Religions > Atheism > How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work !
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fedora Hat" |
| Date: |
21 Apr 2004 10:25:22 AM |
| Object: |
How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
Copyright and Pornography
http://thrasymachus.typepad.com/thras/2004/04/copyright_and_p.html
Steve Sailer gives me a good opportunity to segue into a post that I
had meant to write for a while. He asks: "Why does the world need new
porn films?"
He continues, "If the government shut down the making of new
pornography, there'd still be plenty of old product for customers to
buy, but there would be fewer women wrecking their lives."
It is worse than that. The government is actively financing the
creation of new pornography. (Albeit indirectly.)
Film copyrights, for reasons having to do with Disney, a certain
rodent dating back to a 1928 cartoon, and massive lobbying to
Congress, now last 70 years past the death of the last to survive of
"the principal director; the author of the screenplay; the author of
the dialogue; or the composer of the music specially created for the
film."
Copyright is a power specifically enumerated to Congress in the U.S.
Constitution: "The Congress shall have 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." Copyright, as intended, acts as an incentive for the
creation of new works.
Post-Disney copyright now acts as a double incentive. It makes little
difference to the creator of a work whether copyright lasts 20 years
or 100. The vast majority of copyrightable works have a useful
lifespan of only a few years (and often only a few months or weeks).
But the secondary incentive to creators is that long copyright periods
suppress public domain competition, an effect opposite of that
intended by the writers of the Constitution.
The pornography industry is directly enabled through copyright. The
government ensures that pornographers are paid for producing new work,
and it also ensures that older material does not enter public domain
and act as competition.
Yet it is certainly debatable whether pornography can be considered
one of the "useful arts." If Congress wanted to kill the pornographic
film industry tomorrow, they could do it by removing copyright
protection from pornography. Older material would still get
distributed, but there would be little incentive to create anything
new. The inevitable First Amendment challenges would have a long way
to go as well, copyright not being mandated by the guarantee of free
speech.
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| User: "Jordan Lund" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
21 Apr 2004 08:32:21 PM |
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(Fedora Hat) wrote in message news:<cdf61eea.0404210725.729ce000@posting.google.com>...
Copyright and Pornography
http://thrasymachus.typepad.com/thras/2004/04/copyright_and_p.html
Steve Sailer gives me a good opportunity to segue into a post that I
had meant to write for a while. He asks: "Why does the world need new
porn films?"
He continues, "If the government shut down the making of new
pornography, there'd still be plenty of old product for customers to
buy, but there would be fewer women wrecking their lives."
Why not move to virtual porn? When we can generate images like:
(Main character from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in a bikini!)
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/akiross/images/akibikini.jpg
Face shot:
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/akiross/images/akiwallpaper5.jpg
or this
(Final Flight of the Osirus)
http://www.thelastfreecity.com/gallery/gallery_item.cfm?ID=7863
is Virtual Porn really that far away?
- Jordan
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| User: "Lord Calvert" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
21 Apr 2004 11:01:38 PM |
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He continues, "If the government shut down the making of new
pornography, there'd still be plenty of old product for customers to
buy, but there would be fewer women wrecking their lives."
Why not move to virtual porn? When we can generate images like:
(Main character from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in a bikini!)
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/akiross/images/akibikini.jpg
Yeah, but for the full experience you're going to need the voice and I don't
think you're going to be able to convince Ming-Na to do audio for porn.
Rich Goranson, Amherst, NY, USA (aa#MCMXCIX, a-vet#1)
EAC Department of Applied Rattan Use
"Without faith we might relapse into scientific or rational thinking, which
leads by a slippery slope toward constitutional democracy." - Robert Anton
Wilson
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| User: "Mike Rice" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
26 Apr 2004 03:06:50 AM |
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I met a pornographer on IRC a few weeks ago. He said
he lives a life similar to Tony Soprano, including regular
periods of ignoring the flesh around bada bing. He told
me he comes from a normal background. He got into
it because a girlfriend was a porn actress. He learned
how to make the films, then distribute them for money.
He told me you could make one for roughly $50,000,
but the know-how about the porn business in general
is more important than knowing how to make one. He
says the ideas in the films are often his. He makes $500,000
a year. He's married and he and his wife party with porn
actors, directors, cameramen and producers.
