Media Companies Are Pirating YOUR Copyrights

Even as they complain about students downloading music and movies from the internet, record companies and film studios are pirating your copyrights--and Uncle Sam is helping them get away with it! Here's how:

* Extension of copyright terms. The U.S. Constitution says copyrights must expire after a limited time (Article 1, Section 8), whereupon the work becomes public domain. Then you, the pu­blic, are free to copy or download Moby Dick, write new Sherlock Holmes stories, or perform Shakespeare or Mozart. Public domain is your copyright.

However, copyright's "limited time" has been repeatedly ex­tended, often due to big media lobbying. The 1790 Copyright Act set copyright protection at 14 years, renewable for another 14. By 1909 copyrights lasted 28 years, renewable for another 28. In 1976 copyright was set for "the life of the author plus 50 years" or 75 years for corporate owners. In 1998 copyright was extended to "life of the author plus 70 years" or 95 years for corporate owners.

Jack Valenti claimed the recent extension was necessary to bring U.S. law into conformity with the longer terms of the inter­national Berne Convention. However, many Berne signatories also recognize Moral Rights, a doctrine that forbids buyers (such as record companies and studios) from altering an artist's work. Valenti always opposed U.S. adoption of Moral Rights, which might prevent studios and networks from changing directors' films and possibly even writers' scripts.

Curious, it being vital for the U.S. to adopt Berne's longer copyright terms but not its Moral Rights.

Artists should profit from their creations--but not 70 years into the grave. "Life plus 25" (60 years for corporate owners) is more reasonable. Anything longer doesn't benefit creators; it actually prevents their reworking old classics still under copy­right. Excessively long copyright terms only benefit authors' distant heirs and big media companies owning vast libraries. And long copyright terms pirate your public domain rights.

* Perversion of trademark law. Traditionally, trademarks identified the maker of a product. If there was no product, the trademark was void. But increasingly trademarks are the product, providing a potential loophole around copyright's limitations.

Copyrights and patents expire, but trademarks can last for­ever. Thus, studios have trademarked Mickey Mouse, James Bond, Star Trek, and other characters and titles, preparing for when Steamboat Willie and Casino Royale enter public domain. They may lose those films and books and TV shows, but they'll be damned if they lose the characters. Had Bram Stoker tried it, it's possi­ble that today anyone might publish Dracula, but only the Stoker estate could create new novels, comics, or films featuring Dracu­la.

It remains to be seen if trademark law will subvert the Con­stitution's requirement for limited copyright terms. If so, big media will have pirated your public domain rights.

* Erosion of Fair Use. The Fair Use doctrine, rooted in the First Amendment, lets you, the public, copy excerpts from pro­tected works for purposes of news, education, research, criti­cism, and commentary. It also permits parodies. It's a complex doctrine because the law only gives guidelines; you don't know if it's Fair Use until you're in court. Which means Fair Use is of­ten determined by who can afford a lawsuit.

In 1940 a New York federal district court said it was Fair Use for authors to excerpt song lyrics in fiction (Broadway Music v. F-R Publishing). It's a way for authors to comment on pop culture. But today it is industry practice to pay a license fee for even one line of poetry or lyric. "Copying poetry or lyrics is never Fair Use," one editor told me. Rather than fight big publishers' lawyers, authors instead surrendered their Fair Use rights.

Erosion of Fair Use is erosion of free speech. When Alice Randell wrote The Wind Done Gone, she was sued by the Margaret Mitchell estate. Had Randell been unable to afford a legal defense, her parody of Gone With the Wind told from the slaves' perspective would have been suppressed.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) documents various ways in which Fair Use is threatened by big media. And curtailing Fair Use pirates your rights.

Pirating movies and music is wrong (though not as harmful to many artists as industry accounting practices are). Apart from brief excerpts used for news, criticism, commentary, and so on, copyrighted works should not be taken without permission while the artist is alive and for some reasonable period thereafter. But it's hard to sympathize with big media companies who've suffered piracy while they and their lobbyists and lawyers are pirating your rights.

