Hilbert died in 1943, so his copyright will have expired at the end of 2013 in many countries, including the UK and US
Courant died in 1973, so his copyright will expire at the end of 2043.
Courant died in 1973, so his copyright will expire at the end of 2043.
On a more serious note, there's not a lot that individuals can do about this – even individual politicians. The systems involved have to change pretty fundamentally to prevent lobbying from working. How do you think those systems can be changed to accomplish that?
I agree it's a hard problem, but I think with a big enough pool of information everyone could get a letter/email saying that politician x cost you y amount this year by voting this way. I know I would be compelled to make some changes.
Better than the status quo, since only huge companies will still be able to effectively lobby, but introduces problems of its own. That is, assuming the system works as intended. Which it won't.
Because how do you make sure the disclosure is mandatory? This punishes honest lobbyers (and honest lobbyees) more than it punishes dishonest ones; if all politicians are being lobbied evenly from all possible causes, but cause B's lobbying is secretive, politicians are incentivised to vote for cause B (i.e. against ¬B, which they are being publicly lobbied by).
This system does incentivise not being the ones to lobby, though – assuming there's no way to do lobbying that appears to be ¬B lobbying, so the politicians can be virtuous and vote B, which makes the “¬B lobbyists” lobby harder because obviously their bribes weren't big enough…
In my mind, a couple big reasons.
One, for the same reason that we accept a lot of awful things like murder as inevitable. Of course we'd rather get rid of these things, but it's unrealistic to think we'll get rid of them completely, so the systems we have in place for dealing with them when they happen will always be very important.
Two, because these things are often in the eye of the beholder. What I see as "rent seeking", you might see as "providing a public good". Most people (on HN at least) think current US copyright law represents a lot of rent seeking by Disney. But most of the same people still support some notion of copyright. There's no clear line where "public good that most people agree with" ends and "rent seeking" begins.
And yes, in about 90% of rates in the US, the person who spent more won: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-sp...
They are still responsible for their actions even if the alternative actions would be highly against their self-interest.
Even a person who is threatened with death if they don’t take an action, is still free to either take or not take the action. They might be justified in taking the action on the basis of said threat, even if the action would ordinarily be forbidden, but they are still making a choice.
"I'll give you $1M if you extend the copyright timeline."
"If you don't give me $1M I'll let your copyright expire."
Does anybody else believe that congresspeople should be paid $10M/yr, indexed to inflation? This would be a drop in the federal budget, but would do a lot I think to curb both bribery and extortion.
I disagree. If anything it will push them for more bribery and extortion. Wealth seeks wealth and there is never enough wealth.
Of course Disney aims to maximize their value of the IP, also via methods that most don't feel are honest and net good for society.
But that's where law makers should be expected to hold back and take the opinions and interests of others into account too.
Notably, Sonny Bono for whom, along with the other sponsers I withhold invective purely out of respect of this community and its value of civil discourse.
I find the extension from 50 to 70 years extremely distasteful; manifest contempt by 'artists' for the commons and society's investment in their success.
But between the two organizations, gerrymandering means the politicians can't be voted out but people can "vote" to lower Disney's status with their dollars.