This case illustrates much that is incredibly wrong with the current de facto permanent copyright nonsense. A.A. Milne’s granddaughter is trying to wrest control of her dear grandpa’s “intellectual property” from the House of Mouse.
Clare Milne, who was not born when her grandfather died, sought to use a 1976 copyright law to terminate the prior licensing agreement and recapture ownership of the copyright.
So, exactly how does Clare’s assumption of her grandfather’s copyright in any way create an incentive for dear dead Mr. Milne to create more Pooh stories? Those darned zombie authors sure are busy.
The idiot governor of my adopted state says, Add intelligent design to teaching
From the article linked:
Marvin Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor who has written favorably on intelligent design
That pretty much says all that needs to be said about Intelligent Design. No scientist is behind any of this. The college professors trotted out to be the educators willing to back ID are all liberal arts types. Nothing against my liberal arts friends, but you’re not scientists.
When we need someone’s expert opinion on Chopin, we ask a music professor. When we need an expert opinion on Shakespeare, we ask an English professor. When we need an expert opinion on biology, we ask…a journalism professor?
If you haven’t been following the Google Print controversy, here’s the pinnacle of absurdity so far. A children’s hospital in England has a completely unique and unprecedented perpetual copyright (in the UK) on the sales and performance of Peter Pan in the UK. They are claiming that Google Print’s service will rob them of millions of pounds of income every year. Think of the children!
I wonder why they haven’t previously gone after the public domain work? You did know that the book is actually in the public domain everywhere but the United Kingdom, didn’t you? So, exactly what does the American site Google do that the American site Gutenberg Project doesn’t already do? Is it just a question of convenience?
(Via BoingBoing)
Here’s an entertaining new publication that I saw in Utne – $pread Magazine. It’s for sex workers, by sex workers. That is to say, it’s a pro-stripper, pro-prostitute magazine.
Just making your day a tad more surreal.
Because Jenn tagged me and I’m a sheep…
Total books owned:
Somewhere upwards of 300, but I’m not counting them!
Last book purchased:
V for Vendetta (if non-comic book, Year’s Best SF 9)
Five books that mean a lot to you:
Ender’s Game
The Long Run
Foundation Trilogy
Lolita
Ape and Essence
Tag five others who you’d be interested in having do this meme:
Mike
Lysa
That’s all the people I want to torture. 🙂
If anyone was thinking to themselves, “what would Gary like for an extravagent birthday present” – have I got the gift for you. The Virginia Edition by Robert A. Heinlein will be sold only as a 46-volume set, in a limited edition of 5000 copies. All for a mere $2500 – and, if you act now, you can get it for a 300 dollar discount. That’s right, $2200 for 46 volumes of RAH goodness. Just perfect for your favorite SciFi Geek (hint). 🙂
Most recently finished book – L.E. Modesitt’s The Ethos Effect.
Although I usually like Modesitt’s science fiction, this one was written a bit differently. I guess I’m just noticing the Tom Swifties too much or something.
Anyway, throwing out the sometimes leaden dialog, the ideas of this Parafaith War sequel are interesting. One of the things SF excels at is showing us extremes of contemporary situations so we can see them from a different viewpoint. Things in this one that you may have heard about in recent years in real life: racial profiling, incarceration without trial or charges, religious fundamentalists driving bad government decisions, and military actions with no apparent logic behind them.
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