 public domain facts and 1/5 original prose can leverage that 1/5 to make itself the sole publication of its type. You would think that the 4/5 would be freely available. I'm also perplexed as to how the old theories of copyright can survive, because they are based entirely on copies costing something to make, and money changing hands for copies being made, neither of which is the case on a.b.e. |
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"Richard J Kinch" wrote in message
.. . Ed Huntress writes: The tap-drill table in MH is the same as any other I've seen. Are you claiming *that* is IP's property? Which mathematical formulas belong to them? I said representations. You can't copy their pages, whether they were electronic or printed. I have the CD of the 26th Edition. The copyright declarations are all over it, and the trademarks are registered. Representations of public domain facts may or may not be protected, depending on whether there is any original authorship in the presentation per se. For much of the information in MH, there just isn't any genuine originality possible for the presentation. There are not that many ways to present a mapping of one set (standard tap sizes) to another set (118 standard drill sizes). So one could theoretically (and I am certainly not the one to be attempting this as the guinea pig) copy all the "facts" out of MH and present it as the most plain of HTML tables on Web pages. The argument reduces to which elements of the book are facts vs which are original authorship. In _Feist_, it was a table of names vs phone numbers. In MH, it is taps vs drills. I would expect you could publish, say, an HTML version of that table on the Web all you like. Indeed, Google will find many instances of identical tabulated facts on the Web. Yet preceding that table are a few paragraphs of prose, discussing how drilling and tapping is performed, how twist drills typically oversize the hole, how reaming is better for larger diameters and finer threads, etc. This sort of prose has some originality of authorship and might be protected. Even then, the ideas therein are not protected and must be freely publishible. The latitude of original expression in technical information is highly restricted compared to ordinary literary works. Agreed, one cannot now scan the paper MH and publish images of it, verbatim, legally. Likewise the CD. Well, Richard, that's exactly what's been done here. And that's a violation of copyright. That's the event being referred to, that's what happened, and that's what I'm reacting to. Industrial Press, like others who find themselves in this situation, probably feels it isn't worth pursuing. You could get a cease-and-desist, but money isn't being charged, so you aren't going to get anything back. You've lost sales to a thief but you have no way to recover; you really have no way to prove it; and it's going to cost you even more money trying. So, once again, the Internet provides moral cretins with a way to steal from people with no recourse. C'est la vie. I am perplexed by how a book that is 4/5 public domain facts and 1/5 original prose can leverage that 1/5 to make itself the sole publication of its type. You would think that the 4/5 would be freely available. It isn't "original prose" that's at issue. It's the research, and the compilation, and the fact-checking, and the proofreading, and the printing and distribution and... You get the picture. McGraw-Hill once asked me to update _The American Machinist's Handbook_. Since I wouldn't steal from _Machinery's Handbook_, and since M-H hadn't updated the _AM Handbook_ since 1955, I decided it wasn't going to be worth it, at then-current prices, to re-research and re-compile the book. That was in 1981. Today, I wouldn't even dream of depending upon royalties in an environment in which people find such theft so easy to justify, and so easy to do. I'm also perplexed as to how the old theories of copyright can survive, because they are based entirely on copies costing something to make, and money changing hands for copies being made, neither of which is the case on a.b.e. Not. They are based on compensation for work, for creative production, and for return on an investment. If I spend a year to two years updating _AMH_, I expect to be compensated, not to have my work stolen, whether it's published on paper or on a disc. I assume you do the same. -- Ed Huntress |
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On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:56:24 -0600, Richard J Kinch
wrote: Ed Huntress writes: The tap-drill table in MH is the same as any other I've seen. Are you claiming *that* is IP's property? Which mathematical formulas belong to them? I said representations. You can't copy their pages, whether they were electronic or printed. I have the CD of the 26th Edition. The copyright declarations are all over it, and the trademarks are registered. Representations of public domain facts may or may not be protected, depending on whether there is any original authorship in the presentation per se. This is true as far as it goes, but the Supreme Court's test for 'original authorship' in compilation copyrights sets the bar pretty low. From the court decision in Feist: Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws. Nimmer ss 2.11[D], 3.03; Denicola 523, n. 38. Thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement. See: Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 547, 105 S.Ct., at 2223. Accord, Nimmer s 3.03. (See http://stellar-one.com/copyright_and...logy/feist.htm for an analysis and the decision) I think you're being misled by the rather peculiar nature of the situation in Feist. The data involved in Feist, a list of names and associated phone numbers, is very reductionist example. Most compilations of facts aren't nearly that bare and there is almost always some selection involved. For much of the information in MH, there just isn't any genuine originality possible for the presentation. There are not that many ways to present a mapping of one set (standard tap sizes) to another set (118 standard drill sizes). No, but if you've got a number of such tables, the elements of 'selection and originality' can well begin to come into play in choosing which tables to present. So one could theoretically (and I am certainly not the one to be attempting this as the guinea pig) copy all the "facts" out of MH and present it as the most plain of HTML tables on Web pages. I wouldn't bet on it. Consider this example from the legal analysis presented on Bitlaw: A database of facts is also protected as a compilation, assuming the grouping contains enough original expression to merit protection (see the discussion of Feist below). An example of a protectable grouping of facts would be a database of Internet locations for selected legal articles. Each location consists merely of factual information, namely that a particular article can be found at a particular URL location on the Internet. There is no copyright protection for each location. Therefore, while the individual locations can be copied by others, if an entire database of locations (or a substantial portion of the database) were copied, the copyright in the compilation would be infringed. The creative, original expression that is being protected is the selection of locations for the database. If the locations were divided by topic in the database, the organization of the database would also be protected. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html#Feist The argument reduces to which elements of the book are facts vs which are original authorship. Well, yes, but the court has held that selection and arrangmenet of the facts can constitute an act of original authorship. In _Feist_, it was a table of names vs phone numbers. In MH, it is taps vs drills. I would expect you could publish, say, an HTML version of that table on the Web all you like. Indeed, Google will find many instances of identical tabulated facts on the Web. Yep. However the situation becomes more complex when you consider a whole set of such tables. One of the confusing things in all this is that while a compilation copyright protects the compilation it does not protect the underlying facts if they are not otherwise protected. From the Bitlaw article: Thus, a database of unprotectable works (such as basic facts) is protected only as a compilation. Since the underlying data is not protected, U.S. copyright law does not prevent the extraction of unprotected data from an otherwise protectable database. In the example of a database of presidential quotations, it would therefore not be a violation of copyright law to extract (copy) a quotation from George Washington from the database. On the other hand, it would be violation to copy the entire database, as long as the