January 2003 - mathfun@mailman.xmission.com

[math-fun] copyright topic - ground rules
by Richard Schroeppel 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

As list moderator, I've decided that copyright is somewhat on-topic since it affects (some of) our working conditions. However, I also agree with Dan Hoey that it isn't math. In order to keep our tempers about us, I'll impose the following rules for this instance of this topic: a) A limit of one more message per person. b) Time limit: 72 hours. Nothing after Sunday night (Jan 19). c) Trim replies: there's no need to repeat the whole discussion in each reply. d) Try to say something new. e) Try to sound pleasant. For those who want to read about the case, there's a web site (eldred.cc) set up by the plaintiffs that seems to have most of the legal filings, including arguments by the other side. For those who are sick of it, I think the Math-Fun web page has a "vacation" option to temporarily shut off the mail. Rich rcs(a)cs.arizona.edu

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Re: [math-fun] Copyright extension
by asimovd＠aol.com 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

Dan, There seems to be a considerable interest in this topic. If it leaves you cold, why not just delete the posts with subject line as above? Regards, Dan

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[math-fun] How big is a Gibibyte?
by Thane Plambeck 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

We engineers have long suffered from the confusion resulting from the regretable fact that powers of two are not also powers of ten. The IEEE has a draft standard "Standard Prefixes for Binary Multiples" http://www.ieee802.org/secmail/pdf00106.pdf that would clear up the nomenclature surrounding multiplication by 2^(10n). Unfortunately, I can't quite get myself to utter "kibibyte" without thinking of dog snacks. Here's an excerpt from the Draft standard, in the "Applications" section: * * * * Q: The formatted capacity of my hard drive seems smaller than what was ordered. Why? A: Your operating system assumes that 1 MB equals 1 048 576 bytes. Drive manufacturers consider 1 MB as equal to 1 000 000 bytes. Thus if the drive is advertised as 6.4 gigabytes (6 400 000 000 bytes) the operating system sees it as approximately 6.1 GB. [(6 400 000 000)/(1 048 576 000) = 6.1035...]. Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.qxmail.com/home.htm

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Re: [math-fun] Copyright extension
by Dan Hoey 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

Every person has an opinion about what copyright law is, and what it should be. Most of the opinions differ. Most of the former are erroneous, and most of the latter are wrong-headed. What makes any of us think anyone subscribed to math-fun to hear our erroneous, wrong-headed opinions on a subject we know so little about? Dan

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Re: [math-fun] Copyright extension
by Henry Baker 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

There appear to be at least two issues: * Whether the extension actually induces more creativity * Whether the extension exceeds "limited" It is clear that no amount of extending can coerce Walt Disney to create more cartoons -- he's dead, and so are all the other authors and artists whose work is at issue. So this doesn't pass the "smell test". It is also clear that _retroactively_ extending can't coerce people to create more, since they couldn't possibly have known about it at the time. So this doesn't pass the "smell test", either. There used to be a legal notion of "no perpetuities", which led to limitations such as 100 year bonds, etc. In England, I believe that leases run 99 years for the same reason. At 95 years, we're pretty close to bumping up against that limit, so unless people's average lifespans quickly get extended by modern medicine, it may be difficult for Congress to extend this again. Re people's lifetimes--we may already be at the point where an author may never "die". What if we found some living DNA for Walt Disney and cloned him? Perhaps we could coerce a bit more creativity out of him... It's already a cinch that we'll see Ted Williams out on the baseball fields again. At 10:06 AM 1/16/03 -0500, Bernie Cosell wrote: >On 16 Jan 2003 at 9:44, Michael Kleber wrote: > >> Bernie Cosell wrote: >> >> > Second, as a general rule, the Supreme Court very rarely intrudes on >> > Congress's >> > discretion to "interpret" things, and so it was always unlikely that >> > SCOTUS >> > would get involved in the hairsplitting of "100 yrs is OK, but 110 is >> > not, and >> > life +70 is too long, but maybe life +50 isn't" -- they would view >> > that, quite >> > properly, IMO, as a political question best resolved by Congress rather >> > than a >> > judicial matter cast in concrete by a court decision. >> >> But let's be mathematicians for a moment. Eventually something must >> deal with the fact that the constitutionsays copyright terms cannot be >> infinite but can, de facto, be unbounded. So while each extension of >> the copyright term is itself constitutional, congress could >> hypothetically >> extend it for 20 years every 20 years, and that has the same effect as >> a single clearly unconstitutional action. > >Why is it clearly unconstitutional? Being mathematicians again, since there is >a difference between "finite but unbounded" and "not finite" why couldn't the >former be constitutional even if the latter is not? > > /Bernie\ > >-- >Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers >mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA > --> Too many people, too few sheep <--

