Re: [dvd-discuss] Good Analysis From Dan Gillmor

[microlenz(at)earthlink.net]

Skip 13....I remember that one from Channel 43 in Cleveland Ohio an SuperHost!

On 24 Jul 2003 at 8:16, Michael A Rolenz wrote:

To:             	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject:        	Re: [dvd-discuss] Good Analysis From Dan Gillmor
From:           	"Michael A Rolenz" <Michael.A.Rolenz@aero.org>
Date sent:      	Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:16:44 -0700
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> Now I know why they wanted to keep copyright so long...look at the list of
> downloadable movies at one of their links....(Sci FI in this case)...look at the
> offerings 8-14....Looks like either T&A or softcore
> 
> 
> http://www.movieflix.com/genre_list.mfx?genre=Sci-Fi
>  Sort by 
> 
>    Year 
> 
>          Length 
> 
>                  Price
>                   1.
>                      Alien Force
>                      Starring: Tyrone Wade, Burt Ward & Roxanne Coyne
>    1997
>          85 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   2.
>                      Ape, The
>                      Starring: Boris Karloff & Maris Wrixon
>    1940
>          61 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   3.
>                      Blazing Force
>                      Starring: Tyrone Wade, Paul Logan & My Tran
>    1996
>          91 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   4.
>                      Blood Red Planet
>                      Starring: Jon McBride, Robert Thomas & Joette 
> Krisiewicz
>    2000
>          81 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   5.
>                      Boy and His Dog, A
>                      Starring: Don Johnson, Susanne Benton & Jason Robards
>    1975
>          90 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   6.
>                      Crash of the Moons
>                      Starring: Richard Crane & Sally Mansfield
>    1954
>          72 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   7.
>                      Creature from the Haunted Sea
>                      Starring: Anthony Carbone & Betsy Jones
>    1960
>          74 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   8.
>                      Entry Level Male
>                      Starring: Michael W. Rhoads & Patti Rayne
>    1997
>          86 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   9.
>                      Erotic House of Wax, The: Legacy of Lust
>                      Starring: Josie Hunter, Jacqueline Lovell & Everett 
> J. Rodd
>    1997
>          86 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   10.
>                      Erotic Time Machine, The
>                      Starring: Kelli Summers
>    2002
>          70 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   11.
>                      Exotic Time Machine, The
>                      Starring: Gabriella Hall, Joseph Daniels & Nikki 
> Fritz
>    1998
>          79 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   12.
>                      Femalien
>                      Starring: Kurt Schwoebel, Vanessa Taylor & Jacqueline
> Lovell
>    1996
>          89 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   13.
>                      Giant Gila Monster, The
>                      Starring: Don Sullivan & Lisa Simone
>    1959
>          84 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   14.
>                      Girl Explores Girl
>                      Starring: Victoria Vega, Katie Keane & Darian Caine
>    1999
>          86 min.
>                  Plus 
>                   15.
>                      God Told Me To
>                      Starring: Tony LoBianco & Deborah Raffin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org>
> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> 07/23/2003 07:00 PM
> Please respond to dvd-discuss
> 
> 
>         To:     dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
>         cc: 
>         Subject:        [dvd-discuss] Good Analysis From Dan Gillmor
> 
> 
> 
> From an email from the Interesting People list.
> 
> The first half of this article sounds very promising to me, going forward
> from the tendency to just focus on the transition to public domain that we
> find among many allies and spokespeople in the information freedom fight,
> for reasons that are still not extremely clear to me -- I have so far just
> assumed that the fact that information is free, that certain types of
> information intrinsically cannot be placed under exclusive rights, the
> fact/expression dichotomy that stands as the legal expression of this --
> that all of these are avoided as sounding too clever or sly, as sounding
> like attempts to rationalize things that are being characterized as 
> heinous
> and baleful by those who, for instance, call file sharers pirates or try 
> to
> bottle up code as "intellectual property."  This tiptoing around the
> intrinsic freedom of information as a necessary aspect of a free society, 
> is
> very misguided and damaging to the movement.
> 
> But while what Dan does in this article doesn't actually go the distance 
> all
> the way on that front, one can hear in it the ringing echo of this
> fundamental aspect which has been elided in most public discourse by those
> who have been abusing exclusive rights for so long now.  Note for instance
> his phrasing, "The point of copyright is [. . .] equally [. . .] to get
> ideas and inventions -- arts and sciences and scholarship -- first into 
> the
> public sphere, and ultimately into the public domain."  Setting aside the
> way he uses the term "equally"  -- which is wrong [it is not "equally," 
> but
> "first"] -- nevertheless his distinguishing of getting into the public
> sphere from the transition to the public domain, is a nod at the intrinsic
> freedom of information point.  Also note the way he refers to "fair use" 
> as
> "part of the process."  Another oblique, but very exciting nod toward
> acknowledging the intrinsic freedom of information.
> 
> An additional very positive point to the article is the way it is one of a