database met the Feist originality and creativity requirements. Yet preceding that table are a few paragraphs of prose, discussing how drilling and tapping is performed, how twist drills typically oversize the hole, how reaming is better for larger diameters and finer threads, etc. This sort of prose has some originality of authorship and might be protected. There's no 'might be' in that case. That explanatory material _is_ protected. That's a well established principle. Even then, the ideas therein are not protected and must be freely publishible. The latitude of original expression in technical information is highly restricted compared to ordinary literary works. Agreed, one cannot now scan the paper MH and publish images of it, verbatim, legally. Likewise the CD. But much of the content is just facts, not original expression. One could publish a somewhat thinner book, entitled, "Every Dry Fact in MH". The argument would be simply details about which items were facts versus which were original, and that is an impossibly complex judgment. This is a key misunderstanding. The creativity and originality can lie in the selection and arrangment of the material as well as in the material itself. Some publishers (not IP, of course) use exactly that complexity to their advantage to bully the world into accepting their text as the proprietary version. If they can show sufficent originality and creativity in the selection, then they're entitled to a compilation copyright -- see the Supreme Court decision above. (But also consider the limits imposed by the _Warren_ case cited below.) That is exactly what _Feist_ was supposed to clear up, but apparently some haven't heard. The problem is that you're reading something into _Feist_ that just isn't there. How far do you want to try pushing it? Not very far at all. I am perplexed by how a book that is 4/5 public domain facts and 1/5 original prose can leverage that 1/5 to make itself the sole publication of its type. You would think that the 4/5 would be freely available. The underlying facts, if they are public domain, aren't copyrighted and may be freely used. But originality and creativity, as the court defined them, aren't limited to the facts. They also apply to the arrangement and selection of the facts. If you copy the arrangement and selection you may well infringe the compilation copyright. For another look at the whole situation see _Warren Publishing vs Microdos Data", a report of which can be found he http://www.alschuler.com/print/artrje2.html In this case, the court set out three principles for compilation copyrights: (quoted with snippage) Principle (1): A selection of data is not copyrightable where the entire universe is "selected," even if the compiler is the first to think of compiling the information and even if the compilation is commercially useful. . . . Principle (2): A selection is not copyrightable where it is not the result of the compiler's own judgment, even if the compiler is the first to think of making the selection in the particular manner. The selection is not a true selection if there is no room for creativity; a copyrighted "selection" must be the result of the compiler's opinion about something subjective (e.g., the compiler includes in a trivia book certain facts from the universe of facts because of a belief that they are the most interesting facts; the compiler includes facts about 15 restaurants in New York City from the universe of restaurants in New York City based on a belief that they are the 15 best restaurants in New York City; or the compiler includes facts about ten cable systems based on a belief that they will still be in business in the year 2000). Principle (3): A "system" of selecting is not subject to copyright protection even if it is creative and original. I'm also perplexed as to how the old theories of copyright can survive, because they are based entirely on copies costing something to make, and money changing hands for copies being made, neither of which is the case on a.b.e. How are copyright theories based on copies costing something to make? --RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr. |
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The underlying facts, if they are public domain, aren't copyrighted
and may be freely used. But originality and creativity, as the court defined them, aren't limited to the facts. They also apply to the arrangement and selection of the facts. If you copy the arrangement and selection you may well infringe the compilation copyright. "Arrangment", is a non-issue, because in the case of books like MH, there is minimal authorship involved in the arrangment (order of chapters, layout of tables, ho hum), but in any case it is trivial to come up with an different "original" arrangement. "Selection" is also a non-issue exactly for this type of book, because the selection of "an encyclopedia of everything known in this subject" (which is the "handbook" or "definitive reference" claim to value) is not original. The database model really doesn't apply here, because the subject is a motley collection of sundry facts, and there isn't some database antecedent to what is in MH anyway. I'm also perplexed as to how the old theories of copyright can survive, because they are based entirely on copies costing something to make, and money changing hands for copies being made, neither of which is the case on a.b.e. How are copyright theories based on copies costing something to make? That's a conclusion I've made from my own unpublished analysis, which I can't really detail now. But try this thought experiment: Imagine anyone could clap three times and *poof* a perfect copy of a book appears for free, in the privacy of your home. No printing press, no bindery, just *poof*, it's there. No effort or expense on your part, just speak the title and clap. Everyone then becomes either a clapping copyright criminal, or somebody who drives to Barnes and Noble and spends $25 for a best-seller, when he could have stayed home and just clapped. An entire publishing industry is then based on people doing something much more difficult and costly than has to be, assuming anybody honors the malum prohibitum of clapping. In short, in the ancient idea of copyright (actually only a few hundred years old), the notion of a tangible "copy" was implicitly something that took effort and materials (because until recently, it always did--paper, ink, film, vinyl, whatever), and if someone was going to that significant trouble and expense, it was the author's right to say who. As copying becomes a vanishingly trivial event (in the physical sense), then the author's right to control your vanishingly trivial (physical) actions vanishes. As the lawyers say, the law does not deal with trifles. Copyright *never* extended to trivial actions of copying: When you read a book, you are forming images on your retinas that are copies, yet not protected; you can make these copies all you like. Libraries can project copies of a single paper book into limitless eyeballs for free. DVD movies are copied within the electronic player every time they are played. Such exceptions prove that the basis of copyright is absolutely not copying per se; it is mere economic expedience, fitted arbitrarily to each circumstance, and exclusive of trivial actions, not some high principle of property rights. This is also exhibited in the 1700s constitutional language of "limited times" and the more recent doctrine of fair use. And copying has become non-copying, that is, an altogether trivial event. A fraction of a square mm of microscopic, invisible, magnetic polarization patterns change from one jumble of bits to another. Nothing else in the universe changed. This is a crime? |
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On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 04:52:57 -0600, Richard J Kinch
