It's official. Australian is not English.



  • Found this on the pizza we bought tonight. I was reading through the 11 different languages the ingredients were translated into... and then found this.

    Clearly Australians don't speak the English language any more.

     pizza

     

    (click for full size)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Well either the translator got a few things wrong, or there are different labelling requirements for .au.

    What I find more amusing is that Gaeilge seems very much like English....



  • Nothing special. Different countries have different laws regarding food labeling. As you can see, for Australia, there is a warning regarding "contains gluten, soy products..." and in GB there isn't. It's probaby much easier to make a seperate text for each country than trying to find a text that fullfills all requirements.

    What I really like about the Australian text is the use of nested parentheses for the cheese.



  • @ammoQ said:

    What I really like about the Australian text is the use of nested parentheses for the cheese.
     

    Yes! This and the fact that we seem to read backwards in comparison to UK English (22% chopped tomatoes vs chopped tomatoes 22%) .

    I could understand the EU vs AU legal requirements but yes, Gaelic seems to have changed since I last saw it.



  •  This reminds me of something I saw last night. (I'm in Czech Republic) It was an imported miso soup, with ingredients listed in several languages on the box and a sticker over the top with the Czech ingredients. The Czech had only about half of what was listed in English. One of the items missing from the Czech was 'fish' - something important for me, since I'm a vegetarian (real vegetarian, no fish no chicken). Makes me wonder what other 'mistakes' are out there. And what would happen if someone had a bad allergic reaction to something listed on the box but not the Czech translation.  Sorry, it's OT, but just reminded me.



  • @Nyquist said:

    Filed under: She just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
    TRWTF is in those guys being sued more than a quarter-century after the facts. I'm not taking sides on the matter, but I think the whole situation is just pathetic.

     

     

    @Mel said:

    Sorry, it's OT
    You must be new here.@Mel said:
    Joined on 11 Oct 2007
    Oh.



  • @Mel said:

    Makes me wonder what other 'mistakes' are out there. And what would happen if someone had a bad allergic reaction to something listed on the box but not the Czech translation.

    That's why the Aus and UK versions are so legalistic. I'm surprised they don't also have 'may have been waved somewhere vaguely within 1km of a sealed packed of nuts'. 

    Then again I'm allergic to fish, so I wouldn't have wanted to pick your product... 

      Sorry, it's OT, but just reminded me.
     

    Welcome to TDWTF where nothing is OT.



  • @Zecc said:

    @Nyquist said:
    Filed under: She just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
    TRWTF is in those guys being sued more than a quarter-century after the facts. I'm not taking sides on the matter, but I think the whole situation is just pathetic.
     

    Actually thats what got me quoting them... I was just reading about the verdict last night. I have to side with Colin Hay and say it was "opportunistic greed" on the part of Larrikin Music.



  • The Australian version also has more ingredients than the English/Irish - hydrolised soya AND protein, as opposed to just hydrolised soya protein.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Nyquist said:

    That's why the Aus and UK versions are so legalistic. I'm surprised they don't also have 'may have been waved somewhere vaguely within 1km of a sealed packed of nuts'. 
    Peanut butter. May contain traces of nuts



    Bottle of milk. Allergy advice: Contains milk.



    That is all.



  • @Nyquist said:

    @Zecc said:

    @Nyquist said:
    Filed under: She just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
    TRWTF is in those guys being sued more than a quarter-century after the facts. I'm not taking sides on the matter, but I think the whole situation is just pathetic.
     

    Actually thats what got me quoting them... I was just reading about the verdict last night. I have to side with Colin Hay and say it was "opportunistic greed" on the part of Larrikin Music.

    I have a real problem with copyright (A) being transferrable from the original artist and (B) extending beyond the author's lifespan.  The entire purpose of copyright is to reward and protect the artist, in order to ensure the artist's continued production of artistic work.  Unfortunately, enitire industries have been created to abuse the copyright system.  Of course I also object to corporations being considered as having equal rights and priveldges as individuals.



