Posted on 01/29/2014 5:39:10 PM PST by unlearner
Just read in an article from USA Today which I cannot post here, that the song "Alone Yet Not Alone" has been removed from the Academy Award nomination for best original song.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.google.com ...
Actually a thread was posted a few days back where the homosexuals in Hollywood were in a snit about the ‘Christian’ song nomination. They never mentioned any rule violation. They mentioned the film and its song were somehow not up to what was expected.
Now they found a ‘rule’ to do their dirty work.
Thanks for a lot of great comments.
After cooling down a bit from when I first heard this news, I think I have to agree with your take.
Copyright and patent protection are an extension of the representative government we have been blessed to have and are not an extension of natural law. Natural law protects the ownership of the crop a person plants and harvests but not of an idea, not of the pattern of ink on paper or the one’s and zero’s in a digital file. It is not illegal to copy movies in a nation that is not signatory to a treaty protecting these “rights”.
If I were Congress, I would exercise my Constitutional authority to remove ip protection from anything prurient, obscene or with gratuitous violence and profanity. If Hollywood wants to exercise its freedom of speech, they should do it for free.
Men like Larry Flynt would never have become icons or be among the rich and famous if the laws did not provide him this protection which has not followed the Constitutional guideline of “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”.
But, like you said, there is no value in downloading trash. If something is worth watching it is worth paying for.
My current frame of mind though would not make me the kind of juror a lawyer representing Hollywood studios would want on the jury. When these people make it impossible for Christians and conservatives to make a living in their industry, should they really enjoy the protection of ip law? To me it is about as moral as Muslims forcing infidels to pay a special tax that Muslims do not have to pay. Should Christians submit to such unjust laws?
I think a meritocracy approach will work just fine in a “We The People” government where “We The People” also willingly exalt God. When we exalt God, God exalts us too.
We can’t impose top down godliness, ironic as that sounds. And the example of selective intellectual property would be just one such attempt. Let the filthy pay for filth if they cannot be persuaded otherwise. Jesus came as a poor servant for a reason. He requests to be enthroned in the lowly heart. Then He will make His way into the castles of kings from there.
Let’s forget what’s “moral.” Does something exalt God, even in a pro forma way? Then do it. Does it come short of God’s glory by purpose? Then shun it. (Things can come short because that’s the best we can muster under the circumstances. That’s a different situation. That is not intentionally sinning. It is covered by God’s grace. And in fact it’s endemic until we get through the pearly gates.)
God made His kingdom simple to live to. It has to be if children can enter! It’s “grown ups” who try to cobble it up with complications.
I generally agree that we cannot pass laws that will make people become righteous. But I do not think the founders ever envisioned that clause in the Constitution to afford protection to pornography. I do not even think they considered it free speech. Up until Clinton, the attorney general enforced obscenity laws. A lot of porn today that even children can easily stumble across online would have landed people in jail for producing a few decades ago.
There should be no ip protection for this. There should be no protection for abortion “doctors” killing babies. There should be no protection for homosexual sex acts. Yet you are right that changing the laws will not change people. I think it has come to the point that the church is no longer the dominant influence in society, so the new imperative is to keep society from influencing the church.
excellent point
Copyright is a serious issue. Don’t make the case here for abusing it.
FRegards.
Well, there were morality laws in the past, but they never tried to tamper with copyright and patent etc. That is actually a sign of desperation.
Yeah. After venting I have to admit it is not a solution. Ip laws could be improved, but they are more evenly enforced in the courts than many other laws. I am not sure what the answer is, but I have lower than usual regard for Hollywood this evening.
So my position that honoring IP laws that protect Hollywood movies from being ripped, means that I support totalitarians raping and murdering families?
You’ve lost your marbles.
You think a president is a king?
Read the Constitution and get back to me.
“So my position that honoring IP laws that protect Hollywood movies from being ripped, means that I support totalitarians raping and murdering families?”
No. I have to admit, your position on ripping movies is correct. Too bad you don’t feel as strongly about ripping your fellow conservatives.
If my anger and outrage at Hollywood makes me a left wing “shill”, then I pray to God that when open war does happen, I don’t have to share the foxholes with fellow conservatives who cannot distinguish friend from foe.
If you want to keep doubling down on your position, you can make yourself the John McCain of Free Republic. Be polite, civil and bend over backwards to protect the rights of the enemy; but simultaneously stab your teammates in the back.
