We know what's on the other side of the fence, given both the date and the policy decisions in DC, right? Or at least one might, rather forlornly hope that those policy decisions are being driven more by overindulgence in mild hallucinogens and intoxicants than by, say, fundamental character defects — not excluding those sniping. Maybe we just disagree on definitions:
- I am still refraining from much comment concerning the merits — practically and theoretically — of the Bartz v. Anthropic lawsuit. The publicly-accessible reason is that I have conflicts that make most such public statements inappropriate, at least prior to the fairness hearing next month. The less-publicly-accessible reasons, however, are quite a bit more theoretical with distressing practical hooks. One of those underlies a recent parallel action, in which the proprietors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series have sued separately — and it has taken me a month to make this comment marginally civil.
The CSS parallel lawsuit exposes two critical, self-defeating, and self-aggrandizing problems with the way American copyright law has developed. That exposure, however, is in the end less about copyright law itself than about who makes it — and who doesn't. American copyright law as it has developed has made the proprietors of CSS copyright claimants with standing to sue, because the misbegotten work-made-for-hire doctrine makes them the owners of the compilations at issue… and abusive (but nonetheless so common as to be default) contracts have made them the owners of the individual-piece copyrights. Or, at least, owners under judicial and Congressional decisions reifying their colonial-master interests notwithstanding the Constitutional definition of the protected parties (which the remainder of that commentary elides — at best).
In a truly just world, both sides would lose, and all relief would be granted to others for their various misconduct. But as they'd have to lose to parties not before the court — those "indigenous peoples" who weren't at the table, both the authors and the public — this is nowhere near a just world. The irony of inserting "justice" (and "ethics") into these musings given the prior conduct of the particular parties is too much for a wartime-in-all-but-name Monday morning. Not to mention that this is the civil version…
- At least in the copyright arena, the conflicts of interest are about 0.5 removes from the underlying subject matter. Not so much with business disparagement, in which the conflict of interest all too often is the actual subject.
- Then there's the complete mislabelling of what's actually going on in the author-turns-down-prize brouhaha. The mislabelling begins with the word "prize": It's not a "prize," but a "paid celebrity endorsement opportunity." And viewed in that light, Ms DeWitt's rejection of the "opportunity" is far more understandable. For all the abuse, at least actors are being paid for and are directly connected to their products on film tours… author tours in support of outside-sponsored "book" or "writing" awards, not so much. (And we're just not going to go into the opportunities for dubious conduct on tours, either.)
- Despite my lack of academic credentials in the discipline, I must profoundly disagree with Professor Larsen's assertion that there's no such thing as a "psychopath". It's perhaps possible to view his position as saying that the term is misdefined, at least in the public imagination; or that what is general known as a "psychopath" should instead be termed "sociopath not amenable to internalization of adverse social-personal consequences," a description both infelicitous and incomplete. It's also perhaps possible that the disagreement arises from experiential and professional interfaces that differ between encountering those who categorically disregard adverse impacts on third parties in pursuit of their own interests and those who relish those adverse impacts on third parties as demonstrating their own worth. "Disregard the bad" is fundamentally different from "aspiring to supervillainy." Now I'm not accusing any particular individuals in world governments (now or in the past) of that latter — oh, wait, yes I am…
- The most obvious response to losing the war on poverty is a war on fraud, right? Probably only if one has been overindulging in the allegedly mild hallucinogen that's this date's subject after attempted eradication in another failed war.