wrote: The underlying facts, if they are public domain, aren't copyrighted and may be freely used. But originality and creativity, as the court defined them, aren't limited to the facts. They also apply to the arrangement and selection of the facts. If you copy the arrangement and selection you may well infringe the compilation copyright. "Arrangment", is a non-issue, because in the case of books like MH, there is minimal authorship involved in the arrangment (order of chapters, layout of tables, ho hum), but in any case it is trivial to come up with an different "original" arrangement. hot button ON You've never been involved in one of these projects have you? Let me tell you a little story. Last year I worked for a company that was in the Internet yellow pages business. One of my projects was to develop an ontology (classification scheme) of about 5,000 entries for the business listings on the company's web site. It took something like a total of three person-months to develop and do rough testing on that 'arrangement' -- and that was followed by a lot more field testing. As the guy who actually put the damn thing together, I had to work closely with our database designers on one hand and our sales and customer service people on the other to come up with the appropriate arrangement. And we won't go into how many 'discussions' we had or how much research some of us did to come up with the best design. This was purely a matter of arrangement of facts -- in fact mapping a set of standard categories to the appropriate synonyms. But it most definitely met the tests for compilation copyright. Arrangement is anything _but_ a "non-issue" on nearly any non-trivial collection/compilation and there's more than enough involved in almost all of them to meet the Supreme Court's test. "Selection" is also a non-issue exactly for this type of book, because the selection of "an encyclopedia of everything known in this subject" (which is the "handbook" or "definitive reference" claim to value) is not original. Nope. Not unless you're including the entire universe of known facts about the subject -- which is an impossibility in such a book. See the _Warren_ case I cited in another message in this thread. The database model really doesn't apply here, because the subject is a motley collection of sundry facts, and there isn't some database antecedent to what is in MH anyway. That's a rather strained distinction. One I suspect you'd be hard put tp support. How do you intend to distinguish a 'database' from a 'motley collection of sundry facts'? And what makes you think it makes any difference at all legally? I'm also perplexed as to how the old theories of copyright can survive, because they are based entirely on copies costing something to make, and money changing hands for copies being made, neither of which is the case on a.b.e. How are copyright theories based on copies costing something to make? That's a conclusion I've made from my own unpublished analysis, which I can't really detail now. But try this thought experiment: Imagine anyone could clap three times and *poof* a perfect copy of a book appears for free, in the privacy of your home. No printing press, no bindery, just *poof*, it's there. No effort or expense on your part, just speak the title and clap. Everyone then becomes either a clapping copyright criminal, or somebody who drives to Barnes and Noble and spends $25 for a best-seller, when he could have stayed home and just clapped. You're confusing the ability to commit an illegal act with making the act legal. The fact that you can easily and quickly violate a copyright does not invalidate the copyright. As a practical matter ease of violation should (and usually does) eventually have an impact on how the law is modified or interpreted, that does not effect the underlying law itself -- which is why things like the DMCA are so pernicious. An entire publishing industry is then based on people doing something much more difficult and costly than has to be, assuming anybody honors the malum prohibitum of clapping. You seem to be fascinated with the notion of malum in se versus malum prohibitum. However I don't think you understand the distinction. (Hint: All copyright law is malum prohibitum. Malum in se doesn't enter into it.) In short, in the ancient idea of copyright (actually only a few hundred years old), the notion of a tangible "copy" was implicitly something that took effort and materials (because until recently, it always did--paper, ink, film, vinyl, whatever), and if someone was going to that significant trouble and expense, it was the author's right to say who. Have you ever read any of the standard legal analyses of the notion of copyright? Or the histories of printing, publishing and copyright? You certainly don't seem to have any familarity with them. The notion of copyright grew out of the idea that the author should profit from his/her work. (Okay, that's a first approximation, but it will do for this discussion.) The effort that was -- and is -- being protected is the creative effort involved in creating the work in the first place. The cost of reproducing the work does not and never has entered into it. As copying becomes a vanishingly trivial event (in the physical sense), then the author's right to control your vanishingly trivial (physical) actions vanishes. As the lawyers say, the law does not deal with trifles. Copyright *never* extended to trivial actions of copying: When you read a book, you are forming images on your retinas that are copies, yet not protected; you can make these copies all you like. Libraries can project copies of a single paper book into limitless eyeballs for free. They can in the United States because United States copyright law has a specific exemption for libraries. This doesn't always exist in other countries. DVD movies are copied within the electronic player every time they are played. You might want to read up on the analysis of what is going on here. And the hoops the courts have jumped through on this one. Such exceptions prove that the basis of copyright is absolutely not copying per se; Utterly incorrect. Copying per se, when not covered by one of the various exceptions in the law, is indeed copyright violation. it is mere economic expedience, fitted arbitrarily to each circumstance, and exclusive of trivial actions, not some high principle of property rights. Wrong. Copyright is a property right. This is also exhibited in the 1700s constitutional language of "limited times" and the more recent doctrine of fair use. Nonsense. And copying has become non-copying, that is, an altogether trivial event. A fraction of a square mm of microscopic, invisible, magnetic polarization patterns change from one jumble of bits to another. Nothing else in the universe changed. This is a crime? You bet it is. --RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr. |
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Have you ever read any of the standard legal analyses of the notion of
copyright? Or the histories of printing, publishing and copyright? You certainly don't seem to have any familarity with them. You seem to assume that revolutionary thinking (and mine in 1987 on this topic led to a major US software copyright case) must grow out of ignorance of the status quo. Not so. The effort that was -- and is -- being protected is the creative effort involved in creating the work in the first place. Now I have to turn the jaundiced eye to your background, because here you sound as if you hold to the "sweat of the brow" or "creative" theory. The cost of reproducing the work does not and never has entered into it. Implicitly, it did. The old laws only dealt with copies that cost something (tangible media), not trivial copies (on retinas, in transit through a DVD player, etc). Such exceptions prove that the basis of copyright is absolutely not copying per se; Utterly incorrect. Copying per se, when not covered by one of the various exceptions in the law, is indeed copyright violation. Try to follow my line here. I challenge the idea that "copying" is the action controlled by copyrights. Of course the spirit and letter of the law refer to that term. Yet the exceptions and qualifications of what copies doesn't count as infringing, are so shot through the dogma, that it leads to the linguistic fallacy of "definitional retreat". You and I casually understand a "copy" to be some kind of physical image of something. Yet the law, which purportedly controls making "copies", admits so many exceptions for non-infringing images, that what is being controlled in fact is not copying in the usual sense. So the basis was never image-making, it was only about a restricted, ad-hoc, legal invention that was misleadingly termed "copying". And my conclusion is that while downloading a book is surely making an image, which is to say, a copy, this is not the "copying" which is the essence of "copyright infringement". I know it sounds scholastic. Let me illustrate. Imagine we say "fishing" is immoral and should be prohibited, and laws are passed against it. Then the law gets qualified to permit "fair use" fishing if you don't actually catch anything, or you catch something and immediately throw it back. You see, the definition fishing-that-is-prohibited gets so qualified that it shows the morality never involved fishing per se, it was only certain actions that happened to involve fishing. When a new type of fishing appears, you can't automatically conclude it is immoral. Let me beg off any further rebuttals and close this by saying that the paleo-conservative and strict-constructionist view should be that the Constitution had it correct: it never uses the word "copy", and copying is not what the clause addresses. "The exclusive Right to their respective Writings" meant that consideration was necessarily involved, not the case of casual image-making such as downloading. |