The Hollywood you are rushing to defend will not allow conservatives and Christians to work in it openly. Being conservative or Christian will get you blacklisted. Hollywood is a criminal enterprise. Hollywood is the epitome of left wing corruption. Without Hollywood we would not have homosexual adoption, foster parenting, and so-called marriages. Without Hollywood we would not have Pelosi, Reid, Obama, and most of the left wing tyrants occupying Washington.
Hollywood is for heavy taxation... except for them. Hollywood is for equal opportunity employment except for Christians and conservatives. Hollywood is for protecting property rights for Hollywood... but not everyone else.
Just like McCain said no one needs to fear an Obama presidency, you go ahead and let everyone on Free Republic know that conservatives do not need to fear the Hollywood left. Tell them that people like me have lost their marbles, because I say the Hollywood left will rape and kill their families as soon as they think they can get away with it. Tell them there is nothing to fear, and be sure to stand up for lying, stealing, murdering, raping, molesting, whore mongering, Satan worshiping Hollywood.
There were people like you in Germany defending the Nazi’s and telling people to be civil, play nice, don’t worry. They said things were not ideal but probably wouldn’t get much worse. But let’s not lose our marbles. Don’t get too worked up.
Be sure to belittle, insult, and attack anyone who does get worked up and call them a leftist shill. And simultaneously rush to the defense of the leftists they are shilling for.
Talisker is the one who said “God makes the king.” Now Talisker wants people to think MrShoop was saying so even though MrShoop was pointing out that Obama and the other Washington tyrants are no kings.
“God makes the king”, when applied to Obama and the other Washington tyrants attacking religious liberty, stealing the wealth of tax payers in order to pay for murder and perversion, sounds a lot like the Nuremberg defense: “We were just following orders.”
Talisker wants to be the arbiter of who is conservative and who is Christian while acting like neither. The posts on this thread alone prove that.
Your problem is that the exercise of such discretion represents a latent tyranny. Think of the persecutions that once existed among Christian sects founded upon and justified by minute distinctions in doctrine of which most of the victims were probably unaware. Christ taught one heart at a time, and to Him there came multitudes.
“Your problem is that the exercise of such discretion represents a latent tyranny.”
Let me be very specific. A few decades ago, producing pornography that depicted penetration was obscene and illegal to distribute, and could result in criminal prosecution. These obscenity laws were enforced up until Clinton.
Do you feel that this country was under such “tyranny” regarding porn during the prior century and longer? Was it Clinton that ended this tyranny for you?
We would not even need to outlaw obscenity to reduce its influence. Just remove the ip protection.
Just because something is considered protected speech under the first amendment does not automatically grant intellectual property right protection UNDER the constitution. This is just like the fact that copyright protection does create a limit on free speech.
Free speech though is an extension of natural law. Ip protections are merely a cooperative agreement. Further, they are limited in scope to a constitutional imperative: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”.
If you or I have a business idea or invention, it is not automatically protected unless we pursue a patent lawfully. Many things can disqualify the idea or invention from protection. And after the protection expires we have no right to be compensated further because it becomes public domain for others to benefit from.
So, if something is exempt from obscenity laws, it is considered free speech. So why is anyone obligated to NOT copy and disseminate something that IS free speech?
Again, there is no natural law to which we can appeal. It is merely done at the whim of elected officials by laws which only carry authority based on the Constitution. So, how are these copyright laws valid if they do not meet the imperative to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts?
The answer is there is none except for the fact that people believe it to be so.
That is, someone could argue that Land Patents exempt you from property taxes, but it is irrelevant if the IRS, judge and DA disagree and throw you in jail for tax evasion.
My point is there is no inherent benefit in granting ip protection to porn. My view is that any law to the contrary is unconstitutional. But since the courts will disagree, I will pick my battles. If I sit on a jury, I can exercise my right to reject unjust laws. If I hold office or hold sway over someone in office, that office has the duty to act in a just manner.
Our nation is full of unjust laws. Normalcy bias does not excuse the evil. The Nuremberg defense is invalid. Legalized evil has no valid basis of law even if it does in practice.
The question becomes relevant when we begin asking questions like the founders. They knew how they were being treated was unjust. They tried legal processes to no avail. They tried appeals, arguments, protests, again to no avail. Finally, they decided they could endure no more. Now that is the time these things become relevant. Do we honor the debts of a nation which has to be overthrown? Which ones? Do we punish people for committing crimes against humanity even if what they did was technically legal?
