[NBLUG/talk] Political discussions on NBLUG

[Steve S.]

RE "Happy Birthday" -- the court ruled that the original transfer of
(c) -- back before any of us were born, I daresay -- was only for a
specific piano arrangement of the melody (which was otherwise already
in the public domain), and NOT for the lyrics to the song.  So, there
has been no VALID (c)-defense for many decades; so, the song is now in
the public domain.

MP3, alas, is a much murkier affair, with multiple technical claims.
It DOES get challenged in court -- regularly -- and it's a mess every
time.

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Omar Eljumaily <omar at omnicode.com> wrote:
> On the topic of copyrights and public domain.  This is interesting. A judge
> just ruled that the song "Happy Birthday to You" is in the public domain.
>
> http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/09/23/happy-birthday-song-public-domain/
>
> It reminds me of the issue with MP3 and other codec patents.  Nobody has the
> guts to challenge them in court, so they appear to stand. Furthermore,
> companies like Apple and Microsoft probably benefit from the patents by
> keeping other entities out of their media handling space.
>
> The issue is definitely related to Linux.  It's the reason most Linux
> distros don't ship with MP3 codecs.  Maybe people should be more aggressive
> about challenging some of these marginal patent claims.
>
> Omar
>
>
>
> On 9/21/2015 4:16 PM, Allan Cecil wrote:
>>
>> I'll put on my more official E-Mail for this response.
>>
>> Agreed, the talk list is specifically for general chatter about anything
>> Linux, answers to questions, conversations about Open Source, technology in
>> general, copyleft discussions, etc.  I definitely don't want a political
>> thread going (and said so in my reply) but I'm not opposed to a discussion
>> of what a candidate who has historically been an advocate for copyright
>> reform and open source software is trying to accomplish.  To rephrase that,
>> Lawrence Lessig appears to be trying to bring more openness to the voting
>> process and to that end I'm not opposed to discussing that aspect as I
>> consider it within the spirit of the talk list.
>>
>> Of course, you are definitely free to ignore that conversation as well,
>> and I wouldn't blame you. :)  Thanks for your reply,
>>
>> A.C.
>> ******
>> President, North Bay Linux User's Group
>>
>> On 09/21/2015 03:55 PM, steve wrote:
>>>
>>> Thank god for filters on thunderbird.  This thread goes straight to the
>>> trash.  I have lots of other places for poly-ticks.  I don't want that from
>>> NBLUG.
>>>
>>> Steve S.
>>> _______________________________________________
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>
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"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of
childishness and the desire to be very grown up."      -CS Lewis