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On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:01:15 -0600, Richard J Kinch
wrote: Have you ever read any of the standard legal analyses of the notion of copyright? Or the histories of printing, publishing and copyright? You certainly don't seem to have any familarity with them. You seem to assume that revolutionary thinking Your thinking isn't particularly revolutionary. It's just plain wrong. Now if you want to put this forward as the basis of a novel proposal for copyright modification, you're free to do so. But that is not how the matter stands today. (and mine in 1987 on this topic led to a major US software copyright case) must grow out of ignorance of the status quo. Not so. Urk? Your particular statement was about the history of copyright. And as a statement of the history it was flat wrong. If you want to see how wrong you are historically, take a look at the first copyright law -- the Statute of Anne in 1710 -- which specifically states the purpose of the law was to protect authors from unauthorized copying of their work. The effort that was -- and is -- being protected is the creative effort involved in creating the work in the first place. Now I have to turn the jaundiced eye to your background, because here you sound as if you hold to the "sweat of the brow" or "creative" theory. Nope. I hold with the law and the long line of copyright decisions. The "Sweat of the brow" doctrine doesn't come close to entering into it. Do you even understand the terms you're blithely throwing around? The cost of reproducing the work does not and never has entered into it. Implicitly, it did. Wrong. If it had it would have been the publishers who would have been protected, not the authors. Publishers have never been protected by copyright, except as they may purchase the rights or hold a license to the rights. The old laws only dealt with copies that cost something (tangible media), not trivial copies (on retinas, in transit through a DVD player, etc). What's the cost of performing a piece of music live? Where's the tangibility of singing a song? Music was protected even before recording technology. Such exceptions prove that the basis of copyright is absolutely not copying per se; Utterly incorrect. Copying per se, when not covered by one of the various exceptions in the law, is indeed copyright violation. Try to follow my line here. I challenge the idea that "copying" is the action controlled by copyrights. Then you're simply wrong. This has been enunciated again and again in the court decisions. Copying is specifically what is protected by copyright. Of course the spirit and letter of the law refer to that term. Yet the exceptions and qualifications of what copies doesn't count as infringing, are so shot through the dogma, that it leads to the linguistic fallacy of "definitional retreat". Well, no. You're making several completely unwarranted -- and untrue -- assumptions here and you don't seem to know much about the theory of copyright. The theory is roughly as follows: A copyright is a monopoly granted by the state. State-enforced monopolies are dangerous things and the people who wrote the Constitution knew it. (Take a look at the discussion of monopolies that surrounded the ratification of the Constitution, including the anti-monopoly laws in several of the states at the time.) Yet granting a monopoly was recognized as a practical method of allowing authors to profit from their work. So the United States authorized a monopoly to the author. But it was a limited monoply, limited both in time and in extent. This is anything but 'definitional retreat'. Again, this follows in the tradition that goes back to the Statute of Anne, where a time limit was set on copyright. You and I casually understand a "copy" to be some kind of physical image of something. Yet the law, which purportedly controls making "copies", admits so many exceptions for non-infringing images, that what is being controlled in fact is not copying in the usual sense. No. What is going on here is a balancing of rights for the greatest public good. There are exceptions to the monoply granted by copyright because making them serves either the interest served by the notion of copyright -- the dissemination of knowledge (fair use) or equally serious principles, such as equity. So the basis was never image-making, it was only about a restricted, ad-hoc, legal invention that was misleadingly termed "copying". Let me clue you in on a little secret. Laws are seldom, if ever, absolute. There are exceptions and conditions to almost all of them. Even our laws against murder have exceptions. And my conclusion is that while downloading a book is surely making an image, which is to say, a copy, this is not the "copying" which is the essence of "copyright infringement". Your conclusion is wrong as a matter of law. Present that argument in court and you're going to lose. I know it sounds scholastic. It sounds half-baked. Let me illustrate. Imagine we say "fishing" is immoral and should be prohibited, This is the rationale for the law, it is not the law itself. and laws are passed against it. What gets written and enforced is the law, not the rationale. If some bright boy can find a way to fish without violating the law on fishing, then he's home free, no matter how immoral the result may be. Then the law gets qualified to permit "fair use" fishing if you don't actually catch anything, or you catch something and immediately throw it back. You see, the definition fishing-that-is-prohibited gets so qualified that it shows the morality never involved fishing per se, Whether or not morality is involved is immaterial if there is a law against it, no matter what exceptions the law might make. it was only certain actions that happened to involve fishing. No, it was the act of fishing, as it is defined in the law. When a new type of fishing appears, you can't automatically conclude it is immoral. No but if the courts have held that it is illegal, then it is illegal. In the case of electonic copying the courts have repeatedly ruled that electronic copying can violate copyright. Playboy vs Webworld, for example: http://www.loundy.com/CASES/PEI_v_Webbworld.html In other words, even if we buy your doctrine of 'definitional retreat' the courts have decided that electronic copying falls squarely under copyright law. Let me beg off any further rebuttals and close this by saying that the paleo-conservative and strict-constructionist view should be that the Constitution had it correct: it never uses the word "copy", and copying is not what the clause addresses. "The exclusive Right to their respective Writings" meant that consideration was necessarily involved, not the case of casual image-making such as downloading. Nope. Remember the writers of the Constitution were working in a fairly well-defined legal universe where concepts such as copyright were perfectly well understood. They could, and did, stretch that framework, or completely discard parts of it in favor of something new. But concepts like 'copyright' were perfectly well understood, as was the phrase 'the exclusive right to their respective writings." They were giving the authors control over the copying and dissemination of their work. --RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr. |
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"... The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws. Nimmer ss 2.11[D], 3.03; Denicola 523, n. 38. Thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement ..." Publishers are certainly aware of this, and will take PD data and, indeed, organize it in a way which makes such data easier to use, on account of the relationship of the data presented in the derivative work. A friend made a very lucritive business out of taking raw census data, obtainable on magnetic tape by anyone for a nominal duplicating charge, operating on that data by rearranging it in certain sequences, and outputting another magnetic tape which contained much if not all of the original data, but in the new format. The "originality" is in the format, not in the raw content. |
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Well, no. You're making several completely unwarranted -- and untrue
-- assumptions here and you don't seem to know much about the theory of copyright. You might want to take it easy on the know-it-all-or-not estimates, especially when based on Usenet patter. It is a characteristic of wisdom to hide itself. In the history of Usenet, never has an argument been won by flashing credentials. |
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At the risk of being labeled a thief and a cheat...
