[NBLUG/talk] Political discussions on NBLUG

[Omar Eljumaily]

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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