...
Buy her something nice. She
deserves it just for putting up
with you all these years...
Click on the picture for more information on this bracelet.
If you like it grab it because there's only one left...
...
... It's a proven scientific fact. The woman doesn't exist who doesn't like gifts of nice jewelry. And, Christmas isn'...
I stopped reading Doonesbury when he revealed his true love of leftism....I have to say, though, he almost sounds like a Republican in this one....
ReplyDelete99% of leftist content creators aren't leftist when it comes to someone giving away copies of their work for free. But they never see the contradiction between their desire to keep property rights in their work and the leftist denigration of property rights in general...
DeleteHave not seen Doonesbury in a long time.
ReplyDeleteHeltau
I stopped supporting copyrights when Disney bought Congress to extend their copyrights out to 95 or 120 years, on their movies based on stories stolen from the Brothers Grimm. And I've been even more bothered by them since Congress made it simple for anyone to demand something be taken down from the Internet, without proving ownership of the copyright. It's simple to get my support: go back to a 14-year copyright term with one extension if requested, and make abusing copyrights expensive. I'd accept not going entirely that far:
ReplyDelete1) Make copyrights by an individual who created the work automatic for 14 years _if_ a copyright notice is embedded in the work that gives a path to find the author and seek to pay to license it - or if registered with a federal agency that simply maintains the list and accepts address updates. This and all other copyrights automatically cover derivative works (for example, making a film or game from a book).
2) An individual creator can pay a small fee to extend the copyright to his lifetime + 14 years, limited to a maximum of 70 years.
3) An individual can sell non-exclusive licenses to his copyright that last until the end of the copyright, but if he sells an exclusive license, it will revert to non-exclusive in 14 years. That is, creators cannot permanently lose the rights to their own work.
4) For corporate work (that is, work by a team or by an individual working for hire for another), copyright requires registration, a small fee, and an embedded copyright notice for the first 14 years.
5) The owner of a corporate copyright may extend the copyright 2 times for 14 years each - but the first time requires a $25,000 registration fee and the second time a $100,000 fee. That is, a corporation can keep its copyright alive for up to 42 years by paying fees that are pretty tiny compared to what it can earn by continuing to actively market a popular work, but rather large for shoving the work into a safe and never publishing it again.
6) Derivative works are copyrighted separately, but give no rights to earn from the sale of the original work after copyright expires on the original work.
7) Anyone who copyrights someone else's work, falsely asserts ownership of a copyright, demands a work over which he does not own copyright be taken down, or sues for infringement when not owning a copyright will pay damages to the person affected by this fraud of $50,000 or actual damages if larger, plus attorney fees.
Note: Trademarks and patents are different. Patents are generally fixed to expire 20 years from filing, and that's pretty good, aside from some legerdemain the FDA allows with drug patents. Trademarks can last forever - but should expire when the holder ceases to market things under the trademark. E.g., the copyright on the first Mickey Mouse films should have expired (but for Congressmen being for sale), but the Mickey Mouse trademark is still in use. If we had copyrights that were actually for a limited time (as provided by the Constitution), you could copy and sell those early films, but not advertise them as "Mickey Mouse" beyond repeating the original title.