I'd like to ask: How DO you download and render these binary files? Frankly, after seeing there are several hundred of them, I'm not sure I'll have the patience to do so, but I'd like to try a few of them. Now, for those who think this is an immoral thing to do (like my top-posting), I'd just like to say that I OWN as copy of Machinery's Handbook, and my use of these files would be to print out, perhaps enlarged, selected pages for use in my shop... tap drill sizes or tubing wall thicknesses or some such. Rich Richard J Kinch wrote: Well, no. You're making several completely unwarranted -- and untrue -- assumptions here and you don't seem to know much about the theory of copyright. You might want to take it easy on the know-it-all-or-not estimates, especially when based on Usenet patter. It is a characteristic of wisdom to hide itself. In the history of Usenet, never has an argument been won by flashing credentials. |
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Ignoramus25901 wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:29:06 -0500, Rich wrote: At the risk of being labeled a thief and a cheat... I'd like to ask: How DO you download and render these binary files? Frankly, after seeing there are several hundred of them, I'm not sure I'll have the patience to do so, but I'd like to try a few of them. Now, for those who think this is an immoral thing to do (like my top-posting), I'd just like to say that I OWN as copy of Machinery's Handbook, and my use of these files would be to print out, perhaps enlarged, selected pages for use in my shop... tap drill sizes or tubing wall thicknesses or some such. Forte agent can reassemble these articles and decode them. I use my own perl scripts for it, but for you, forte agent is the way to go. I already burned my CD-Rom with this wonderful handbook. i Thank you, i... I got Forte agent and downloaded the 33 files. Then I got WINRAR to decode and assemble them. NOW I am left with a single 460 meg file with ..bin filetype. I'm at the limit of my technical ability on THIS one! What do I do next? Rich (Bottom posting out of courtesy to i.) |
#21
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Ignoramus25901 wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:37:02 -0500, Rich Hare wrote: Ignoramus25901 wrote: On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:29:06 -0500, Rich wrote: At the risk of being labeled a thief and a cheat... I'd like to ask: How DO you download and render these binary files? Frankly, after seeing there are several hundred of them, I'm not sure I'll have the patience to do so, but I'd like to try a few of them. Now, for those who think this is an immoral thing to do (like my top-posting), I'd just like to say that I OWN as copy of Machinery's Handbook, and my use of these files would be to print out, perhaps enlarged, selected pages for use in my shop... tap drill sizes or tubing wall thicknesses or some such. Forte agent can reassemble these articles and decode them. I use my own perl scripts for it, but for you, forte agent is the way to go. I already burned my CD-Rom with this wonderful handbook. i Thank you, i... I got Forte agent and downloaded the 33 files. Then I got WINRAR to decode and assemble them. NOW I am left with a single 460 meg file with .bin filetype. good job. You should have a big .BIN and a small .CUE file, instead of only one .BIN file as you are describing. If you do not have the CUE file, I can email you one, but you'd be unlikely to not have it. You now need to burn the CD with, say, Nero Burning ROM or some other windows utility that burns those files and recognizes .BIN and .CUE files. I am personally using linux and CDRDAO for recording, but as a windows user, you need something windows specific. You are very close to your goal, do not despair. I'm at the limit of my technical ability on THIS one! What do I do next? See if your CD burning program supports burning BIN/CUE files. These are very common format. i Yes Yes Yes Yes YES! Did a little research on Google and now I understand BIN and CUE! I have NERO! BUT! I have a corrupted file, somewhere. Tomorrow, I will try to figure out how to re-download some of the .rar files with Forte and see if I can salvage this out. I've got MANY hours into this project at this time. All this because I bought a new HF lathe! Rich |
#22
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"Rich" wrote in message
... Ignoramus25901 wrote: On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:37:02 -0500, Rich Hare wrote: Ignoramus25901 wrote: On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:29:06 -0500, Rich wrote: At the risk of being labeled a thief and a cheat... I'd like to ask: How DO you download and render these binary files? Frankly, after seeing there are several hundred of them, I'm not sure I'll have the patience to do so, but I'd like to try a few of them. Now, for those who think this is an immoral thing to do (like my top-posting), I'd just like to say that I OWN as copy of Machinery's Handbook, and my use of these files would be to print out, perhaps enlarged, selected pages for use in my shop... tap drill sizes or tubing wall thicknesses or some such. Forte agent can reassemble these articles and decode them. I use my own perl scripts for it, but for you, forte agent is the way to go. I already burned my CD-Rom with this wonderful handbook. i Thank you, i... I got Forte agent and downloaded the 33 files. Then I got WINRAR to decode and assemble them. NOW I am left with a single 460 meg file with .bin filetype. good job. You should have a big .BIN and a small .CUE file, instead of only one .BIN file as you are describing. If you do not have the CUE file, I can email you one, but you'd be unlikely to not have it. You now need to burn the CD with, say, Nero Burning ROM or some other windows utility that burns those files and recognizes .BIN and .CUE files. I am personally using linux and CDRDAO for recording, but as a windows user, you need something windows specific. You are very close to your goal, do not despair. I'm at the limit of my technical ability on THIS one! What do I do next? See if your CD burning program supports burning BIN/CUE files. These are very common format. i Yes Yes Yes Yes YES! Did a little research on Google and now I understand BIN and CUE! I have NERO! BUT! I have a corrupted file, somewhere. Tomorrow, I will try to figure out how to re-download some of the .rar files with Forte and see if I can salvage this out. I've got MANY hours into this project at this time. All this because I bought a new HF lathe! How many hours? The CD for the 26th Edition is available on Amazon for $61.17. Are you down to minimum wage yet? "Steal a book for a man, and you'll keep him busy for hours. Teach a man to steal books, and you'll keep him tied up for days." -- Anon. g -- Ed Huntress |
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On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:29:06 -0500, Rich wrote: At the risk of being labeled a thief and a cheat... I'd like to ask: How DO you download and render these binary files? I use BNR - Binary News Reaper. It's free, and it's designed specifically for downloading binaries from newsgroups. You only have to typically flag one title, and it collects all the needed files. You can even set up a "Want" filter and it will search all the e-book groups daily for files with the word "Machinery" in the subject line, and download and combine them automatically in the folder you specify. You just check your PC periodically and see what it's snagged. |
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Dirk Gently wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:29:56 -0500, Rich wrote: I have a corrupted file, somewhere. I downlaoded it from he http://www.spanburgh.com/files/Machinery's%20Handbook%2026th%20Edition.zip It's a ZIP file, UNzip it to its own drectory and open the PDF file, that's it. Mr. Gently... Thank you. I now have the PDF on my computer. Rich |