  • @Nyquist said:

    the fact that we seem to read backwards in comparison to UK English

    Well of course you do, you're upside down!

    (Was that too obvious?)



  • @Medezark said:

    @Nyquist said:

    @Zecc said:

    @Nyquist said:
    Filed under: She just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
    TRWTF is in those guys being sued more than a quarter-century after the facts. I'm not taking sides on the matter, but I think the whole situation is just pathetic.
     

    Actually thats what got me quoting them... I was just reading about the verdict last night. I have to side with Colin Hay and say it was "opportunistic greed" on the part of Larrikin Music.

    I have a real problem with copyright (A) being transferrable from the original artist and (B) extending beyond the author's lifespan.  The entire purpose of copyright is to reward and protect the artist, in order to ensure the artist's continued production of artistic work.  Unfortunately, enitire industries have been created to abuse the copyright system.  Of course I also object to corporations being considered as having equal rights and priveldges as individuals.

    Well just wait, corporations will soon actually hold US Congressional Seats: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/28/corporation-election/



  • @PJH said:

    Peanut butter. May contain traces of nuts
     

    To be fair, peanuts are not actually nuts in a biological sense; the plant is a member of the family Fabaceae (beans).



  • @rad131304 said:

    Well just wait, corporations will soon actually hold US Congressional Seats: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/28/corporation-election/

    Right, because "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." is vague and open alternative interpretations, such as ones where Congress does make laws that abridge the freedom of speech and the right of people to assemble and petition.  Clearly, the founders realized that rights are great for individuals acting alone, but as soon as two individuals cooperate towards a common goal they become a threat and their rights must be curtailed.  A threat to what?  The power of the government; you know, that group of individuals cooperating towards common goals.  Except, when people are working together under the banner of the government, they retain rights that are stripped from individuals who attempt to do the same in the private sphere.  Yep, that sounds like what the Framers had in mind.

     

    I find it interesting that most of the people complaining about this don't mention that the media is entirely comprised of organizations of individuals who rely on the First Amendment to influence people.  I suppose there's an exception for them hidden between the lines of the First Amendment; as well as ones for unions, churches, non-profits, etc..  Hell, let's just rewrite that troublesome amendment the way Liberals want: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, of the media, the government, the unions, the non-profits, oh, and I suppose for individuals who act alone since they're weak enough to not pose a threat that way; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble (you know, alone, all by themselves, not in a group or anything), and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances entirely on their own, one-by-one, because it's a lot easier to ignore them that way."

     

    Why, that's the American way; just like when the Patriots individually composed and signed their own Declarations of Independence and sent them to King George III, with the appropriate delay between each one, of course.



  • @Medezark said:

    (B) extending beyond the author's lifespan.

    So if I spend 20 years working on the Great American Novel and then die, my children shouldn't get a single red cent?  Yeah, that's real sensible.  Although, I do tend to agree the term for copyright has been extended too long.

     

    @Medezark said:

    The entire purpose of copyright is to reward and protect the artist, in order to ensure the artist's continued production of artistic work.

    Right, and it does.  Part of what does that is the ability to transfer copyright.  Imagine how useful property rights would be if you couldn't sell anything you owned.  If you aren't allowed to transfer ownership of something, then you don't really own it; it's just a government-granted privilege, then, and not a right.

     

    @Medezark said:

    Of course I also object to corporations being considered as having equal rights and priveldges as individuals.

    Right, because when two or more people work together towards a common goal, they immediately lose all protections and rights they would enjoy individually.  That sounds like a winning idea for encouraging cooperation.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @rad131304 said:

    Well just wait, corporations will soon actually hold US Congressional Seats: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/28/corporation-election/

    Right, because "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of
    speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
    assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." is vague and open alternative interpretations, such as ones where Congress does make laws that abridge the freedom of speech and the right of people to assemble and petition.  Clearly, the founders realized that rights are great for individuals acting alone, but as soon as two individuals cooperate towards a common goal they become a threat and their rights must be curtailed.  A threat to what?  The power of the government; you know, that group of individuals cooperating towards common goals.  Except, when people are working together under the banner of the government, they retain rights that are stripped from individuals who attempt to do the same in the private sphere.  Yep, that sounds like what the Framers had in mind.

