The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings enters the public domain in New Zealand, Egypt, and a couple other countries.
Would have entered into the public domain in Canada had the government not signed a last-minute 20 year copyright extension act last year.
Would have entered into the public domain in Canada had the government not signed a last-minute 20 year copyright extension act last year.
That's why I get angry when copyright holders try to make ethical arguments against piracy.
Not "we follow the law and they have it changed so that we have to do whatever they want".
I'm not endorsing GP's point, but the electoral college is massively important to legislation.
I see this repeated often, and I need to say it's bullshit.
The rules of presidential elections are known to the general public, which affects voters behavior, i.e. Republican voters in California might not even bother voting, since they stand no chance of affecting the results. Similar thing can be said about Democrats in Florida. There are even names for this: "blue states", "red states", "swing states".
Until you actually hold the elections with different rules the claim of "winning the popular vote" is meaningless.
EDIT: to clarify - the current system means that some votes matter more than others: a single Republican vote in a swing state matters more than a single Republican vote in blue state. People behave accordingly, i.e. voter turnout is higher in swing states.
It's an objective truth. You can qualify it if you like.
The number of electoral votes a state has is also equal to the number of representatives that they send to congress. So the unbalanced distribution of electors also reflects an unbalanced distribution of representatives.
I doubt most people (who lack a financial incentive, unlike some politicians) will incline towards copyright extensions for companies.
It's helpful to distinguish between the side-effects coming from one's vote and the intention/motivation for that vote. (This is called the doctrine of double effect.)
I would be surprised if many poor people vote with the intention of giving tax cuts for rich people, instead of voting for a candidate who they feel resonates them for other reasons, where it is an incidental fact that this candidate will push tax cuts for rich people.
In the same vein, piracy may be illegal but sometimes it just balances out this immorality and lack of ethics of copyright holders and lawmakers. If we follow the same reasoning, if a pirate is not taken to court then it wasn't illegal.
It is kind of amazing how IP holders could pull this off. One of the foundations of law that you cannot make retroactive changes.
This is a common misconception, at least regarding laws in the US. While I may not agree with it, the US Supreme Court has for literally centuries (like since 1798) explicitly allowed all types of retroactive laws. Most importantly, the USSC has long held the prohibition against ex post facto laws only applies to criminal, not civil laws. (As an aside, this also shows what bullshit it is when justices say they are just "calling balls and strikes". Justices, of all political stripes, make up laws all the time. The Constitution, as written, very clearly and plainly says "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." At some point - Calder v. Bull in 1798 to be exact - the Supreme Court decided it only applies to criminal law.)
Good info: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/sec... and https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/219/140/
The problem is the Mexico is the most strict country (by law) in copyright terms, which is dead of last author plus 150 years and there is no fair use.
Special edition hand printed and bound in the Shire (aka Matamata)? Sell it to people coming off of the Hobbiton tour.
If you don't reference the Jackson movies, can you sell those tourists a One Ring or a Sting without paying for licensing?
Presumably you can't then sell that into countries where the inspiration isn't yet public domain?