Pockets of Sanity
The BBC reports that Cyprus MPs reject EU-IMF bailout tax on bank depositors. The problem is two banks in Cyprus who got caught up in the disaster in Greece, but depositors in all of the banks on Cyprus were targeted. Apparently the EU [European Union] is trying to grab money from Russians that is deposited in Cypriot banks. The Russians will react by moving their money elsewhere, which will weaken the entire financial system in Cyprus.
They have extended the ‘bank holiday’ until Thursday, but the ATMs in Cyprus are empty, and the British government is flying in cash for British personnel stationed on the island. In addition to everything else there is now a liquidity crisis there.
I’m beginning to wonder if the EU isn’t trying to eliminate the Euro.
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In a win for reality, the EFF reports You Bought It, You Own It: Supreme Court Victory for Common Sense and Owners’ Rights. The case was Kirtsaeng v. Wiley, in which Wiley, a publisher was attempting to claim that Kirtsaeng couldn’t resell textbooks that he bought in Thailand in the US. The Court said that if you bought a legal copy, it is yours and you can lend or sell it without regard to geography.
Big media keeps pushing the idea that you are only ‘renting’ the copyrighted books, and media that you purchase, and you have no right to transfer them to others. Hopefully the pendulum is about to swing away from that insanity back into reality.
2 comments
If you read the copyright notice in the front of a recently published book, the publishers’ lawyers make some truly astonishing claims that in my limited understanding (IANAL, and most certainly IANAIPL) are simply not supported by copyright law, not even the draconian nightmare that is copyright law today. Things have gotten to the point that I mostly do not sell my used books, and when I do sell them, I go to great lengths to eradicate all evidence that I ever owned that copy (um, I mean, that I was ever the holder of a license to read that copy).
The corollary to that, which publishers seem not to realize, is that I buy far fewer books than I used to, restricting myself to those few books that I am willing to keep around for my lifetime. That works out to about two new books a year, down from perhaps two dozen or more a year. I hope the publishers are pleased with what they’ve wrought…
The media conglomerate is destroying their market with their attempts to squeeze the last dime out of their customers. The situation was clarified in this decision – if an authorized copy is sold, it belongs to the buyer. They don’t have the right to copy it, but they can do what they want with the copy they bought.
If the publishers keep attacking their customers, they will find fewer customers willing to put up with it.