    Actually, I'm sort of looking forward to the effects of this. After all, domestic companies already basically own as much of the government as they care to purchase (witness the TARP program, for one), so the main effect will be to allow foreign countries to use puppet companies to control US foreign policy. The Chinese and Japanese hold a heck of a lot of our treasury bills, and of course there are lots of oil-producing nations with some spare cash. So we'll see some changes around here which will at least be interesting: an end to any mention of immigration as an issue, maybe a bit less moronic saber-rattling, cutbacks on support for Israel... in fact, the Republican Party is going to change its character a lot very quickly, since they are (as they have been for decades) the party which explicitly sells out. (As opposed to the Democrats, who pretend they don't.) Of course, there will be a large downside, too -- after all, the Supreme Court has already ruled (in Kelo vs. City of New London) that government can collude with companies and take private property away for the benefit of those companies, so we'll be seeing a lot more of that sort of thing. And no doubt there will be even more weakening of environmental and sanitation controls, minimum wage, and workplace regulation, which will suck. (Before you disagree: remember that before those rules were put into place, things sucked so much in America that the American people -- who can barely be bothered to vote -- worked to get them put in place. So we're in for a world of suck, at least for a while.) But hey, we're asking for it.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Medezark said:

    (B) extending beyond the author's lifespan.

    So if I spend 20 years working on the Great American Novel and then die, my children shouldn't get a single red cent?  Yeah, that's real sensible.  Although, I do tend to agree the term for copyright has been extended too long.

    It's the long term PLUS the arbitrary transferrability of intellectual property that's the galling part. I don't mind, say, paying royalties to my favorite author's heirs. Presumably, my favorite author wanted them to have the money. And I don't mind too much having to pay royalties to Faceless Corporation X for something they had no hand in doing, provided it's only for a little while. But when my favorite author's heirs sell their rights to Faceless Corporation X outright, and they can collect royalties for 70 years, that's galling. And it hurts that there's no way to guarantee safe access to unclaimed works -- there's a lot of stuff out there where the author is dead, the author's heirs are unknown, the original publisher is long-defunct, nobody has expressed any interest in claiming royalties in decades, but the work can't be considered public domain. (This happens more than you might think.)



  • @El Disposo said:

    After all, domestic companies already basically own as much of the government as they care to purchase (witness the TARP program, for one), so the main effect will be to allow foreign countries to use puppet companies to control US foreign policy.

    There are still pretty strict limits on foreign money in elections.  The Supreme Court ruling didn't change that.

     

    @El Disposo said:

    The Chinese and Japanese hold a heck of a lot of our treasury bills...

    I'm not sure how that makes a difference.  Are you implying they would use Treasury securities to pay off politicians?  Look, the politicians know those things are worthless, they're not gonna take them.

     

    @El Disposo said:

    ...and of course there are lots of oil-producing nations with some spare cash.

    Aren't most of the oil-producing nations on the verge of financial collapse due to depressed oil prices?

     

    @El Disposo said:

    ...in fact, the Republican Party is going to change its character a lot very quickly, since they are (as they have been for decades) the party which explicitly sells out. (As opposed to the Democrats, who pretend they don't.)

    Might want to check your figures there.  Democrats have long been the preferred targets of big business efforts.  Big government favors big business.

     

    @El Disposo said:

    And no doubt there will be even more weakening of environmental and sanitation controls, minimum wage, and workplace regulation, which will suck. (Before you disagree: remember that before those rules were put into place, things sucked so much in America that the American people -- who can barely be bothered to vote -- worked to get them put in place. So we're in for a world of suck, at least for a while.)