You do realize don’t you that the Revolution was illegal? But it was also the right thing to do.
In practice, porn and other Hollywood filth should morally have no ip protection. I would rather not debate over where the line should be drawn on free speech and obscenity. Most everyone agrees it exists somewhere. For the early settlers, it might have been an exposed thigh. For baby boomers it might have been penetration. For generation X it may be child porn, rape or other obscenities; but most people have a line where they admit free speech does not apply. My point is that even if free speech should apply, that does not mean there is any necessity to grant ip protection.
Perhaps it is right to respect Hollywood’s ip rights as long as there is some similitude of law and order. Perhaps we should never download a Hollywood movie without paying what the copyright owner demands as long as open war is not upon us. Beyond that I am sure that such well-defined lines blur. And my opinion is that open war is a real and near possibility.
Law abiding citizens do not go around shooting people arbitrarily, but they will not think twice about it if a criminal is busting down their door. Likewise, I have little sympathy for Hollywood’s “rights” when they are committing illegal attacks against conservatives’ right to work in that industry. I do not think this lack of respect represents any kind of tyranny.
Do you feel that this country was under such “tyranny” regarding porn during the prior century and longer? Was it Clinton that ended this tyranny for you?
Do you feel Michelangelo's David is pornography? Who decides? How? Just because you like the outcome doesn't mean that it isn't tyranny.
We would not even need to outlaw obscenity to reduce its influence. Just remove the ip protection.
So, you would have a Federal bureaucrat with his fingers trembling over his keyboard deciding who could speak and who could not. As long as said bureaucrat was doing what you wanted it would be OK. I see. You don't see any hazard in that.
Just because something is considered protected speech under the first amendment does not automatically grant intellectual property right protection UNDER the constitution. This is just like the fact that copyright protection does create a limit on free speech.
That's actually an interesting argument, one that the Congress could address under the Constitution.
Free speech though is an extension of natural law. Ip protections are merely a cooperative agreement. Further, they are limited in scope to a constitutional imperative: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”.
I think that distinction a false one. You are conflating communication with copyright protection.
So, if something is exempt from obscenity laws, it is considered free speech. So why is anyone obligated to NOT copy and disseminate something that IS free speech?
Under Article I Section 8 obscenity laws are a local matter, not Federal. Congress has no power to regulate free speech. As you correctly pointed out, they have no obligation to protect it either.
So, how are these copyright laws valid if they do not meet the imperative to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts?
Is Michelangelo's David "useful"? You have just swept away copyright protection for the entire music and movie industry. Yet there are many who could make a strong argument that the protection of their property has in fact been useful to industry; else the consumer electronics business would not exist upon which was built the computer industry. Even porn. Porn built the Internet.
The question becomes relevant when we begin asking questions like the founders. They knew how they were being treated was unjust. They tried legal processes to no avail. They tried appeals, arguments, protests, again to no avail. Finally, they decided they could endure no more. Now that is the time these things become relevant. Do we honor the debts of a nation which has to be overthrown? Which ones? Do we punish people for committing crimes against humanity even if what they did was technically legal?
Too many issues for one discussion. I'll stick with the topic.
You do realize don’t you that the Revolution was illegal? But it was also the right thing to do.
You are stretching history into the irrelevant as if it constitutes a basis for violating copyright law. So be it. If you choose to violate copyright you risk being prosecuted and punished for said crime. Nobody is stopping you there any more than the Founders. Go for it. Don't expect me to approve as if you are some champion for a subjective standard of morality.
Even the Supreme Court had to revert to "I know it when I see it," which makes evident exactly the problem. Yet we are slowly winning on the abortion issue not by banning medical procedures but by changing people's hearts. Accordingly, I suggest you focus your attentions there because there is no number of laws sufficient to prevent a weak heart descending to evil.
In practice, porn and other Hollywood filth should morally have no ip protection. I would rather not debate over where the line should be drawn on free speech and obscenity. Most everyone agrees it exists somewhere.
Here you admit the flaw in your entire argument. You would prefer not to argue it because once the power is legislated that is EXACTLY what you MUST do in EVERY single case because you are relying upon police powers to enforce your preferences a line MUST be drawn that the producer can understand. It is endless without changing people's hearts. Instead, go after the perps in civil court for the damage they do when it occurs. I think there is an opportunity there.
The media claim their product has no influence upon human behavior, particularly when some heinous crime is committed. Yet they sell hundreds of billions in advertising upon the basis that it absolutely and measurably does. There is your window into civil liability.
