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The Germans are confiscating literature!
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Orion_Zorn
post Feb 17 2009, 04:31 PM
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1203506_pf.html

This is weird. A british publisher is reprinting German 1930s newspaper articles from the Nazi era... and Germany is working to stop them from being distributed. Any use of the swastika is illegal it seems. My favorite quotes:

QUOTE
the Bavarian Finance Ministry announced criminal and civil charges against Albertas and ordered police to grab any unsold copies they could find


QUOTE
police confiscated most of the press run for the second edition.


QUOTE
Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, cited the copy of the Nazi poster embedded in the second issue. Extremists, he said, could easily cut out the posters and hang them up on their walls.


Kramer also said:

QUOTE
"I have doubts that some people in Germany are mature enough to read the commentary"


So the lesson learned from Hitler is to go around stopping information from being spread?

This relates to something I read awhile ago, about an old album cover for the group The Scorpions. Apparently its about young girls, and it had a naked - underage - girl on the front, with some censorship. They tried to ban it from Wikipedia because it was considered child porn.

All that happened was that sites were flooded with requests for that album cover, people were curious as to why it was censored, and wanted to see it. Censorship just makes people want that censored thing more, so I think censoring newspaper articles from 70 years ago is pretty ludicrous.

I also like where the guy said people aren't mature enough to read it. Thanks, Mr Government Official, for deciding what I am, and am not, mature enough to read.

How can people learn from History, if that history is censored? Isn't it better to let people read what happened, so that it can't happen again?

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LoSt Braidon
post Feb 17 2009, 08:52 PM
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censoring something like this is an absolute joke, but another telling sign of what this world is coming to..

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Viper
post Feb 17 2009, 09:04 PM
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On a semi-related matter, I think the whole law concerning holocaust denial is an absolute joke. Yes, we all know that it did happen. A few idiots will claim otherwise, but let them do that so you can disprove them.

It's sort of like what happens with science. You get a few possible solutions, you work through them and disprove those that don't work, and then through a thorough process of research and learning you can see what the truth is.

For the Germans, they're presenting one version of history (albeit the correct version), and completely ignoring contrasting opinions. Kids are growing up there being spoon-fed stories about the horrors the Nazis committed, and then they never learn about the people who have contrasting views. It doesn't matter if those contrasting views are so ridiculously dumb and offensive, but how can you claim to know the truth without viewing the story from all sides? And how can you learn from history if you don't understand the mistakes that were made in the past?

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Stud
post Feb 18 2009, 02:51 PM
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Well, guess its still a sore toe over in Germany and since I don't live there I can't really be to quick to judge. It reminds me of the civil war here in the US and how it is taught differently in the north then in the south. Yea we do need those contrasting opinions, and I have heard about some d-bag people who claim the holocaust never happened. Those photo's must have clearly been computer generated with the vast technology in the 1930's...

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[ACC]Groni
post Feb 21 2009, 04:38 AM
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lol..
the literature that was relesease had a copyright and the censored swastika in it. What do u guys think would happen in other countries if someone would release something with a copyright that was not his own?????

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Orion_Zorn
post Feb 23 2009, 01:06 PM
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Well I think copyright laws should be abolished. And the fact that the swastika is censored ... is part of my whole point. Is censoring it helping at all? If anything it draws people in....

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Viper
post Feb 23 2009, 06:34 PM
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Copyright laws abolished...? lol :lol: How could you protect your intellectual property if that were the case?

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Orion_Zorn
post Feb 24 2009, 07:39 PM
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Copyright and patent laws hurt out society too. They give the owner a monopoly on a product. Everyone would say monopolies are bad, but in this case, they are somehow good?

As much as people claim they are required to encourage innovation, they also stifle innovation.

Check out nanosolar.com, they supposedly have invented a way to print solar cells like you would print a piece of paper, making the process very cheap.

But it would be cheaper if other companies could also produced that product, and figure out ways to make it even cheaper OR combine it with other ideas to make an entirely new product.

We pay more for everything because of these laws, and are all poorer in the end. Just take music. If there were no copyright laws, music would be free, and people could use that money to buy other things, and we would all have a little bit more 'stuff'. Now think about how much a bottle of soda really costs, vs how much Pepsi and Coke charge... does anyone think that competition is really at work to give us the cheapest soft drinks? Without copyright laws, anyone could make a bottle of Mt Dew...

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Viper
post Feb 24 2009, 07:51 PM
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If music were free, how would the artists make a living? If they couldn't protect their intellectual property, what would be stopping other artists from ripping off the songs that they wrote? Also, how would the shops selling that music be able to sustain their businesses? The questions keep on going.

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Orion_Zorn
post Feb 25 2009, 08:59 AM
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Why should we have shops selling CDs if people want to download their own music? If music had no copyright and the old style Napster became legal (does anyone here remember the original napster and how amazingly awesome it was to get music at that time?) would anyone pay for CDs anymore?

Asking what would happen to the shops is like someone at the turn of the century saying 'we shouldnt make combustion engine cars because the carriage makers will all go out of business!'

Businesses would pop up distributing digital music, and ultimately people would have MORE money to spend on other things - creating more jobs and more businesses.

As for what the musicians would do... when people ask the question you asked, it always, always amazes me. Where is it written that musicians should be paid a gadzillion dollars for being able to sing?

They should still make money on live performances *just like they did before music was able to be recorded*.

