bdowling

Derivative works like translations, sequels, TV/movie adaptations, etc.

I think you're missing the point. None of the works would have been produced in the first place if there wasn't the possibility of making a return on the investment in time, energy, etc.

In some ways, writing a novel (or producing certain types of works) is like buying a lottery ticket. Most of the time it will be worth nothing. But if it is a winner, then the buyer would like to be able to cash it in. If, on the other hand, you couldn't win the jackpot even if you hit all the numbers, then people would stop buying lottery tickets.

The purpose of copyright is to encourage people to write or produce creative works, even when the reality is that most works will not be successful in any way. If you take away the possibility of reward for the few works that are successful, then that will result in fewer works being produced.

Makers of derivative works such as foreign language translations, sequels, and movie adaptations could presumably hold monopolies on those.

Under the proposed system, he probably would never have written anything because the most likely outcome is that he would gain nothing even if his works are successful.

The author could be dead and his family could be impoverished, or maybe his best novels were his earlier ones. Should publishers make tons of money off his earlier, better works while his family starves?

Also, copyright isn’t just the original work, it’s also derivatives like sequels, translations, and movie adaptations. Should all of them make money while the author and his family get nothing?

In the real world, limiting copyright like you suggest is a non-starter.

It’s fine that society should benefit, but why should the publishers who pay the author nothing benefit the most?

(Edit: Not just republishers of the original work, but also those making derivatives like translations, sequels, or movie/TV adaptations.)

Here's an even more problematic example:

1. Author publishes a dozen novels over the first 20 years of his/her career. All of them are good, but none of them sell well.

2. Author does not pay the copyright renewal fees because they are too expensive. Anyone can now copy those books and pay nothing.

3. Author's next book is well-received. The author is hailed as a genius and there is suddenly a ton of interest in the author's earlier works.

4. Everyone but the author makes money on the author's older works.

Edit: The point here is that when a work is successful, which is rare, it is unfair for everyone other than the author, who is most responsible for the work, to profit from it.

For reference,

https://youtu.be/TZt-pOc3moc

It depends. If you are a recognizable figure who people with ill intent are trying to find, then public knowledge of where and when you walk your dog is a big problem.

On the other hand, if there’s no way to connect a person to a license plate number without access to the DMV database, then that is not obviously an issue.

> In her latest book …, Anya von Bremzen goes on a multi-year quest … In the process, she “crushes” bowls of noodles with a ramen otaku in Tokyo, learns to make pasta puttanesca in a former brothel in Naples, and drinks ceremonial cacao at her own wedding in Oaxaca.

The primary purpose of a book like this seems to be so that the author can go on a tour around the world and write the costs off as a business expense. If the book sells well, that’s just gravy (pun intended).

I think you may be confusing the etymology of a word, i.e., where it came from, with its meaning as used by the speakers of a language.

Here's a definition from a commonly cited online dictionary of American English:

> eugenics

> : the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the population's genetic composition

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eugenics#dictiona...

Here's another definition from the Oxford Dictionary of English Third Edition:

> eugenics | juːˈdʒɛnɪks |

> plural noun [treated as singular]

> the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.

That is a strange example, because usually we don’t put people in prison for accidents unless there is specific type of gross negligence (e.g., drunk driving) or malicious disregard for life and safety.

> Anderson decided to plead guilty to vehicular homicide because she did not want the family of Karla Campos to endure a trial.

Maybe the woman knew that it would be revealed that she was drunk or had been told that she didn’t have the capability any more to drive safely, but she did it anyway. Without knowing all the facts, pleading guilty for an accident seems like a bizarre choice.

After a few hundred of hours of gameplay the electrical contacts inside the stick become worn out. Once that happens the stick becomes unpredictable and calibration won't help.

> forcing a bit of transparency by publishing 990s (the nonprofit yearly tax filing).

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...

The word eugenics has significant negative connotations that are probably not going away any time soon. So if you continue to use that word for its broader meaning, you will continue to run into trouble.

> Eu-genics is literally good-birth.

This is a reverse straw man argument [0]. You present your position as something easy to defend (good birth, choice of mates, good diet, etc.), even though some parts of it (forced sterilizations, genocide, etc.) are difficult or impossible to defend.

[0] https://en.liberpedia.org/Reverse_straw_man

Being a conspiracy theorist doesn’t make you wrong, it means you believe that the likely motivations or interests of various parties are likely the actual cause of the observed behavior, even when there is no proof.

Here, news outlets probably would have been motivated to carry the “hope” story even if they knew it was false, because money. A conspiracy theorist would believe that because the news outlets probably would have been so motivated, then they probably actually were so motivated.

Some children are just smarter, more athletic, or better looking than their siblings.

> why be a moderator for a for-profit company if you aren't being paid?

They like the power of being a moderator and smacking down people who break the rules. Usually they also like to bend the rules themselves to push a personal agenda, promoting what they like and squashing what they don’t like.

It’s the same motivation people have to serve on HOA boards or elected government positions.

> The more trolling they enable, the more money they get.

How do trolls pay anything to the USPTO? Usually the patents a troll tries to assert against others are purchased from others, often failed tech startups. (Note: People often forget that every “bad” patent was once someone’s startup dream. Edit: OK, maybe not every "bad" patent was once someone's startup dream.)

> “Barbie Girl”, the song that actually created the Rogers Test to begin with

The Rogers Test comes from Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994 (2d Cir. 1989), which asked whether an Italian film named “Ginger and Fred” infringed a trademark of famous film stars Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_v._Grimaldi

> what it means to use "a trademark as a trademark"

The alternative is called “nominative use”, which is to use the mark of another to refer to the other’s goods or services.

For example, a cola manufacturer can write in an advert, “Better than Coca-Cola!” and it does not infringe the Coca-Cola mark, because the name is being used to identify the competitor’s product. If the same company called its own product “Better Coca-Cola”, however, that would be using the trademark as a trademark and it could potentially infringe. (Probably would, in fact.)

Exactly. Many cases before the Supreme Court are about whether a type of case should be in court at all or should get to be heard by a jury. The decisions do not dictate the outcome, but have to do with whether the lower court made a mistake in dismissing a case early.

Here, the court is saying that Jack Daniels gets to make its case to a jury.

Aside: There is a specific clinical diagnosis associated with this kind of obsessive perfectionism, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive–compulsive_personali...

OCPD is quite different from the similarly-named Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), in part because people with OCPD tend to not see their obsessive thoughts and behavior as a problem, even when they are sabotaging their lives.

Consensus means that people agree; it doesn’t mean that they are right.

You’re wrong about what the author meant, but you’re right about patents. Patents are indeed written very carefully to meet the validity requirements but not “leak anything”, because disclosed but unclaimed material is a dedication to the public. Here’s a recent article aimed at patent practitioners about the topic: https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/blogs/prosecution-first...

From the linked article, "Dahl’s publishers decided that 'to those growing up in a racially mixed society, the Oompa-Loompas were no longer acceptable as originally written.'" (emphasis added).

My favorite term like that was “scientific consensus”. I used to point out that up until the 17th century the scientific consensus was that the Sun revolved around the Earth. I would get nothing but blank stares in response. It turns out that people who talk about “scientific consensus” typically don’t know whether the Earth revolves around the Sun, or vice-versa.

The "in patents" modifies "available", not "details".

Had he wanted to state that the patents were carefully written, he would have written "which", not "and".