The Frenzy '09 Support Thread

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Maybe that's because kindly old Mr. Copyright refuses to die, like all things are supposed to. Tell me where it's enshrined in the constitution that copyrights are endless, and works never, ever become public domain.

Sorry for the potentially derailing rant. But old Mr. Copyright should be put out of our misery.

I've researched enough to call myself anti-copyright, but I do have a lot of respect for Creative Commons and am interested in derivative works.

Also of interest is an essay by Jonathan Lethem entitled The ectasy of influence: A plagiarism, though more than he I believe an author should at least credit his references, even if kept vague. (Example: I've quoted verbatim the works for So And So.)

And though this is seemingly unrelated (other than I've been reading about him and he had some interesting things to say about patents and intellectual property), I give you Tesla, who saw the future rather than dreamed it:
As soon as it is completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction. - On the Wardenclyffe Tower, in "The Future of the Wireless Art" in Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony (1908)