There was also an article I read awhile ago that said some researchers looked at how much technological innovation happened before and after patent and copyright laws appeared, and they said there was MORE innovation before those laws came about. The only pro argument most people have for patent and copyright laws is that without them people wouldn't innovate.


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mG_Despair
post Feb 25 2009, 11:08 PM
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To be fair, copyright laws often stifle innovation, at least in the United States.

There are many cases where an inventor, invents say a carburetor design that will last for 30 years, instead of 15, but the patent is brought up by say GM because this innovation wouldn't be particularly good for their market strategy.

^of course this example is abit outdated and deals with patent law and not copyright law, but it still makes the point.

QUOTE(Orion_Zorn @ Feb 25 2009, 08:59 AM)
Why should we have shops selling CDs if people want to download their own music?  If music had no copyright and the old style Napster became legal (does anyone here remember the original napster and how amazingly awesome it was to get music at that time?) would anyone pay for CDs anymore?
*



Most of my classmates illegally download music. Very few of them buy Cd's anymore. Intellectual property rights have been broken in that respect.

This post has been edited by mG_Despair: Feb 25 2009, 11:25 PM

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DAMNIT
post Feb 25 2009, 11:12 PM
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QUOTE(Orion_Zorn @ Feb 25 2009, 08:59 AM)
Why should we have shops selling CDs if people want to download their own music? If music had no copyright and the old style Napster became legal (does anyone here remember the original napster and how amazingly awesome it was to get music at that time?) would anyone pay for CDs anymore?
*


Most people in American society already know of websites to download music for free, and have access to it. Interestingly, there is still debate on whether pirating has even hurt music sales. Until this past year, music sales had been on a steady increase despite the popularity in pirating.

Clearly there is more to owning a music album than just being able to listen to its music. I myself avoid downloading music. I prefer purchasing albums that I like, both to contribute to the artists, and also to add to my CD collection, that I take pride in.

QUOTE(Orion_Zorn @ Feb 25 2009, 08:59 AM)
There was also an article I read awhile ago that said some researchers looked at how much technological innovation happened before and after patent and copyright laws appeared, and they said there was MORE innovation before those laws came about. The only pro argument most people have for patent and copyright laws is that without them people wouldn't innovate.
*


I doubt any evidence that would suggest copyright laws hurt innovation is completely conclusive. I am reminded of Soviet Russia, which did not become the most technologically innovative country, despite lacking stringent copyright laws.

Motivation to invent dies when there is no hope for profit. Why would a group of technicians at nvidia invest their time and efforts to create new graphics technology, if any other company can take these inventions without a fee, and sell these themselves? In a competitive market, spending resources to develop a new technology is only feasible if the company privately benefits from its investment.

Think of another example - plagarism. If plagarism is legal, what motivation should a graduate student have for creating his own thesis? Wouldn't it be much easier to just copy someone else's work?

What about writers of novels? Most of them only make small profits from their hard labor. Would you strip them even of these profits, and expect just as many people to enter writing as a profession? If the best writers do not make money from their work, they would have to manage other jobs, and possibly not have enough time to produce their works. With this, the most popular modern day writers might not have flourished the way they had. J.K. Rowling could still have not finished the Harry Potter series. Stephen King would surely have not been able to produce as many books as he currently does.

Are you sure you would really want to remove copyright laws?

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mG_Despair
post Feb 25 2009, 11:28 PM
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QUOTE(DAMNIT @ Feb 25 2009, 11:12 PM)

What about writers of novels?  Most of them only make small profits from their hard labor.  Would you strip them even of these profits, and expect just as many people to enter writing as a profession?  If the best writers do not make money from their work, they would have to manage other jobs, and possibly not have enough time to produce their works.  With this, the most popular modern day writers might not have flourished the way they had.  J.K. Rowling could still have not finished the Harry Potter series.  Stephen King would surely have not been able to produce as many books as he currently does.

Are you sure you would really want to remove copyright laws?
*



The business model would simply change. Instead of publishing new novels in complete form, there would be a return to a Dickensesque weekly syndication in say a newspaper or a website.

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Orion_Zorn
post Feb 26 2009, 12:26 PM
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@Damnit, you just said that people are still paying artists for their music even though most can get it for free. Maybe people would still pay for a book, even if they could get it for free...?

Isnt being able to download any music you want at any time basically an environment where there is no copyright? yet cd sales are on the rise...

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kelopelo27
post Feb 27 2009, 02:48 AM
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being a criminal justice major i have learned some law about this matter. i do not recall the exact name of the law or the supreme court precedent that it came from but i do know that freedom of speech does not mean that you can go around saying what you like. for instance yelling fire in a crowded room etc. clearly you can see the problem with this. or perhaps another case is threatening a persons life, harassment, and child pornography, obscene language.

getting back to the law. if i remember correctly, government can censor speech when it, put in simpler terms, uses offensive language. what is offensive language? supreme court determined that this is geographicly specific.. in other words what is acceptable in say ny city may not be acceptable in the deep south, alabama. i exagerate to make a point.

how does this relate? well i know that this is US law and we are discussing Germany, but perhaps this we can view this law through a global perspective in which germanys position of what is obscene is x and what we see as obscene is y.

apparently germany is not kind to nazi propoganda, and for good reason...let their decison stand i say and let us not judge them for it!

PS..im terrible without spell check...im a poopie college student i know



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