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BUT! I have a corrupted file, somewhere. Tomorrow, I will try to figure out how to re-download some of the .rar files with Forte and see if I can salvage this out. I've got MANY hours into this project at this time. All this because I bought a new HF lathe! Should be no problem. I also had a corrupted file. What you need is to download PAR2, a program that repairs downloaded files. You should have in your directory files xxxxx.1+2.PAR2, or some such. Download par2 from par2.net, and run it. Try QuickPar for windows, I have not tried it as I do not use windows. Par2 will repair it. If you get very stuck, I can mail you a copy. i Mr. i ... I thank you! I have learned a bunch about .rar files and ebooks and stuff. I'm afraid I had a corrupted file that I couldn't fix, and I accepted Mr. Gently's offer of a zip file... but it was a NICE trip, and I'm glad I went... "Life is a process, not a destination..." and I REALLY appreciate you trying to guide me... AGAIN I thank you... and wish you a 2005 filled with problems and solutions! Rich |
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On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:32:41 -0700, Dirk Gently
wrote: On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:29:56 -0500, Rich wrote: I have a corrupted file, somewhere. I downlaoded it from he http://www.spanburgh.com/files/Machinery's%20Handbook%2026th%20Edition.zip It's a ZIP file, UNzip it to its own drectory and open the PDF file, that's it. 276 megabytes????? Sigh..not on dialup.... Gunner "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stewart Mill |
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Ignoramus25901 wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:29:06 -0500, Rich wrote: At the risk of being labeled a thief and a cheat... I'd like to ask: How DO you download and render these binary files? Frankly, after seeing there are several hundred of them, I'm not sure I'll have the patience to do so, but I'd like to try a few of them. Now, for those who think this is an immoral thing to do (like my top-posting), I'd just like to say that I OWN as copy of Machinery's Handbook, and my use of these files would be to print out, perhaps enlarged, selected pages for use in my shop... tap drill sizes or tubing wall thicknesses or some such. Forte agent can reassemble these articles and decode them. I use my own perl scripts for it, but for you, forte agent is the way to go. I already burned my CD-Rom with this wonderful handbook. i As someone who has first hand experience in doing all the detail work required to prepare for printing educational materials for school aged children and who clenches his jaw everytime he encounters a teacher using a photocopy of one of our entire books........ Let me ask you one question to see If I can figure out where you (and Richard Kinch as well) are coming from. Do you also feel that buying a ticket to see a movie at a multiplex cinema and then hiding in a restroom stall for a while so you can slip in and see another movie which you note has plenty of empty seats while you are there isn't a theft? I'm not sure which saddens me the most, your stealing copyrighted material or proudly admitting it on a newsgroup. Jeff -- Jeffry Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public schools" |
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Jeff Wisnia writes:
Do you also feel that buying a ticket to see a movie at a multiplex cinema and then hiding in a restroom stall for a while so you can slip in and see another movie which you note has plenty of empty seats while you are there isn't a theft? Renting a seat (and then taking another) in someone else's room for two hours is not comparable to rearranging bits patterns on your own hard drive. If you could magically wish for the light patterns on your retinas at home, without paying for the movie ticket, would you consider that "stealing"? Hypothetically speaking, of course. I'm not sure which saddens me the most, your stealing copyrighted material or proudly admitting it on a newsgroup. (For my part, the thread was speaking abstractly, not in regard to anyone's admission.) No "material" is involved. States merely changed in a machine. You might as well say someone owns a copyright on certain DRO positions on your Bridgeport. One can conceive of information (in the Shannon theoretic sense) as property, and in turn one can postulate the transmission of such information as theft of property, but that does not make it so, other than as a linguistic tautology. Here, I will become the world's greatest thief ever: main() { int i; for (;i++ } /* For arbitrary integer precision */ There, I have expressed a program which will generate literally every book, movie, digital photograph, etc., that has ever been written or ever will be. I am guilty of copying everything that has been or ever will be copyrighted (*extends arms for handcuffs*). |
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On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 16:45:26 -0600, Richard J Kinch
wrote: Jeff Wisnia writes: Do you also feel that buying a ticket to see a movie at a multiplex cinema and then hiding in a restroom stall for a while so you can slip in and see another movie which you note has plenty of empty seats while you are there isn't a theft? Renting a seat (and then taking another) in someone else's room for two hours is not comparable to rearranging bits patterns on your own hard drive. And morally, the difference is. . .? We've already established your lack of knowledge about the legalities of copyright. I'm interested to see just you justify your position from a moral and ethical standpoint. --RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr. |
#30
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Richard J Kinch wrote:
Jeff Wisnia writes: Do you also feel that buying a ticket to see a movie at a multiplex cinema and then hiding in a restroom stall for a while so you can slip in and see another movie which you note has plenty of empty seats while you are there isn't a theft? Renting a seat (and then taking another) in someone else's room for two hours is not comparable to rearranging bits patterns on your own hard drive. If you could magically wish for the light patterns on your retinas at home, without paying for the movie ticket, would you consider that "stealing"? Hypothetically speaking, of course. I'm not sure which saddens me the most, your stealing copyrighted material or proudly admitting it on a newsgroup. (For my part, the thread was speaking abstractly, not in regard to anyone's admission.) Agreed, because I know you are too clever to publically admit to doing anything like that, but the thread shows I was responding to a post by that "ignoramus" person in which he/she wrote: **************** I use my own perl scripts for it, but for you, forte agent is the way to go. I already burned my CD-Rom with this wonderful handbook. **************** No "material" is involved. States merely changed in a machine. You might as well say someone owns a copyright on certain DRO positions on your Bridgeport. And what do you say about the copyrighting of music? Should everyone with a good voice or who is a talented instrumentalist be entitled to record copyrighted stuff and post it on the web for anyone else who wants to enjoy it to grab? One can conceive of information (in the Shannon theoretic sense) as property, and in turn one can postulate the transmission of such information as theft of property, but that does not make it so, other than as a linguistic tautology. Here, I will become the world's greatest thief ever: main() { int i; for (;i++ } /* For arbitrary integer precision */ There, I have expressed a program which will generate literally every book, movie, digital photograph, etc., that has ever been written or ever will be. I am guilty of copying everything that has been or ever will be copyrighted (*extends arms for handcuffs*). I think some guy who first thought about a lot of monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare's plays beat you to that one. G My comment relative to your hypotheticaly running that program and creating a near infinitely long document is that it wouldn't bother me because it would take you a near infinite amount of time to locate and read anything I've got copyrighted. I doubt if it would bother any other copyright holder for the same reason. Next please? -- Jeffry Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public schools" |