Libertarian Party Not Pro-Peace Enough

I received the below bit of info from the Libertarians For Peace Yahoo Group. It was written by a Jeff S. Many members of this group feel that the LP's Iraq Exit Strategy does not go far enough.

Anyway, I think the below item from Jeff S. contains some info that may be of interest to libertarians:

"A few weeks ago I talked in-person with one of the LNC at-large reps. Without saying who it was, I'll just say he is one of those thought to be 'practical' as opposed to 'ideological.' He was genuinely upset with Joe Seehusen over the IES matter, because of how the statement was released without LNC approval. He said the matter would be addressed at the upcoming meeting. When asked if he felt IES conflicted with the platform, he would only say he was angry about being put in the position of having to consider that question.

"I just looked at Sean Haugh's blog (Sean routinely publishes reports on LNC meetings), and no action on IES is mentioned. Maybe something will show up in his full _Liberty for All_ report, when that comes out.

"My acquaintance on the LNC seemed convinced this was something dreamt up and done by the staff, without even National Chair Michael Dixon being in on it. Maybe, since Seehusen is gone, those with issues against the staff feel sufficiently mollified; or maybe they no longer have an interesting enough target. I have no idea.

"Anyone not an LP member probably won't have seen the latest issue of LP News, which includes a blatantly one-sided and misleading account of IES -- an account disparaging the statement's critics without giving any detail of their arguments.

"LP News failed to report that the bylaws REQUIRE LNC APPROVAL on major policy statements. Instead, the little allusion made to the approval issue left the impression it was a matter for interpretation, and that it had only been raised on the blog by members 'and even some non-members,' not by LNC members or other big wheels.

"I could go on, for example about how a minor figure from Antiwar.com was quoted as having a somewhat favorable view of IES, even though publisher Eric Garris -- as quoted on this list -- thinks IES is a disaster and talked to the staff himself about it.

"I was bothered when LP News reported LNC approval of a dues increase without thinking it relevant to mention it was done by secret ballot. I am bothered by LP News repeatedly giving space to George Squyres to push his proposed immigration plank, without allowing critics anything approaching equal space. (Personally, I hate the proposed plank for more reasons than are appropriate to go into here.)

"Back to IES, LP News is a shameless apologist for somebody: I suppose one could assume that, even after the flak raised by IES's release, the staff still has balls enough to voice controversial views all its own through the party newspaper. One _could_ assume that, but I'm not.

"The day after I read the latest LP News, I called LPHQ and discontinued my monthly pledge. I cited as reasons the unapproved release of IES (with secondary platform concerns), and the shameless use of LP News as an organ of propaganda.

"I also mentioned how certain 'hired guns' have been brought forward to supposedly show how IES aligns with the platform, and how these efforts can't be taken seriously. (Maybe some of those glib 'experts' should have a talk with National Chair Dixon, since even he -- with his long and varied LP experience, including having chaired the platform committee -- publicly acknowledged the discrepancy early on.)

"For its part, LP News only made nonspecific references to the pro-IES platform-related arguments, perhaps sensing that a more detailed look would expose those arguments to the ridicule they deserve.

"It's saddened me to realize how some within the party apparently are capable of arguing any side of an issue; I wonder if the only factor determining _which_ side is how doing so will enhance or diminish their power within the party.

"We've sometimes talked here about 'means justifies the ends' utilitarianism. The degree to which I've seen this in the LP over the last few years, even among people I have (or had) a certain respect for, has really taken a toll on my interest in the party.

"What a person _does_ cannot be separated from what they _are_. What is true for individuals can also be applied to political parties. The last LP News triumphantly announces (what it hopes will be) the party's repudiation of the Values of Being -- though of course the issue isn't framed that way.

"At bottom this represents a clash of worldviews, since political philosophy can't truly be separated from philosophy as a whole. The LP is well on the way to losing its soul."

Jeff S.

