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  16     <h1>The Weak Must Die</h1>
  17    <div class="contents">
  18 <dl>
  19 <dt>
  20 <a href="#sec1">Misc</a>
  21 </dt>
  22 <dd>
  23 <dl>
  24 <dt>
  25 <a href="#sec2">Copyright Is Bad for Society</a>
  26 </dt>
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  31
  32
  33 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><p>Intermediate forms of thought which have been refined.</p>
  34
  35 <h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
  36 Misc</h2>
  37
  38 <h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
  39 Copyright Is Bad for Society</h3>
  40
  41 <p class="first">Copyright is a tool used to placate publishers who feel that they will
  42 make no money if things can be freely copied. Publishers, however,
  43 contribute <strong>nothing</strong> of worth to our culture; they are mere middlemen
  44 who print the creative work of others, and so their pleas should be
  45 ignored.</p>
  46
  47 <p>A short copyright term is acceptable, and worked in most of the world
  48 for a few hundred years. As it stands now we have perpetual copyrights
  49 (as in the Old World), and the cultural stagnation that affected
  50 Europe then is now occurring today in most of the world. There are
  51 many books published between 1917 and a few years ago that I would
  52 love to read, but am unable to because they have not been printed (for
  53 older books often in as long as 40 or 50 years). The albums of a few
  54 bands I like are out of print now and I will be long dead before I get
  55 a chance to purchase them (<em>if</em> copyright is not extended again, which
  56 experience tells me will happen soon) because the record labels have
  57 no interest in returning the masters to the band!</p>
  58
  59 <p>What point is there to allowing copyright to exist on works which are
  60 not being published? If their terms had expired there is a chance that
  61 they would be being published by public domain publishing houses who
  62 subsist on smaller margins. This would <a href="http://www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=482">create real economic value</a>, and
  63 more importantly great <strong>social</strong> value. Allowing art to rot is a
  64 disrespect to human creativity and an immeasurable loss for all future
  65 humans.</p>
  66
  67 <p>I predict that in two or three hundred years there will be nearly no
  68 record of any literature or art produced in the twentieth century. As
  69 it stands today we have lost most of it with the exception of a few
  70 trashy works which have become popular to the masses.</p>
  71
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  99
 100 <p class="cke-footer">The body bags and little rags of children torn in two,
 101 And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you
 102 As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song
 103 To the tune of starving millions to make a better kind of gun.
 104 </p>
 105 <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
 106     March 13, 2008</p>
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