    Minimum wage and a lot of workplace regulations are distinctly harmful to the economy and to workers.  The "weakening of environmental and sanitation controls" is an absurd talking point that has no basis in truth.  Most environmental regulation is the same now as it was 20 years ago.  Air and water quality are at the highest levels since the start of the industrial revolution.



  • @El Disposo said:

    It's the long term PLUS the arbitrary transferrability of intellectual property that's the galling part. I don't mind, say, paying royalties to my favorite author's heirs. Presumably, my favorite author wanted them to have the money. And I don't mind too much having to pay royalties to Faceless Corporation X for something they had no hand in doing, provided it's only for a little while. But when my favorite author's heirs sell their rights to Faceless Corporation X outright, and they can collect royalties for 70 years, that's galling. And it hurts that there's no way to guarantee safe access to unclaimed works -- there's a lot of stuff out there where the author is dead, the author's heirs are unknown, the original publisher is long-defunct, nobody has expressed any interest in claiming royalties in decades, but the work can't be considered public domain. (This happens more than you might think.)

    So, basically it's not at all the transferability, it's the lengthy terms.  Like I said.  You yourself say you don't mind paying heirs or other recipients of the copyright, so long as it isn't for 70 years.  And the only argument you sort of make in favor of ending transferability is that the death of the creator would shorten the term.  So, your basic beef is with the term, not the property right.  Next time, you might want to save us all some time and just reply with "Agreed." or "Once again, you are right, O' Wise and Beautiful Morbius."



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So if I spend 20 years working on the Great American Novel and then die, my children shouldn't get a single red cent?  Yeah, that's real sensible.  Although, I do tend to agree the term for copyright has been extended too long.
     

     

    Yup.  My dad worked 40 years as one of the world's best plumbers and when he dies I won't get getting any plumbing money.  If you spend 20 years working on that novel and die the day it is published, that's life.  Why should your children make money for nothing?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @El Disposo said:

    After all, domestic companies already basically own as much of the government as they care to purchase (witness the TARP program, for one), so the main effect will be to allow foreign countries to use puppet companies to control US foreign policy.

    There are still pretty strict limits on foreign money in elections.  The Supreme Court ruling didn't change that.

    Alas, you're wrong. The legal precedent shows that it is actually very easy for a nominally ordinary multinational corporation -- the kind now allowed to spend arbitrarily to influence elections -- to be basically owned by a foreign government, yet be considered just like every other corporation under funding rules.

    @morbiuswilters said:

     

    @El Disposo said:

    The Chinese and Japanese hold a heck of a lot of our treasury bills...

    I'm not sure how that makes a difference.  Are you implying they would use Treasury securities to pay off politicians?  Look, the politicians know those things are worthless, they're not gonna take them.

    Do you seriously think I meant that the Chinese government was going to send a guy in shades and a suit with a briefcase full of treasury bills to a politician's office or something? Don't be absurd. There are plenty of ways to turn ownership of treasury bills into immediate cash -- not least of which is using them as security for a loan from a government-connected bank. And there wouldn't be anything so crude as a transfer to a politician. The crudest method employed would be things like Hitherto-Little-Known-Company-With-51%-Chinese-Ownership Inc. sponsoring a 527 group. There's a long history of this; the government of South Africa under Apartheid employed a lot of U.S. PR people, who pushed hard for them during the 70s and 80s.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @El Disposo said:
    ...and of course there are lots of oil-producing nations with some spare cash.

    Aren't most of the oil-producing nations on the verge of financial collapse due to depressed oil prices?

    Only some of them, and only temporarily. Saudi Arabia is doing just fine. The latest news says Iran is showing signs of improvement. And if our economy recovers, the price of oil will go up and help all of them -- so either we're screwed because our economy is broken, or we're screwed because our government is for sale.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @El Disposo said:

    ...in fact, the Republican Party is going to change its character a lot very quickly, since they are (as they have been for decades) the party which explicitly sells out. (As opposed to the Democrats, who pretend they don't.)