Jeff adds:

"Contrary to my previous observation, it now appears _some_ action resulting from IES was taken at the recent LNC meeting -- the reinstatement of a committee to oversee advertising and publications. Not enough, since there is no repudiation of the objectionable elements in IES, but it's a positive sign nevertheless.

"After reviewing the LP bylaws again, I should probably say they don't baldly state that all major policy statements must have LNC approval. However, I believe only someone with a pre-existing agenda could read them -- particularly Article 6, which deals with the LNC control of the party program -- and think it appropriate that a major statement such as IES be issued without LNC approval. An objective observer would assume this policy statement, one that will likely tower above all others for sometime to come, should have had prior or concurrent explicit LNC approval as to its basic content.

"It is also stated, in the fifth item of Article 6, that no program proposal (at least tacitly this should govern major policy statements) shall conflict with the LP Platform -- even with LNC approval.

"One could also make a case based on previous precedent, which I do not think has ever seen a statement of this magnitude-- let alone a controversial one -- released without LNC approval.

"Readers may be interested to know my source for the views of Antiwar.com publisher Eric Garris. It is a reply Libs4peace list member Terry Parker received from him, along with Mr. Garris's permission to share his comments:"

The below is by Eric Garris of Antiwar.com:

"Dear Terry,

"It is worse than that. I called and talked to the new Communications Director, Shane Cory, about the plan. He brought up the Marshall Plan as a good example to emulate in Iraq, since it 'worked so well for Europe.' I mentioned that Nixon had a similar plan in 1971 in Vietnam, and Cory said that he would have been successful had it not been for the public interference (ie, the antiwar movement).

"He also said that this was 'just the beginning,' since the LP is perceived as way too radical and we needed to go after the Bush people. He said other stuff, but I started to go into shock and can't remember it all right now."

Halloween Candy does good at Monterey Screenplay Competition

It appears that my horror anthology screenplay, HALLOWEEN CANDY, made it into the second round of the Monterey Screenplay Competition. For a list of those who did, and the finalists: http://www.filmmonterey.org/screenwriting.html

For info about my screenplay: http://www.communistvampires.com/halloween.htm

"Liberal" Justices Turn Back Clock ... To the Year 1215

You no longer own your own home or have the right to buy one. This is due to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, approved June 23.

No, this amendment didn't pass both houses of Congress and three fourths of the state legislatures, in what is whimsically termed "the amendment process." Rather, our Constitution was amended in the usual way, by judicial fiat. In essence, five Supreme Court justices -- John Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy -- voted that you no longer own your own home.

That's the result of Kelo v. City of New London, in which, according to dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas: "The court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution."

That's right. A whole Constitutional clause, a clause that protected your property from arbitrary government expropriation, erased by five justices. At least with flag burning, the issue is undergoing the official amendment process.

But to understand Kelo, let me first give you some historical background. Back in olden days, all land was owned by a "sovereign," that is, a king, tsar, pope, or emperor. This sovereign leased his land to vassals, i.e., lords, barons, knights, and other titled nobility. Vassals could use the land so long as they served the sovereign. (See the bargain struck in the movie, Excalibur.) Because the sovereign owned the land, he could always repossess it.

In 1215, the English nobles decided this was a bad deal. They asked King John to sign Magna Carta, restricting his ability to reclaim the land. King John agreed, mostly because the nobles had brought plenty of swords. Peasants still owned no land, but the times, they were a changin'.

A big change occurred in 1776, when Americans decided that "the people" were sovereign, owning the land and the powers to govern it and themselves. In 1789, they delegated some of those powers to the government via the Constitution, while also restricting those powers through the ten Bill of Rights. For instance, the Fifth Amendment says: "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Thus, "the people," being sovereign and owning all the land, can, through their elected representatives, take your property, but only if (1) the taking is for a "public use" (traditionally, a road, school, or other public project), and (2) you're paid "just compensation" (theoretically, fair market value).

With Kelo, according to Justice Thomas, the Supreme Court "erased" the Public Use Clause. Now government can take your property for any reason at all.