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Re: [math-fun] Copyright extension
by Henry Baker 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

It's very likely that everyone on the Court and everyone in the Senate who voted for this thing will not survive until 2020. It's called "passing the buck to the next generation". It seems to be done a lot -- e.g., the Social Security problem. At 09:44 AM 1/16/03 -0500, Michael Kleber wrote: >But let's be mathematicians for a moment. Eventually something must >deal with the fact that the constitutionsays copyright terms cannot be >infinite but can, de facto, be unbounded. So while each extension of >the copyright term is itself constitutional, congress could >hypothetically >extend it for 20 years every 20 years, and that has the same effect as >a single clearly unconstitutional action. > >How can this get resolved? Surely it is the domain of the supreme >court -- >or maybe of the direct limit of all supreme courts :-)...

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[math-fun] Copyright extension
by asimovd＠aol.com 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

The Supreme Court just blessed the law of 1998 extending the 75 years of copyright protection to 95 years. (See <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/15/business/15CND-COPY.html>.) This isn't great news for The People, who benefit by having works fall into the public domain. Question: What happens to works that received their copyright between 1909 and 1922 ? These fell into the public domain before the 1998 law, but were copyrighted less than 95 years ago. Do they stay in the public domain or revert to the copyright holders? --Dan

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Re: [math-fun] Copyright extension
by Henry Baker 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

It's not right-wing v. left-wing -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority decision, and she's not normally considered right-wing. I think that the Supremes were much more worried about things like the balance of trade -- Hollywood is one of the few US industries that has a positive trade balance with the rest of the world. As usual, the prospect of very real and imminent damage to a particular group v. very dispersed and not-well-understood gains for society at large, meant that they would try for damage control. Also, the Supremes have grandchildren & great grandchildren who want to opportunity to go to Disneyland -- where would Disneyland be without Mickey? ;-) At 03:21 PM 1/15/03 -0800, Steve Gray wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: <asimovd(a)aol.com> >To: <math-fun(a)mailman.xmission.com> >Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 1:55 PM >Subject: [math-fun] Copyright extension > >> The Supreme Court just blessed the law of 1998 extending the 75 years of >> copyright protection to 95 years. >> >> (See <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/15/business/15CND-COPY.html>.) >> >> This isn't great news for The People, who benefit by having works fall >into >> the public domain. > >GRAY: > And in about 2020, if the congress then is as disgustingly corrupt as >the present one, they will extend it to maybe 200 years. (Why fool around >with small increases?) And if the Supremes are as dominated by right-wing >ideologues as they are now, the extension will be blessed again.

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[math-fun] judit polgar
by Thane Plambeck 16 Jan '03

16 Jan '03

She took the lead today in the prestigious Corus Chess tournament at Wijk Aan Zee. She's by far the strongest woman chess player ever. This tournament has the current world champion(s) Kramnik and Ponomariov in it. She beat ex world Champion Karpov today, finding a novelty "over the board" as we chess junkies say http://www.corusgroup.com/coruschess/ Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.qxmail.com/home.htm

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[math-fun] rectangle folding puzzle
by Scott Huddleston 15 Jan '03

15 Jan '03

Let ABCD be the vertices of a paper rectangle, in cyclic order, with |BC| >= |AB|. Fold the paper so vertex A lies on side BC. Let X and Y be the points where the fold intersects the boundary of ABCD. What is the minimum value of |XY|, and what fold(s) achieve it? Enjoy, - Scott

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