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On 5 Jan 2005 00:03:07 GMT, Ignoramus28225
wrote: I am going to stay away from this thread because I do not want to be embroiled in a huge "copyright is theft" flamewar. I want to use this newsgroup for metalworking and machinery related conversations. i Too late. You are already doomed. G Gunner On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 23:06:50 GMT, wrote: On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 16:45:26 -0600, Richard J Kinch wrote: Jeff Wisnia writes: Do you also feel that buying a ticket to see a movie at a multiplex cinema and then hiding in a restroom stall for a while so you can slip in and see another movie which you note has plenty of empty seats while you are there isn't a theft? Renting a seat (and then taking another) in someone else's room for two hours is not comparable to rearranging bits patterns on your own hard drive. And morally, the difference is. . .? We've already established your lack of knowledge about the legalities of copyright. I'm interested to see just you justify your position from a moral and ethical standpoint. "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. It's not unwise to remember that Mother Nature is essentially a murderous, sneakly, promiscuous bitch who has been trying to kill you since your conception. Eventually she will succeed, perhaps with the help of your fellow man. Life consists in putting off the inevitable as long as possible and taking what good and joy you can before her success. Whether you attribute that situation to evolutionary forces, a fallen nature after Adam and Eve screwed the pooch, or whatever, it's no less true. Be friendly, pleasant, unaggressive, and honest toward all and be prepared to ignore, avoid, or even kill anyone who is otherwise toward you. Being ready doesn't mean eager, just ready. What true friends are found in life will undestand and accept that fundamental rule of human interaction." John Husvar |
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Jeff Wisnia writes:
And what do you say about the copyrighting of music? Should everyone with a good voice or who is a talented instrumentalist be entitled to record copyrighted stuff and post it on the web for anyone else who wants to enjoy it to grab? If it is a question of "ought", then my *personal opinion* hinges simply on the making of money from others' works, vs casual use. If you're going to sing a copyrighted work in the shower, then that's OK (despite what the copyright fundamentalists say). If you're going to sell recordings of your performance, or tickets to a live event, then no. The author should have rights to any money, but casual use does not involve money. My comment relative to your hypotheticaly running that program and creating a near infinitely long document is that it wouldn't bother me because it would take you a near infinite amount of time to locate and read anything I've got copyrighted. Of course it isn't practical, but that misses the point of the illustration. The copyright fundamentalists insist that the mere generation of a copyrighted image is the crime, so a program that generates all possible images must be the ultimate intellectual property theft. The point being, image-making per se is not the allegedly criminal act, it is arbitrary actions that when carefully defined lack any consistent moral foundation. |
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We've already established your lack of knowledge about the legalities
of copyright. Absurd. |
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Richard J Kinch wrote:
Jeff Wisnia writes: If it is a question of "ought", then my *personal opinion* hinges simply on the making of money from others' works, vs casual use. If you're going to sing a copyrighted work in the shower, then that's OK (despite what the copyright fundamentalists say). If you're going to sell recordings of your performance, or tickets to a live event, then no. The author should have rights to any money, but casual use does not involve money. I guess that puts me among the fundamentalists, though I don't think even I would have a problem with singing in the shower, depending of course on who was in there with me doing the singing. It's the part about the author having rights to money that bothers me. I look at it from a credit/debit perspective, and when a person photocopies copyrighted material because they want to read it, whether for casual or for business use, they are potentially depriving the author of a sale. The copyright thief's oft expressed argument is, "Well I never would have bought a copy, it isn't worth what they're asking, so the author didn't lose a sale." That really yanks my chain, and I've gotten SWMBO ticked at me more than once for telling people who are stupid enough to say that in public what I think of them, the same way I usually put down people who brag about their cheating the IRS at cocktail parties with, "So I'm supposed to feel good about your being a crook, which means that I'll have to pay more than my fair share in taxes?" Jeff (Who didn't come here to be liked...) -- Jeffry Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public schools" |
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"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message ... Richard J Kinch wrote: Jeff Wisnia writes: If it is a question of "ought", then my *personal opinion* hinges simply on the making of money from others' works, vs casual use. If you're going to sing a copyrighted work in the shower, then that's OK (despite what the copyright fundamentalists say). If you're going to sell recordings of your performance, or tickets to a live event, then no. The author should have rights to any money, but casual use does not involve money. I guess that puts me among the fundamentalists, though I don't think even I would have a problem with singing in the shower, depending of course on who was in there with me doing the singing. It's the part about the author having rights to money that bothers me. I look at it from a credit/debit perspective, and when a person photocopies copyrighted material because they want to read it, whether for casual or for business use, they are potentially depriving the author of a sale. The copyright thief's oft expressed argument is, "Well I never would have bought a copy, it isn't worth what they're asking, so the author didn't lose a sale." That really yanks my chain, and I've gotten SWMBO ticked at me more than once for telling people who are stupid enough to say that in public what I think of them, the same way I usually put down people who brag about their cheating the IRS at cocktail parties with, "So I'm supposed to feel good about your being a crook, which means that I'll have to pay more than my fair share in taxes?" Jeff (Who didn't come here to be liked...) -- Jeffry Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public schools" I was trying to stay out of this BUT... If you own a "legal" copy of a copyrighted item, in Canada you are allowed to make a backup copy. Under "fair use" you can either make use of the original, or the copy but not both at the same time. So if I owned the book, paid copyrightand put it on the shelf and downloaded the ebook and used that isn't the end effect the same? I would have a working copy and the original. I asked the intellectual property guy here at work ( we have a guy who does only IP stuff) if I'm allowed to have mp3s, he said if you have the cd/vinyl/tape a back copy is legal, I don't have to make it, as long as only 1 copy is ever used at the same time. Pat |
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Jeff Wisnia writes:
It's the part about the author having rights to money that bothers me. I look at it from a credit/debit perspective, and when a person photocopies copyrighted material because they want to read it, whether for casual or for business use, they are potentially depriving the author of a sale. The "depriving someone of an opportunity" argument is simply begging the question. Granted, the opportunity is lost when a casual copy is made, but that doesn't address the question of whether that opportunity was literally the property (as the copyright fundamentalists put it, the chimera of "intellectual property") of the author. It is just as logical to say that eating at a restaurant should be prohibited, because it "potentially deprives" every other restaurant the opportunity of selling me a meal, at least until I am hungry again. The mere opportunity to make a hypothetical sale is not anyone's right. The copyright doctrine generally excludes works that are "utilitarian". The author of a literary work gets a copyright, but the author of a gourmet dish or a brick wall does not. You can copy the meal or the wall but not the book. Neither "original authorship" nor "sweat of the brow" will in themselves yield a coprightable work. Copyrights are arbitrary creations of government fiat for economic expedience, not legal protections enforcing a moral property right. .. the same way I usually put down people who brag about their cheating the IRS at cocktail parties with, "So I'm supposed to feel good about your being a crook, which means that I'll have to pay more than my fair share in taxes?" "Cheating the IRS" is an apt comparison in at least one regard. The dollar amount of your taxes due is an arbitrary figure without any moral basis. Perhaps you have heard how 10 differenet IRS agents will come up with 10 different figures when calculating the taxes due on a typical return. And the government changes the numbers from year to year. For example, the death tax will disappear in a few years, yet today it is as high as about 50 percent. So the concept of a "fair share" is absurd; there is no such thing, the numbers are just made up based on politics, and even then they are noisy. The "fair share" is fallacious both as a reification and a quantification. And I can't imagine that you're popular at parties preaching about it. Now Jesus and Paul taught us to pay our taxes, to keep The Man from hassling you. There's no moral duty to pay 2 drachmas, per se. |
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Pat Ford writes:
I asked the intellectual property guy here at work ( we have a guy who does only IP stuff) if I'm allowed to have mp3s, he said if you have the cd/vinyl/tape a back copy is legal, I don't have to make it, as long as only 1 copy is ever used at the same time. I can see why someone might feel that way, but being that copyrights are arbitrary, both in basis and enforcement, who knows? I suspect RIAA would say you need to pay for an MP3 re-encoding even if you own the PCM CD, you didn't buy a license for re-encoding, and those rights belong to the author, too. The dogma is that you don't own the music itself in any Platonic-ideal sense, you only own the one copy of PCM bit patterns on the CD, and (implicitly) a right to make unlimited copies (again, copyright is not about making copies per se) consisting of vibrating air pressure, and vibrations of your tympanic membranes, and neural copies in your brain cells. However, the copies in vibrating air, tympanic membranes, and neurons cannot be in a restaurant or retail establishment, unless you pay yet another public-performance license. |
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"Richard J Kinch" wrote in message . .. Pat Ford writes: I asked the intellectual property guy here at work ( we have a guy who does only IP stuff) if I'm allowed to have mp3s, he said if you have the cd/vinyl/tape a back copy is legal, I don't have to make it, as long as only 1 copy is ever used at the same time. I can see why someone might feel that way, but being that copyrights are arbitrary, both in basis and enforcement, who knows? I suspect RIAA would say you need to pay for an MP3 re-encoding even if you own the PCM CD, you didn't buy a license for re-encoding, and those rights belong to the author, too. The dogma is that you don't own the music itself in any Platonic-ideal sense, you only own the one copy of PCM bit patterns on the CD, and (implicitly) a right to make unlimited copies (again, copyright is not about making copies per se) consisting of vibrating air pressure, and vibrations of your tympanic membranes, and neural copies in your brain cells. However, the copies in vibrating air, tympanic membranes, and neurons cannot be in a restaurant or retail establishment, unless you pay yet another public-performance license. Ther law does allow the making of 1 backup copy. This came about from what I was told, from software on mag media, where there was a need for companies to be allowed a backup, and was later generalized to all recorded media. Pat |
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Richard J Kinch wrote:
Pat Ford writes: I asked the intellectual property guy here at work ( we have a guy who does only IP stuff) if I'm allowed to have mp3s, he said if you have the cd/vinyl/tape a back copy is legal, I don't have to make it, as long as only 1 copy is ever used at the same time. I can see why someone might feel that way, but being that copyrights are arbitrary, both in basis and enforcement, who knows? I suspect RIAA would say you need to pay for an MP3 re-encoding even if you own the PCM CD, you didn't buy a license for re-encoding, and those rights belong to the author, too. The dogma is that you don't own the music itself in any Platonic-ideal sense, you only own the one copy of PCM bit patterns on the CD, and (implicitly) a right to make unlimited copies (again, copyright is not about making copies per se) consisting of vibrating air pressure, and vibrations of your tympanic membranes, and neural copies in your brain cells. However, the copies in vibrating air, tympanic membranes, and neurons cannot be in a restaurant or retail establishment, unless you pay yet another public-performance license. I own most of Tom Lehrer's works on vinyl LPs, including his first release on a 10" LP (Remember them?) They are stuffed in a carton with a bunch of my other favorite LPs from the 50s and 60s, sitting on the floor of a closet in our home. I don't even own anything which can play LPs anymore, and I had no compunction about downloading a bunch of his songs as MP3s through Kazaa last year so that I could laugh at his wit again again and let friends who were over hear them too. I'm willing to take my chances with the copyright nazis over that. Leherer and the recording companies got their pieces of silver from me back when I bought the LPs new. FWIW, at last count I heard that Tom Lehrer is still among the living and teaches the occasional course at some Southern California college. He's a contemporary of mine and I used to see him perform live in Cambridge, Taxachusetts in my student daze. I think I've about "saucered and blown" this topic, how about you? Jeff -- Jeffry Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public schools" |
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On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 16:38:50 -0500, Jeff Wisnia wrote:
I own most of Tom Lehrer's works on vinyl LPs, including his first release on a 10" LP (Remember them?) They are stuffed in a carton with a bunch of my other favorite LPs from the 50s and 60s, sitting on the floor of a closet in our home. I don't even own anything which can play LPs anymore, and I had no compunction about downloading a bunch of his songs as MP3s through Kazaa last year so that I could laugh at his wit again again and let friends who were over hear them too. I'm willing to take my chances with the copyright nazis over that. What you describe is a completely legal and ethical use of those materials. The fact that you're not the one who ripped the .mp3 isn't relevant; you've bought a license to that performance and you are using it. Leherer and the recording companies got their pieces of silver from me back when I bought the LPs new. Exactly. It'd be different if you didn't have those records, but you do. No grey area at all. |
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