My point is that even if free speech should apply, that does not mean there is any necessity to grant ip protection.
The only difference is the medium. It is akin to offering that one can say anything they want as long as it is not within earshot; else you will deny them air.
My point is that even if free speech should apply, that does not mean there is any necessity to grant ip protection.
There is no such thing as "ip protection;' there is copyright protection and ip ACCESS, which you would deny. That is an act of intervention into the marketplace via the use of police powers upon a standard that is arbitrary. It is a twisted and dishonest argument.
I do not think this lack of respect represents any kind of tyranny.
The enforcement process does, no matter what you "think."
“Do you feel Michelangelo’s David is pornography? Who decides? How?”
Perfect example. Michelangelo’s works are NOT protected by copyright. Anyone in the world can make a replica without infringing. That is not going to make a one-of-a-kind masterpiece any less valuable though. But if you make a copy of a copy, you might get sued. That is, Standford University has 3d scans of these works which ARE protected under copyright law, just like translations of famous literature are.
I have been to see this piece and other famous works of art in person, and no, I do not think it is pornographic. At the same time, I would not want a similar statue adorning the local elementary. But that is the local community standard you advocate - decency. Decency is a personal view and becomes a family and community standard by the principle of freedom of association. That is, if I do not want to have to see or have my family see billboards displaying half naked models promoting a chat line, I should be able to form a community of like-minded people where it is not allowed to advertise this way.
Your question does not seem to come from a conservative perspective. It sounds like something a liberal or libertarian might ask. You are aware that there is such a thing as pornography, right? Just like there is such a thing as robbery or murder or assault or fraud. A lot of it has to do with intent. Are you claiming that pornography is impossible to define so we should not have any laws regarding it? Imagery designed to titillate or otherwise cause sexual arousal would be pornographic. It is based on the intent rather than the effect.
Decency is more subjective. It is a personal and community standard. Obscenity is a different standard which has to do with criminal standards for sexual (and other) conduct. Rape is a crime. To create images of it and make a profit from it is also criminal. Child pornography is a crime. There were other standards in the past that would have landed a large percentage of Internet pornographers in jail.
“So, you would have a Federal bureaucrat with his fingers trembling over his keyboard deciding who could speak and who could not.”
Wow, you built the straw man and then set him on fire, you arsonist, you. I am talking about taking away their ownership of their “speech” rather than their ability to speak. There is a huge difference. They are opposite really. Do federal laws restricting child pornography cause the overwhelming restrictions on free speech you are describing? Are you okay with child porn just as long as the pornographer gets his fair share of the royalties? If not, then what is your basis of what should be protected speech and what should not? And what (so-called) speech should or should not be criminal (if porn is truly a form of speech)?
“I think that distinction a false one. You are conflating communication with copyright protection.”
Copyright, patents and trademarks must be registered in order to receive protection. Trade secrets can be protected by non-disclosure agreements and using appropriate measures to safeguard real secrets. If someone tells you a great idea for a business, story, or invention, you are free to repeat it to anyone you wish or to implement these ideas unless ip protection has been implemented in some form. This could be as simple as getting a verbal agreement not to compete or disclose, but that might not stand up in court.
“You have just swept away copyright protection for the entire music and movie industry. Yet there are many who could make a strong argument that the protection of their property has in fact been useful to industry; else the consumer electronics business would not exist upon which was built the computer industry.”
You may have misunderstood the point. I am not arguing that the courts should strike down existing ip laws because they may not meet some “usefulness” test. I am saying it is the duty of Congress to make laws that serve the people in general. Hollywood gets the full weight and force of our federal government to insure they are making profits from their goods. What do taxpayers get in return for this? This is different than law enforcement providing for our protection and defense which we all enjoy. It is similar to Congress granting easement rights to the cable companies back in the eighties I think, where they could run cable lines on everyone’s private property. What did land owners get in return? Public access television, that’s what. Not a good deal. Legal, but a bad deal for Americans. Congress should have told the cable industry that all locally broadcast T.V. stations had to be carried and available for free to every landowner whose land was affected by the easement. I am not talking about what is Constitutionally legal, just what makes good legal sense under the Constitution.
“Porn built the Internet.”
Well, your or my ancestors may have produced our lineage through incest, but that does not make it a good thing. I hope you are not going to try to make a case for porn being beneficial to society here on a conservative, family-friendly forum.