In Kelo, the city of New London, CT, had condemned 15 homes so that private developers may build offices, a hotel, pricier homes, and a pedestrian path along the Thames River. The homeowners sued the city, trying to save their homes by arguing that private development was not a public use. The city said it was, because offices and pricier homes would generate more tax revenue.

The Supreme Court agreed with the city.

Justice Stevens wrote: "Promoting economic development is a traditional and long-accepted function of government. ... [T]here is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose."

But if private use is a public use, and public use is a public use, then everything is a public use -- and the Public Use Clause has no meaning. As Justice O'Connor said in her dissent: "Who among us can say she already makes the most productive or attractive use of her property? ... Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded. ... Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

Is she right? With the Public Use Clause erased, what will prevent the state from replacing any home or business with a "nicer" business? Nothing but the good intentions of back room politicians. Seriously. According to Justice Stevens, the very cities and states condemning the land can best determine "local public needs," and their judgements are "entitled to our deference."

That's like letting the accused decide whether he's guilty.

The result is that politically-connected developers can now use state muscle to force those of modest income to sell their homes at below market rates, while wealthy homeowners are protected by their own political clout. (I say "at below market rates," because if developers paid homeowners their asking price -- the true definition of "market rate" -- there'd be no need to condemn land, as every owner has his price). As Justice O'Connor put it: "The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more."

So it seems the times are a changin' again. Only now we're going backwards, to about 1215, when only nobles could protect their land from the king, the peasants at the mercy of both. And ironically, it's the more "liberal" justices who are turning back the clock.

A Nation of Assimilated Immigrants

Immigration is a contentious issue because it perturbs many people's self-image and sense of acceptance. "Do I belong here? Am I as American as you?" Few say it like that, yet those are the unspoken undercurrents fueling the fear and anger over the issue. Yet immigration also raises legitimate concerns about the allocation of limited social services (education, health care), taxes, unemployment, wage depression, crime, and the environment. How to address those issues without sounding like a racist hiding behind those issues?

Some politicians and pundits hide behind the mantra: "Legal immigration yes, illegal immigration no," a neat way of both supporting and opposing immigration, while avoiding the real question: "What should be legal?" How many do we admit, how quickly, using what standards, what consequences for those here illegally and what of their children? If legality were the real issue, we could solve the problem overnight by legalizing everyone.

I'm going to avoid those questions too, because I have no easy answers. (At least I am blatant about it.) Instead, I propose we focus on a proven solution to all our past immigration problems: Assimilation.

To say America is a nation of immigrants is like saying the sky is blue. It's both true and irrelevant. Every nation is a nation of immigrants; people have been migrating across the globe ever since we left Africa. Nor did the thirteen largely English colonies mean to establish a nation of immigrants. Many did not welcome America's first large Catholic influx in the 1840s, and Emma Lazarus's poem ("Give me your tired...") did not grace Lady Liberty until 1903.

More importantly, to say we are a nation of immigrants is an incomplete truth. A fuller truth is that we are a nation of immigrants who assimilated--who learned English, did not rely (through most of our history) on government safety nets, and sought to "become Americans" (a once-popular phrase).

Assimilation is not homogeneity. Marines and hippies, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Morrison, are equally American. Assimilation is not conformity to Norman Rockwell, but an erosion of tribal empathy for one's ethnicity and former homeland as one feels increasing attachment for the host culture and its people. Assimilation is the reciprocal price the immigrant pays for the benefit of acceptance. (Reciprocal, because contrary to the stereotype of discrimination always being a white or American thing, immigrants from all nations import their own share of prejudices.) Assimilation is thus the opposite of both rightist nativism and leftist identity politics; the former rejects the newcomer, the latter rejects the host.

America's strength has never been its diversity, but its ability to overcome diversity through assimilation. "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One) refers to the thirteen colonies, but could as easily describe our melting pot.