    Might want to check your figures there.  Democrats have long been the preferred targets of big business efforts.  Big government favors big business.

    Not only do you have that backwards -- until 2004, the Republicans were the ones getting the bulk of the corporate cash, and even since then they get the bulk of spending by traditional industry -- but even that is irrelevant. I said the Republicans are the party of EXPLICIT sellout. That has nothing to do with whether or not they are successful.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @El Disposo said:
    And no doubt there will be even more weakening of environmental and sanitation controls, minimum wage, and workplace regulation, which will suck. (Before you disagree: remember that before those rules were put into place, things sucked so much in America that the American people -- who can barely be bothered to vote -- worked to get them put in place. So we're in for a world of suck, at least for a while.)

    Minimum wage and a lot of workplace regulations are distinctly harmful to the economy and to workers.  The "weakening of environmental and sanitation controls" is an absurd talking point that has no basis in truth.  Most environmental regulation is the same now as it was 20 years ago.  Air and water quality are at the highest levels since the start of the industrial revolution.

    Go look at the "Controversies" section of the Wikipedia entry on the EPA*: they aren't enforcing laws which exist, pollutant levels are rising without comment, they aren't pushing for new laws as needed, they spent the last decade deleting warnings to avoid rocking the boat, and one of their heads under Bush resigned to join an oil company (wow, I bet he was doing a stellar job of enforcing regulations before that!). Then there's Superfund, which is supposed to clean up after toxic sites -- except that its budget, which was too small to manage all their 1200+ sites to begin with -- has been cut repeatedly.

    *For non-Americans -- the Environmental Protection Agency is the federal government agency which monitors the environment and enforces regulations; there are also local agencies, but the EPA is the nationwide one.

    As for minimum wage: it's funny how the assumption is that employers are driven to nickel and dime their employees because they are forced to pay them something approaching -- though not actually, in most cases -- a living wage. If only the minimum wage would go away, say the right-wing fantasists, then employers would hire more people and we would have full employment! They would never just lower wages and keep the difference as profit! Funny how that seldom works out in any other realm of compensation: where there is no legal requirement for pensions, for example, there are no pensions -- and employers will underfund their pension funds to pay management if allowed. (If GM hadn't been deliberately underfunding their pensions for decades in order to keep raising management compensation, they wouldn't have been so "burdened" by their workforce now, because it would all be paid for in advance. To a certain extent the same can be said of the US government and Social Security, although the situation is different enough to make that overly simplistic.)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @El Disposo said:

    It's the long term PLUS the arbitrary transferrability of intellectual property that's the galling part. I don't mind, say, paying royalties to my favorite author's heirs. Presumably, my favorite author wanted them to have the money. And I don't mind too much having to pay royalties to Faceless Corporation X for something they had no hand in doing, provided it's only for a little while. But when my favorite author's heirs sell their rights to Faceless Corporation X outright, and they can collect royalties for 70 years, that's galling. And it hurts that there's no way to guarantee safe access to unclaimed works -- there's a lot of stuff out there where the author is dead, the author's heirs are unknown, the original publisher is long-defunct, nobody has expressed any interest in claiming royalties in decades, but the work can't be considered public domain. (This happens more than you might think.)

    So, basically it's not at all the transferability, it's the lengthy terms.  Like I said.  You yourself say you don't mind paying heirs or other recipients of the copyright, so long as it isn't for 70 years.  And the only argument you sort of make in favor of ending transferability is that the death of the creator would shorten the term.  So, your basic beef is with the term, not the property right.  Next time, you might want to save us all some time and just reply with "Agreed." or "Once again, you are right, O' Wise and Beautiful Morbius."