I asked him how I could get into the industry. He said I
would have to know someone. I said, "well, how about
me knowing you.?" He didn't think that was an acceptable
idea. He thought I was fairly funny though. Maybe we could
make porn comedies.
Mike Rice
On 21 Apr 2004 08:25:22 -0700, (Fedora Hat) wrote:
Copyright and Pornography
http://thrasymachus.typepad.com/thras/2004/04/copyright_and_p.html
Steve Sailer gives me a good opportunity to segue into a post that I
had meant to write for a while. He asks: "Why does the world need new
porn films?"
He continues, "If the government shut down the making of new
pornography, there'd still be plenty of old product for customers to
buy, but there would be fewer women wrecking their lives."
It is worse than that. The government is actively financing the
creation of new pornography. (Albeit indirectly.)
Film copyrights, for reasons having to do with Disney, a certain
rodent dating back to a 1928 cartoon, and massive lobbying to
Congress, now last 70 years past the death of the last to survive of
"the principal director; the author of the screenplay; the author of
the dialogue; or the composer of the music specially created for the
film."
Copyright is a power specifically enumerated to Congress in the U.S.
Constitution: "The Congress shall have 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." Copyright, as intended, acts as an incentive for the
creation of new works.
Post-Disney copyright now acts as a double incentive. It makes little
difference to the creator of a work whether copyright lasts 20 years
or 100. The vast majority of copyrightable works have a useful
lifespan of only a few years (and often only a few months or weeks).
But the secondary incentive to creators is that long copyright periods
suppress public domain competition, an effect opposite of that
intended by the writers of the Constitution.
The pornography industry is directly enabled through copyright. The
government ensures that pornographers are paid for producing new work,
and it also ensures that older material does not enter public domain
and act as competition.
Yet it is certainly debatable whether pornography can be considered
one of the "useful arts." If Congress wanted to kill the pornographic
film industry tomorrow, they could do it by removing copyright
protection from pornography. Older material would still get
distributed, but there would be little incentive to create anything
new. The inevitable First Amendment challenges would have a long way
to go as well, copyright not being mandated by the guarantee of free
speech.
.
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| User: "Summon You" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
21 Apr 2004 01:50:31 PM |
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I saw Hillary clinto naked. Her nipple was down like an ugly jelly.
whackkkkkkk....
Fedora Hat <fedora04@lycos.com> wrote in message news:cdf61eea.0404210725.
..729ce000@posting.google.com...
Copyright and Pornography
http://thrasymachus.typepad.com/thras/2004/04/copyright_and_p.html
Steve Sailer gives me a good opportunity to segue into a post that I
had meant to write for a while. He asks: "Why does the world need new
porn films?"
He continues, "If the government shut down the making of new
pornography, there'd still be plenty of old product for customers to
buy, but there would be fewer women wrecking their lives."
It is worse than that. The government is actively financing the
creation of new pornography. (Albeit indirectly.)
Film copyrights, for reasons having to do with Disney, a certain
rodent dating back to a 1928 cartoon, and massive lobbying to
Congress, now last 70 years past the death of the last to survive of
"the principal director; the author of the screenplay; the author of
the dialogue; or the composer of the music specially created for the
film."
Copyright is a power specifically enumerated to Congress in the U.S.
Constitution: "The Congress shall have 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." Copyright, as intended, acts as an incentive for the
creation of new works.
Post-Disney copyright now acts as a double incentive. It makes little
difference to the creator of a work whether copyright lasts 20 years
or 100. The vast majority of copyrightable works have a useful
lifespan of only a few years (and often only a few months or weeks).
But the secondary incentive to creators is that long copyright periods
suppress public domain competition, an effect opposite of that
intended by the writers of the Constitution.
The pornography industry is directly enabled through copyright. The
government ensures that pornographers are paid for producing new work,
and it also ensures that older material does not enter public domain
and act as competition.
Yet it is certainly debatable whether pornography can be considered
one of the "useful arts." If Congress wanted to kill the pornographic
film industry tomorrow, they could do it by removing copyright
protection from pornography. Older material would still get
distributed, but there would be little incentive to create anything
new. The inevitable First Amendment challenges would have a long way
to go as well, copyright not being mandated by the guarantee of free
speech.
