Posts by Mark Harris
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"the CCL POV" dammit
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Except that not all collecting societies necessarily benefit the creator. Case in point: CCL collect on behalf of all NZ writers whether they hold an authorisation or not, because there is legislation that says they can. Do they then hand out to a writer her due royalties, based on the number of tmes their work has been copied? Do they, fuck! They pick a "representative selection" of writers on their list and divvy what's left after their expenses have been taken out. They declined to make known what their criteria for selection were.
This is from a seminar they gave at least 3 years ago to government knowledge managers/librarians because CCL were trying to persuade them to rigorously pay up based on their photocopier stats. The CCl POC seemed to be that each agency would have one photocopier and it would be in the library and so easy to manage. They couldn't quite suss that in one small agency there might be 6 copiers per floor, and that the majority of material photocopied was stuff we had written internally in order to fulfill the requirements of politicians and for consultation (because photocopy toner is cheaper than laser toner - still, the laser didn't jam as often)
The best method would be to not put any middleman between creator and consumer, but devise a method that recompenses the creator directly. How you do this is an exercise for the student ;-) although Cory Doctorow and Tor books seem to be having some success.
The key issue for creators is visibility, not recompense. The Intarwebs give all creators an opportunity to do direct marketing and I think the solution lies in some modification of that.
Ref your Chris Knox example, sure if he retained the copyright. If he sold or transferred it to the record label, then it's theirs to onsell. That's why it's so important to retain your own copyright.
The current model of copyright does not work to the benefit of the creators but to that of the publisher. It has always been this way from the mid-1500s when the Stationer's Guild started keeping a register of which printers had permission from the Crown to publish what books. Authors were not part of the equation until the Statute of Anne in 1710.
Hmmm. Might have to start a blog so I can write a post on this now. :-)
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Speaking of the debate, both parts are now up on TVNZ ondemand. But I'm still getting the "sorry this content is not available to view" message, even after updating Flash and turning off my pop-up blocker. Is anyone else having this problem? (The Windows Media versions are still available at debate.net.nz.)
I got the same and watched the Windows media version (until it froze about 90 mins in but I got to see the ACTA stuff which was what I wanted to hear about).
I noticed Cunliffe mentioned that the ACTA negotiations are happening through the auspices of the WTO. Nuh-uh. That;s the whole point, it's a run around the WTO because they can't force it through there. But I thought the answers from the panel were pretty good. I liked your question about why do we have copyright law, but you should have followed up with "what evidence do we have that it works?" ;-)
As I told the Creative Commons list this morning, on Wednesday, at the NZ Open Source Awards in Wellington, Cunliffe opened the door a little wider (having been challenged by a few people on this and S92a of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment [re ISPs policing copyright on their network]) and invited the advocates to a meeting with him and Tizard sometime in the next 2 weeks. He seemed genuinely surprised at the depth of feeling about both matters, so there may be a chance to influence yet.
Don Christie (NZOSS) and I had a meeting with Judith Tizard and her officials a few weeks ago, regarding my submission and related matters. It was mainly to wave the flag and to see if we could get any more information released (MED noted 91 documents relevant to my OIA request but released only 13 and most of them were redacted in some way). We were unsuccessful in that, but one point they did raise was that participation in the negotiations did not automatically mean that NZ would sign the final agreement, but that it was better to be inside the tent than out. Those of us still stuck on the outside would tend to agree :-)
If you're still playing at home, the URL is here
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as if Labour have a plan or anything.
It struck me that this is a key flaw in your argument ;-)
(but, no, I wouldn't even buy a new car from him. He fair oooozes insincerity IMHO)
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<quote> Ex New Zealand First MP and High Commissioner to the Cook Islands, Brian Donnelly, has passed away at the age of 59.
Suck. He was a good guy, and NZ First's only liberal.</quote>
Agreed.
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In other news:
Largest US Bankruptcies
Lehman Brothers’ chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing is the largest in history, dwarfing all others.Take a look at the ten biggest corporate filings in US bankruptcy court, based on pre-bankruptcy assets.
10. United Airlines
Assets: $25.2 billion
Date Filed: Dec. 9, 20029. Pacific Gas and Electric
Assets: $29.8 billion
Date Filed: April 6, 20018. Global Crossing
Assets: $30.2 billion
Date Filed: Jan. 28, 20027. Refco
Assets: $33.3 billion
Date Filed: Oct. 17, 20056. Financial Corp. of America
Assets: $33.9 billion
Date Filed: Sept. 9, 19885. Texaco
Assets: $35.9 billion
Date Filed: April 12, 19874. Conseco
Assets: $61.4 billion
Date Filed: Dec. 18, 20023. Enron
Assets: $63.4 billion
Date Filed: Dec. 2, 20012. Worldcom
Assets: $103.9 billion
Date Filed: July 21, 20021. Lehman Brothers
Pre-Bankruptcy Assets: $639 billion
Date Filed: Sept. 15, 2008Source: CNBC
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In my online reading experience, claims like Duncan's are usually followed by appeals to Austrian economists, then calls to go back to the gold standard, then social credit, and ultimately fingerpointing at the international Jewish conspiracy are, depending on your level of scholarship.
Not my intention at all. Please don't impute such. What I wanted to point out was that the 'central bank' of the USA is not as our central bank (the Reserve Bank), which is a state institution. The Fed is a privately-owned institution which takes some direction from the USG. I accept that they return profits to the Treasury (I was not aware of this) but they don't have a shining history as an impartial creator of monetary policy, either.
You don't have to be a conspiracy nut to be suspicious of large institutions.
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Craig wrote:
Well, Mark, it's that tiresome context thing again.
The context, dear heart, was in the cottage.
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Craig wrote:
Well, the next time Grant does a webcast cottage meeting someone could ask him why gays and lesbians aren't allowed to marry.
I - really don't need to see a video of that nature...
Oh, and Craig? Gays can marry lesbians any time they like ;-)
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Duncan wrote:
So, for the price of paper and ink, they can 'print' a trillion $, and then lend it to the economy with interest, and obviously make a massive profit, which would be distributed to the owners being private people!
Thanks, Duncan. Pretty much what I was "implying".