    No, you didn't read carefully enough. I don't mind the long term, as long as there's no arbitrary transfer. If I could be sure that I was paying, say, Edgar Wallace's heirs, I wouldn't mind continuing to pay royalties for King Kong (which I seem to recall is public domain because Wallace died more than 70 years ago, although he had a co-author so perhaps I'm wrong).

    As usual, you're almost plausible, but still wrong, O Tedious Trollbait Morbius.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So, basically it's not at all the transferability, it's the lengthy terms.  Like I said.  You yourself say you don't mind paying heirs or other recipients of the copyright, so long as it isn't for 70 years.  And the only argument you sort of make in favor of ending transferability is that the death of the creator would shorten the term.  So, your basic beef is with the term, not the property right.  Next time, you might want to save us all some time and just reply with "Agreed." or "Once again, you are right, O' Wise and Beautiful Morbius."
     

    If you're aware of the story behind this one, the transferability is the real issue here. I'll get into the lengthy terms bit another time.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8499973.stm

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/riff-row-leaves-men-at-work-up-a-legal-gum-tree-20090625-cx5i.html

    1934 - A girl called Marion Sinclair writes a tune for a Girl Guide competition. As part of the agreement she gives ownership to the Girl Guides Association.

    People across Australia like it a lot and it becomes a national folk song.

    1970(? - forgotten my sources here) - Girl Guides Association then hand copyright to the South Australian Library.

    1978 - Men at Work start writing Down Under.

    1979 - During recording, the flautist quotes a little riff from Kookaburra while improvising. It is not a substantial part of the song nor is it what really 'makes' the song (although it would be a sad loss to have to omit it). It's just an 11 note quotation, not even the full Kookaburra song.

    1990 - Larrikin Music figure it will be A Good Idea to buy the rights to Kookaburra from the South Australian Library to make lots of money.

    2007 - A rep from Larrikin hears the song on a TV comedy show and realises they could grab millions from it. They then claim they can get 40-60% of royalties from the song (a disproportionate amount if you actually look up what is normally paid for a sample). 

    Something is very wrong when you can just buy someone else's copyright simply to go around suing people who sing a folk song (thats their purpose in buying it. Kookaburra is the Australian 'Happy Birthday' as far as copyright goes). Or when you can sue someone retrospectively for something you didn't own at the time (nearly 30 years previous).

     

     



  • @PJH said:

    Peanut butter. May contain traces of nuts

    Bottle of milk. Allergy advice: Contains milk.

    That is all.
     

    I love EU packaging. I remember a few really weird ones from when I lived in the UK. The Tesco's tiramisu that has printed on the bottom of the package 'Do not turn upside down' and all the pre-made meals that say 'Product will be hot after heating'.



  •  Hijacking a thread about Australian English to rant about politics makes me sick to my stomach. Chunder!



  • @PeriSoft said:

     Hijacking a thread about Australian English to rant about politics makes me sick to my stomach. Chunder!

     

    Thanks, I was looking for an excuse to tag that line.

    Gotta love how Morbs can turn a thread about pizza into a debate on corporations in politics and the First Amendment.



  • @shepd said:

    Yup.  My dad worked 40 years as one of the world's best plumbers and when he dies I won't get getting any plumbing money.  If you spend 20 years working on that novel and die the day it is published, that's life.  Why should your children make money for nothing?
    You seem to be confused about the difference between a good and a service.



  • @Lingerance said:

    You seem to be confused about the difference between a good and a service.
     

    I take it you don't understand how book publishing works.



  • @shepd said:

    My dad worked 40 years as one of the world's best plumbers and when he dies I won't get getting any plumbing money.

    Is that because he was so crappy he never made any money or because he realized his son was a fuck-up so he blew all his money on hookers and booze to hide his shame?  Because, ya know, normally children do inherit whatever property their parents have.

     

    @shepd said:

    If you spend 20 years working on that novel and die the day it is published, that's life.  Why should your children make money for nothing?

    Unless your parents made you pay them back for the costs of raising you, you got money for nothing.  Although, it wouldn't surprise me if your parents did make you do that.