“Here you admit the flaw in your entire argument. You would prefer not to argue it because once the power is legislated that is EXACTLY what you MUST do in EVERY single case because you are relying upon police powers to enforce your preferences a line MUST be drawn that the producer can understand.”
I disagree. There are plenty of ambiguous laws. That does not mean it is a good thing. As I said above, these things can be defined so that there is little room for knowing when the line is crossed. Again, as I said earlier, porn depicting penetration was considered obscenity (a crime) up until Clinton decided not to enforce the laws. I Dream of Genie was the first T.V. show to allow a woman’s belly to be shown on public television (she had her navel covered when the show began), because it was considered indecent to broadcast this. A lot of these views changed culturally in the sixties.
“If you choose to violate copyright you risk being prosecuted and punished for said crime. Nobody is stopping you there any more than the Founders. Go for it. Don’t expect me to approve as if you are some champion for a subjective standard of morality.”
I already answered earlier that a general support of copyright law was the conservative position and if something is worth watching, it is probably worth paying for the right to do so.
“Yet we are slowly winning on the abortion issue not by banning medical procedures but by changing people’s hearts. Accordingly, I suggest you focus your attentions there because there is no number of laws sufficient to prevent a weak heart descending to evil.”
Excellent point. I agree with you on that 100%.
“There is your window into civil liability.”
If a clear distinction of what is decent or obscene is difficult, civil liability to the entertainment industry would be even more difficult. But you might have a good idea; so I think I would support the attempt. Couldn’t hurt.
“The only difference is the medium. It is akin to offering that one can say anything they want as long as it is not within earshot; else you will deny them air... There is no such thing as “ip protection;’ there is copyright protection and ip ACCESS, which you would deny.”
That comparison does not even begin to hold up. Denying someone air is killing a person. I am starting to wonder if you understood what I was saying. Ip = intellectual property. Perhaps you thought I meant Internet protocol. Both abbreviations are correct in context, but I am not talking about freedom of speech online. I am talking about the opposite - ip really is the freedom to restrict the speech of others in limited cases.
Ip includes, among other things, copyright, trademark, patent and legal enforcement of nondisclosure agreements. These are intended to allow government supported monopolies for a LIMITED time. It was never meant for companies like Microsoft to parlay their patents into a never-ending monopoly which is based on manipulating ip rather than true competition in the marketplace through innovation.
I think it is unfortunate that when conservatives lost the culture war regarding obscenity laws, we did not fall back to the next line of defense by making it difficult for pornographers to make huge money through government sanctioned restrictions on free speech (i.e. the restriction of copying publicly shared ideas and speech). But it might not be too late. There might be enough people who could come to see the light on removing ip protection from porn. That wold not be a limitation on free speech, but an expansion of it.
That is a perfect example of a dishonest dodge. The point to which I was replying was about pornography, not copyright. Therefore, I have no further time for discussion with you as I have little time to waste.
“That is a perfect example of a dishonest dodge. The point to which I was replying was about pornography, not copyright.”
No, you are the dishonest one. And your refusal to engage in an honest debate shows you are willingly ignorant. Ignorance can be remedied by someone willing to learn but not by the blind who refuse to see.
Our conversation was clearly about copyright.
Here are YOUR words in post 56 to which I was replying:
“Is Michelangelo’s David ‘useful’? You have just swept away copyright protection for the entire music and movie industry.”
You used the term copyright 5 times in that post.You mentioned porn twice and pornography once.
You specifically did go into lots of discussion about copyright and did not even correctly identify what ip means. Type “ip law”, “ip copyright”, “ip patent”, or “ip constitution” into Google, and you will learn the correct meaning. It is not an abbreviation I made up.
Further, if you took the time to read a clear, honest, intellectual response to your comment you would see that I also plainly answered your question about whether this piece is pornographic. I answered very explicitly in the first line of the second paragraph. As I also pointed out, this is a work of art I traveled to see as well.
For someone with his panties in a wad about my supposed attack on free speech, which supposition was based on your completely false understanding of what ip is, it is pretty hypocritical for you to slam the door in my face without the honesty and integrity to even read the response AND THEN CALL ME A LIAR without even knowing what I said.
Apparently your idea of free speech is you talking, not listening, and wasting other people’s time because your time is more important than everyone else.
“He who answers a matter before he hears it. It is a folly and shame to him.” —Proverbs 18:13
I posted this to remind YOU, unlearner, that EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion whether you agree with it or not.
Simply put: Matthew 7:1
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
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