Thoughts on Copyright Policy Methodolgy

My Dear Enigma, no one has blacklisted your comments from anywhere to my knowledge. You are welcome to rave here, or there, or anywhere, to your heart's content, so long as you make some kind of substantive point and avoid potty language. I have recovered my temper, though I do think that this conversation would be more productive if you would give up on the paranoia.

You are, I am afraid, rather completely missing the point I made in my posts about think tanks and funding. In a nutshell, no one is going to work for peanuts at a nonprofit if they do not believe in what they are doing. Anyone willing to work as a lobbyist or lawyer is going to be working as a lobbyist or lawyer and earning the commensurately huge salaries. For more detail, I encourage you to go back and read my post again.

If you want to do further research, consider the following:

a) Check the amount of money contributed to environment causes (and other causes) by corporations. If you are going to be paranoid, do at least be consistent.

b) The reason that many organizations keep their donors private is because individuals and corporations may hesitate to contribute to controversial causes if they are public. Ask the NAACP.

c) As far as organizational needs go, the amounts of money that you have listed above are actually pretty small. They would cover maybe the organizational costs of one conference, or the salary of one employee for a year.

Cheers,
SS

Since IP CENTRAL has shown their true colors by blacklisting me from their comments (apparently malicious" means pointing out their bias) so here is the comment to Solveig's post. The discussion at IP Central has taken it on to the topic of bias in think tanks, which is topical althoouugh different than the subject matter is germane to processes.

I would urge TLF not to link to IPCentral any more, as it is a kind of a fake 'forum' that apparently allows comments, but in reality does NOT.

Solveig:

I rather like Patrick Ross's comment:

"...because in today's world if we make a joke we're mocking tireless champions of (fill in the blank)."

as it suggests we should all be a little less thin skinned. IPCentral
has said many worse things about RMS, for example, than allude to the
fact that there is a 'party-line' at IP Central, so I don't think an
apology is called for.

As an Architect, I made a career choice that was not (primarily)
motivated by expected monetary rewards, so your choice to work for less
monetary compensation merits you no special consideration than others
who make the same choice. I would hope however that you re-direct your
efforts to better benefit society.

As for Global Warming the there are several other "think-tanks" involved
in Global Warming denial: for example the Heritage Foundation, and
several others, just look at www.sourcewatch.org, and read the web sites
of the various think-tanks, whose own words condemn them. All the ones
that deny Global Warming receive substantial funding from Big Oil.

CEI, for example, receives super huge infusions from Exxon:

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has been one of the main
groups opposing action by the U.S. government to curb greenhouse gas
emissions. CEI has been well funded for this work by companies such as
ExxonMobil." (www.sourcewatch.org)

Exxon's Cash Pipeline to CEI

Exxonsecrets.org lists Exxon's funding of CEI, based on data released by
the company itself, as totalling $2,005,000 since 1998. [9] The specific
year-by-year fugures are:

* 1998: $85,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving
* 2000: $230,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
* 2001: $280,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
* 2002: $205,000 ExxonMobil Foundation: This was identified as being for
"50K congressional briefing program, 140K general operating support, 60K
legal activities";
* 2002: $200,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving' This was identified as
"140K general operating support, 60K for legal activities;"
* 2003: $25,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving for "Annual Dinner"
* 2003: $440,000 ExxonMobil Foundation for "General Operating Support";
* 2004: $90,000 ExxonMobil Foundation for "General Operating Support"
* 2004: $90,000 ExxonMobil Foundation for "Global Climate Change"
* 2004: $90000 ExxonMobil Foundation for "Global Climate Change
Outreach"
* 2005: $90,000 ExxonMobil Foundation for "General Operating Support"
* 2005: $180,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving for "General Operating
Support"

And these are just the ones that Exxon secrets has been able to uncover.
Why does CEI try to keep their funding so secret, if there is nothing
to be ashamed of?

Now Solveig, are you really saying that CEI campaign against Global
Warming Science is unrelated to this massive cash flow??? Please.

Its a two way street.

Unless, of course, you want to comment on the IPCentral Website, in which case it is a decidely one way, dead-end. (joke Solveig)

But there is another aspect too.

Consider the site allofmp3.com. It is doing a great job of researching an alternative pricing structure, for the content industry.

Now if they will just listen...

Soveig: Read "The Effect of File Sharing on Record sales An Empirical Analysis" by Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf.
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_Ma...

In examining this issue, I hope that you would also consider bad consumer business practices by the content industry on the consumer in your study. The consumer also suffers an economic loss when companies do bad things. Its a two way street.