  • @El Disposo said:

    No, you didn't read carefully enough. I don't mind the long term, as long as there's no arbitrary transfer.

    You also said you didn't mind the transfer, so long as the term wasn't long.  So then you are saying that terms should be based on whether it is transferred or not?  The problem with that is that it significantly reduces the value of the copyright if it is transferred.  It boxes the original copyright holder in and inhibits their ability to sell their own property for a reasonable price.  So now a content creator cannot choose to sell their copyright for a lump-sum payday, unless they're wanting to take much less.  You're willing to grant that an author should have the right to make money on a work for 70 years, but not that he should have the right to transfer the copyright to someone else in exchange for a large payment today.  How is that sensible?



  • @Nyquist said:

    Gotta love how Morbs can turn a thread about pizza into a debate on corporations in politics and the First Amendment.

    Read the thread again, asshat.  I'm not the one who started the hijack.



  • @Nyquist said:

    Something is very wrong when you can just buy someone else's copyright simply to go around suing people who sing a folk song (thats their purpose in buying it. Kookaburra is the Australian 'Happy Birthday' as far as copyright goes). Or when you can sue someone retrospectively for something you didn't own at the time (nearly 30 years previous).

    "Happy Birthday" is copyrighted.  Regardless, it sounds like the real problem is that: 1) the term is too fucking long and 2) the law is being interpreted in such a way that any work that borrows even a tiny bit is considered derivative.  These are both problems.  Would eliminating transfer have stopped this from happening?  Sure, but it has wide-reaching, destructive side-effects.  And that's not the root cause of the problem.  Of the following three statements: 1) Copyright terms should last for almost a full century.; 2) Any work which makes the tiniest reference to another should be considered derivative; and 3) A content creator should be permitted to sell or transfer their copyright to acheive short-term financial windfall or for other, personal reasons since it is their copyright.  you find the last the most objectionable.  That is stupid.



  • @El Disposo said:

    Alas, you're wrong. The legal precedent shows that it is actually very easy for a nominally ordinary multinational corporation -- the kind now allowed to spend arbitrarily to influence elections -- to be basically owned by a foreign government, yet be considered just like every other corporation under funding rules.

    And McCain-Feingold didn't change that; money could just be funneled through a PAC.  Overturning McCain-Feingold didn't change that, it only made such efforts more transparent.  But it's a lot more fun to be a conspiracy theory crank, isn't it?

     

    @El Disposo said:

    Only some of them, and only temporarily. Saudi Arabia is doing just fine. The latest news says Iran is showing signs of improvement. And if our economy recovers, the price of oil will go up and help all of them -- so either we're screwed because our economy is broken, or we're screwed because our government is for sale.

    Governments have always been for sale, moron.  McCain-Feingold didn't stop it.  Bailed-out Wall Street firms gave millions to Barack Obama, who just happened to support bailing them out.  As did unions, Planned Parenthood and Hollywood.  As far as Iran, it would have to improve quite significantly to reverse the disaster it has become.  Of course, we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil by drilling more and promoting nuclear power, but I suppose you find those both objectionable.

     

    @El Disposo said:

    Not only do you have that backwards -- until 2004, the Republicans were the ones getting the bulk of the corporate cash, and even since then they get the bulk of spending by traditional industry -- but even that is irrelevant. I said the Republicans are the party of EXPLICIT sellout. That has nothing to do with whether or not they are successful.

    The Republicans enjoyed a brief period of larger donations, because they were the party in significant power.  Regardless, that hasn't been the case for several years, as you yourself admit.  As far as being more explicit sellouts, that's bullshit.  The Democrats pay some lip service to big business when it polls well, but they have a far stronger history of rewarding preferred businesses.  Anyway, the root cause of this problem is concentrated government power which always favors big business.  Which party has been the party of big government?