.
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| User: "Hugo S. Cunningham" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
22 Apr 2004 11:10:49 AM |
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On 21 Apr 2004 08:25:22 -0700, (Fedora Hat) wrote:
[...]
Film copyrights, for reasons having to do with Disney, a certain
rodent dating back to a 1928 cartoon, and massive lobbying to
Congress, now last 70 years past the death of the last to survive of
"the principal director; the author of the screenplay; the author of
the dialogue; or the composer of the music specially created for the
film."
Copyright is a power specifically enumerated to Congress in the U.S.
Constitution: "The Congress shall have 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." Copyright, as intended, acts as an incentive for the
creation of new works.
Post-Disney copyright now acts as a double incentive. It makes little
difference to the creator of a work whether copyright lasts 20 years
or 100. The vast majority of copyrightable works have a useful
lifespan of only a few years (and often only a few months or weeks).
But the secondary incentive to creators is that long copyright periods
suppress public domain competition, an effect opposite of that
intended by the writers of the Constitution.
I agree with the above, and have for a long time, eg,
printed in "Reason" magazine, November 2001 (bottom letter):
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1568/6_33/79353958/p5/article.jhtml?term=
The pornography industry is directly enabled through copyright. The
government ensures that pornographers are paid for producing new work,
and it also ensures that older material does not enter public domain
and act as competition.
Yet it is certainly debatable whether pornography can be considered
one of the "useful arts."
I don't consider many Fundamentalist tracts to be "useful arts," but
that does not mean I should ban the authors from collecting money from
people who value them.
If Congress wanted to kill the pornographic
film industry tomorrow, they could do it by removing copyright
protection from pornography. Older material would still get
distributed, but there would be little incentive to create anything
new. The inevitable First Amendment challenges would have a long way
to go as well, copyright not being mandated by the guarantee of free
speech.
You are correct that for *future* works, there is no requirement for
copyright. Nevertheless, *discrimination* in copyright (protecting
works you do like and denying protection to works you don't like)
would raise First Amendment issues.
Repealing copyright for works already in existence would raise 5th
Amendment issues ("deprivation of property" and "just compensation").
--Hugo S. Cunningham
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| User: "James A. Donald" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
22 Apr 2004 10:13:54 PM |
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--
Hugo S. Cunningham:
You are correct that for *future* works, there is no
requirement for copyright. Nevertheless, *discrimination* in
copyright (protecting works you do like and denying
protection to works you don't like) would raise First
Amendment issues.
Let us deprotect them all. We are not suffering from a
shortage of tunes or movies.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
ipNEBFqExes5go71jD+7LWVNV9j8Rm7b7JpNBYQW
4V7lD67RkLim0GG3qO9c5xQ2Rjt4K+Wyy5m3m6ehT
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| User: "Hugo S. Cunningham" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
22 Apr 2004 11:04:43 PM |
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On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:13:54 -0700, James A. Donald
<jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
--
Hugo S. Cunningham:
You are correct that for *future* works, there is no
requirement for copyright. Nevertheless, *discrimination* in
copyright (protecting works you do like and denying
protection to works you don't like) would raise First
Amendment issues.
Let us deprotect them all. We are not suffering from a
shortage of tunes or movies.
Would you also remove copyright from books and other written matter,
or do you consider them different from tunes and movies?
--Hugo S. Cunningham
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| User: "James A. Donald" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
22 Apr 2004 11:49:28 PM |
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--
James A. Donald
Let us deprotect them all. We are not suffering from a
shortage of tunes or movies.
Hugo S. Cunningham
Would you also remove copyright from books and other written
matter, or do you consider them different from tunes and
movies?
I notice that most writers write without expectation of
significant direct reward. Does not seem to stop them. And if
it stopped some, if you had every book that was ever written on
your computer, would you miss them?
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
nNV+sSJvqFqToo01C/I3omLZZ55SATTVZEPyAsYC
4qcWdlX2qlFR/477rBdeneOLzaKFIaAyI3gvKCHw9
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| User: "Lord Calvert" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
23 Apr 2004 01:46:55 PM |
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I notice that most writers write without expectation of
significant direct reward.