> few cases that are starting to crop up where commentators are showing a
> willingness to state the essential fact that authors don't call the shots 
> --
> they only call the shots that Congress allows them to call.
> 
> The second half of the article addresses other matters, somewhat related,
> but that commentary has less key significance in my mind.
> 
> Seth Johnson
> 
> 
> > http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6364424.htm
> 
> 
> Studios demanding too much in their copyright campaign
> 
> By Dan Gillmor
> Mercury News Technology Columnist
> Updated: Wednesday, July 23, 2003
> 
> News and views, culled and edited from my online eJournal 
> (<http://www.dangillmor.com/>www.dangillmor.com):
> 
> COPYRIGHT PIETY, NOT RESPECT: Sony, Disney, AOL and the other big 
> Hollywood
> movie studios have set up a cleverly named site,
> <http://www.respectcopyrights.org/> www.respectcopyrights.org, as part of 
> a
> campaign (also including TV commercials and in-theater pitches) aimed at
> convincing us all of a single point -- that it's wrong to infringe on
> copyrights.
> 
> Well, of course it is, especially when the purpose is to get something of
> value for nothing or deprive someone else of what he or she has 
> legitimately
> earned. But in its typical overstated way, the film branch of the
> entertainment cartel is demanding a whole lot more, too.
> 
> The industry insists that its customers bow to copyright holders' absolute
> control over how buyers may use what they've bought. It demands a veto on
> innovation with entirely benign uses, if that innovation also might be 
> used
> to infringe. And it sneers at the bargain that copyright holders once made
> with society -- a deal that would reward creativity while constantly
> refilling the well of public knowledge and art.
> 
> The dishonesty on respectcopyrights.org isn't so much in what it says,
> though there are more than a few howlers. It's in what the Motion Picture
> Association of America doesn't say.
> 
> The site is, as you'd expect, totally slanted in a single direction. It
> offers no hint that customers or users of copyrighted materials have any
> rights beyond those the copyright holder decides to grant.
> 
> The mega-corporations that own the studios, through their MPAA front,
> piously quote Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. 
> Congress has the power ``to promote the progress of science and useful 
> arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive
> right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .'' But the cartel
> has turned ``limited times'' into something like perpetuity, and the
> exclusivity has always been circumscribed, at least until recently.
> 
> The point of copyright is not solely to pay creators. It's equally 
> designed
> to get ideas and inventions -- arts and sciences and scholarship -- first
> into the public sphere, and ultimately into the public domain, where other
> creators build on them to make new art, new science, new scholarship.
> 
> Part of the process involves ``fair use,'' the ability to quote in limited
> ways from copyrighted works. Fair use, in the modern world, also has come 
> to
> include our right to make backup copies of what we have purchased; to 
> ``time
> shift'' entertainment so we can watch TV programs when we, not the 
> networks
> choose; and (among other things) the right to copy a song we've bought 
> into
> a format that plays on another device (such as a car cassette player).
> 
> But the cartel believes it has the right to allow or forbid any and all of
> those uses if they involve digital copying. It plans to enforce these
> regimes through ``digital rights'' (read: ``digital restrictions'')
> technology, which has the ugly byproduct of destroying customers' privacy,
> and through harsh, frequently abused laws like the rigid Digital 
> Millennium
> Copyright Act.
> 
> The cartel believes -- and basically says -- that fair use is something
> copyright holders may provide or withhold at their whim.
> 
> This stance tells customers they have no rights, except to spend or not
> spend. This stance abrogates two centuries of tradition and common sense. 
> It
> steals from our heritage -- and dims our future.
> 
> The cartel wants us to respect copyrights. Fine. But when will the cartel
> respect our rights, and the public good, as well?
> 
> FENDING OFF THE PUBLIC: The Bush administration's acquaintance with 
> honesty
> has always been somewhat tenuous. But the White House is setting new 
> records
> with its defense of an e-mail system that seems designed to discourage the
> rest of us from offering our opinions.
> 
> The New York Times reported that the new message-to-the-president system
> requires users to ``navigate as many as nine Web pages'' and say whether
> they agree with or oppose the president's position on the issue. This, 
> said
> a hapless administration spokesman, was an ``enhancement.''
> 
> Baloney. The obvious purposes are to reduce spam and deter letter writers 
> --
> understandable, given the volume of e-mail the White House receives. But
> calling it an ``effort to be more responsive,'' as the administration told
> the Times, doesn't pass the laugh test.
> 
> Another, smaller motive for the redesign may be found in the character of
> this particular administration. Bush and his people have shown their
> disinterest in hearing from people who disagree with what they've already
> decided.
> 
> I doubt the Clinton crowd paid any serious attention to e-mail, either. 
> But
> at least that bunch didn't go out of their way to insult the people who 
> took
> the time to express their views.
> 
> A REMINDER: As I noted last week, I welcome your views, and you can 
> express
> them in public if you wish. Visit my Weblog and tell me why I'm wrong or
> right, and what I'm missing. Please join the conversation.
> 
> Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday. Visit
> Dan's online column, eJournal at 
> <http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/>http://weblog.siliconvalley.
> com/columns/dangillmor/. 
> 
> E-mail Dan at <mailto:dgillmor@mercurynews.com>dgillmor@mercurynews.com
> 
> 
> 
>