It is no insult to other cultures to say that America has its own. We say we are a multicultural nation because we worry it may offend to say otherwise, but also because it appears true from our surface diversity (skin color, food, clothes music). Yet American diversity is a mile wide and an inch deep. Beneath the surface most Americans share a sense of nationhood and fundamental values (even if Reds and Blues accuse each other of betraying those values). That sounds vague because, like obscenity, American culture is easy to recognize but difficult to define. Yet its truth becomes apparent to any American traveling abroad, many of whom say they've never felt so American as when visiting their ancestral homelands.

Surface diversity is enriching, but deep diversity can be dangerously divisive. Despite their more homogeneous surfaces, diversity runs so deep in Northern Ireland, Rwanda, the Mideast, and the tellingly "former" Yugoslavia that people have murdered one another to assure the dominance of their religious or ethnic group.

America too has suffered deep diversity, Jim Crow being only one recent example. Yet like the Borg, American culture continues to assimilate everything so it belongs to everyone. Chinese take-out and Italian pizza are not evidence of our multiculturalism, but things we've all come to know and share in. We speak a common language, we increasingly vote and marry outside our ethnicities, and we have at least a passing familiarity with most elements in our common culture. For example, I've only seen a handful of Star Trek episodes beyond the original series, and none featuring the Borg. Yet American culture is so pervasive, I know enough of the Borg to use them in an analogy.

Another reason Americans confuse themselves for a multicultural nation is that identity politics conflate race and culture. Shown a multiethnic group photo, many will thoughtlessly exclaim, "Oh, how multicultural!" But unless culture is genetically transmitted, an ethnically Chinese girl raised in Germany is culturally German, just as an Italian boy raised in China is culturally Chinese. Likewise, families raised in America are culturally American. Yet by confusing race and culture, Americans are dissuaded from promoting their own culture lest they appear exclusionary by celebrating something they've been convinced immigrants are genetically incapable of sharing in. (No one puts it like that, but those are the implied undercurrents of identity politics.)

This false notion of immutable identity fuels much mutual antagonism. Identity politics leftists encourage immigrants to be fearful and defensive over expressions of an American culture they portray as inherently hostile. Closed-borders rightists aggravate those fears, even as they themselves fear a hostile influx bringing poverty and revanchist fantasies. Assimilation disempowers both sides, depriving the left of a constituency, and the right of a problem. It does so by making immigrants more economically productive, while instilling in them a sense of national belonging that fosters cooperation and respect for American laws and customs. Thus does assimilation alleviate immigration's economic and social problems.

America owes nothing but offers much to those wishing entry, and makes no onerous requests; far less is required to assimilate into the U.S. than into most any other nation. Learning English is the big first step leading to all others, and most immigrants already wish to take it. Programs discouraging English (multilingual schooling, ballots, and documents) should be substituted for efforts to teach English. People concerned with immigration might consider voluntarist ways to assist the assimilation process. (Ironically, it may help to know a foreign language; I've begun studying Spanish.)

Between the extremes of identity politics and nativism lies the moderate assimilationist center. It's rooted in the American experience and it works.

Tammy Bruce Down on Libertarians

Heard Tammy Bruce on the radio just now, talking about her lifetime political journey. Right now she's very pro-Bush. She also said, "I tried being a Libertarians, didn't like that too much."

What Is PURPLE RAIN?

I remember when PURPLE RAIN, the Movie, came out some 20 years ago. But I only this year saw it.

The film was okay, but nothing special. Prince plays a young Minnesota rock singer struggling to "make it" in the music industry without "selling out" his musical vision. At the same time, he's struggling with his personal issues: his father's abusive past and his own sexist attitudes.

In the end, Prince "makes it" while maintaining his integrity, he comes to terms with his father, and he learns to be more sensitive to women.

The strength of the film is not the story, but the music, which is quite good. But MY BIG QUESTION: Just WHAT IS PURPLE RAIN?

I've listened to the lyrics, and I can't figure it out. Is it a metaphor for something? If so, for what? Or did he just call it Purple Rain because it sounded like a cool thing?