Just where in the blue bloody blazes did you read this? Writing is a job, it is
very hard work, and if they can't make a living doing it, they go off and do
something else.
Rich Goranson, Amherst, NY, USA (aa#MCMXCIX, a-vet#1)
EAC Department of Applied Rattan Use
"Without faith we might relapse into scientific or rational thinking, which
leads by a slippery slope toward constitutional democracy." - Robert Anton
Wilson
.
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| User: "Hugo S. Cunningham" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
25 Apr 2004 10:57:48 AM |
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On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 21:49:28 -0700, James A. Donald
<jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
--
James A. Donald
Let us deprotect them all. We are not suffering from a
shortage of tunes or movies.
Hugo S. Cunningham
Would you also remove copyright from books and other written
matter, or do you consider them different from tunes and
movies?
I notice that most writers write without expectation of
significant direct reward. Does not seem to stop them. And if
it stopped some, if you had every book that was ever written on
your computer, would you miss them?
I prefer writers being supported by their readers to writers being
supported by the government (or whomever the government allows to
support them.) There is some good stuff that appears for free on the
Internet, but many of the best books and articles are still put out by
people who study the subject full time (and thus have to be paid by
somebody).
That does not, however, require our current absurd standard of
writer's life *plus* seventy years (which both discriminates against
writers who die early and fails to meet the Constitutional standard of
"limited" term).
The earlier fixed terms of twenty-eight or fifty-six years are a more
reasonable compromise, especially if we adopt Lawrence Lessig's
proposal of favorable tax treatment on royalty income for authors who
accept shorter copyright terms.
Another concept might be "tapering copyright" -- strict protection in
the early years, less strict protection in later years, eg latitude
for sequels, applications in new media, etc.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
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| User: "Mike Rice" |
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| Title: Re: How US Government Promotes Pornography - Your Tax Money At Work ! |
26 Apr 2004 03:08:35 AM |
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Copyright issues lived side by side with the fifth amendment
for a good part of the last century, when copyright periods
were 27, then 54 years. They can live that way again.
Mike Rice
On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 16:10:49 GMT, (Hugo S.
Cunningham) wrote:
On 21 Apr 2004 08:25:22 -0700, (Fedora Hat) wrote:
[...]
Film copyrights, for reasons having to do with Disney, a certain
rodent dating back to a 1928 cartoon, and massive lobbying to
Congress, now last 70 years past the death of the last to survive of
"the principal director; the author of the screenplay; the author of
the dialogue; or the composer of the music specially created for the
film."
Copyright is a power specifically enumerated to Congress in the U.S.
Constitution: "The Congress shall have 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." Copyright, as intended, acts as an incentive for the
creation of new works.
Post-Disney copyright now acts as a double incentive. It makes little
difference to the creator of a work whether copyright lasts 20 years
or 100. The vast majority of copyrightable works have a useful
lifespan of only a few years (and often only a few months or weeks).
But the secondary incentive to creators is that long copyright periods
suppress public domain competition, an effect opposite of that
intended by the writers of the Constitution.
I agree with the above, and have for a long time, eg,
printed in "Reason" magazine, November 2001 (bottom letter):
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1568/6_33/79353958/p5/article.jhtml?term=
The pornography industry is directly enabled through copyright. The
government ensures that pornographers are paid for producing new work,
and it also ensures that older material does not enter public domain
and act as competition.
Yet it is certainly debatable whether pornography can be considered
one of the "useful arts."
I don't consider many Fundamentalist tracts to be "useful arts," but
that does not mean I should ban the authors from collecting money from
people who value them.
If Congress wanted to kill the pornographic
film industry tomorrow, they could do it by removing copyright
protection from pornography. Older material would still get
distributed, but there would be little incentive to create anything
new. The inevitable First Amendment challenges would have a long way
to go as well, copyright not being mandated by the guarantee of free
speech.
You are correct that for *future* works, there is no requirement for
copyright. Nevertheless, *discrimination* in copyright (protecting
works you do like and denying protection to works you don't like)
would raise First Amendment issues.
Repealing copyright for works already in existence would raise 5th
Amendment issues ("deprivation of property" and "just compensation").
--Hugo S. Cunningham
.
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