     

    @El Disposo said:

    As for minimum wage: it's funny how the assumption is that employers are driven to nickel and dime their employees because they are forced to pay them something approaching -- though not actually, in most cases -- a living wage. If only the minimum wage would go away, say the right-wing fantasists, then employers would hire more people and we would have full employment! They would never just lower wages and keep the difference as profit

    Your pathetic ignorance of economics really shines through, here.  You can raise the minimum wage all you want, and businesses will just raise the price of goods and services, because they have to.  Sure, they're going to pay employees as little as they can, just as you pay as little as you can for everything you buy.  People don't pay more than they have to.  Lower wages increase profits very temporarily, until competition sets in and competitors lower their prices to gain an advantage.  This is basic economics, shit-for-brains.  Maybe if you hadn't spent high school huffing glue and didn't get all your news from DailyKos, you'd have a fucking clue.

     

    @El Disposo said:

    If GM hadn't been deliberately underfunding their pensions for decades in order to keep raising management compensation, they wouldn't have been so "burdened" by their workforce now, because it would all be paid for in advance.

    And if they had fully funded the pensions, they would have gone under much sooner.  Although that would be preferable (assuming they weren't bailed out), the root cause was that the automakers had pension obligations they could never meet in a competitive marketplace.  The should have just cut back decades ago, but the unions wouldn't let that happen, so now my tax dollars are being used to fund a failed, worthless enterprise.  Great.

     

    Meanwhile, you need to lay off the crackpipe.  It's not my fault you're poor and stupid.  Maybe you could stop using your 1 hour of computer time at the public library to look for jobs instead of trolling forums, you braindead retard.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    "Happy Birthday" is copyrighted.  Regardless, it sounds like the real problem is that: 1) the term is too fucking long and 2) the law is being interpreted in such a way that any work that borrows even a tiny bit is considered derivative.  These are both problems.  Would eliminating transfer have stopped this from happening?  Sure, but it has wide-reaching, destructive side-effects.  And that's not the root cause of the problem.  Of the following three statements: 1) Copyright terms should last for almost a full century.; 2) Any work which makes the tiniest reference to another should be considered derivative; and 3) A content creator should be permitted to sell or transfer their copyright to acheive short-term financial windfall or for other, personal reasons since it is their copyright.  you find the last the most objectionable.  That is stupid.
     

     

    You're leaping to conclusions Morbs. Nice troll attempt, but I can read my own words :) I'm also fully aware that Happy Birthday is copyrighted, that was precisely what I was referring to, as Kookaburra is in the same situation. 

    I already mentioned that I would address terms separately - the lengthy term although a related issue is not the reason why Men at Work got sued. Yes it is relevant, but transferral of copyright ownership from the State to an independent company lead to the lawsuit.

    What is 'stupid' is that the copyright owner was dead when their copyright, owned by the state - not the creators family - during the period of writing 'Down Under' and for about 30 years after, was sold to Larrikin Music for the sole purpose of going around collecting revenues off people for pieces of music written when the copyright was under the control of the state.




  • @Nyquist said:

    I already mentioned that I would address terms separately - the lengthy term although a related issue is not the reason why Men at Work got sued.

    You are an idiot.  If the term was expired, they would not have been sued, there would have been no case.  It is central to the entire issue.

     

    @Nyquist said:

    What is 'stupid' is that the copyright owner was dead when their copyright, owned by the state - not the creators family - during the period of writing 'Down Under' and for about 30 years after, was sold to Larrikin Music for the sole purpose of going around collecting revenues off people for pieces of music written when the copyright was under the control of the state.

    Why does it matter who owns the copyright?  If I want to sell my copyright to someone and they sell it on to someone else, why should the protections diminish?  It only makes it that much harder and less profitable for me to sell it.  You completely ignored every point I made and simple re-iterated the same whining bullshit from your first post.  The lengthy term and overly-broad definition of "derivative work" is what made this a problem.  Are you saying that you'd be perfectly happy if the original musician was still alive and if they sued someone 70 years later for copying 11 notes from their song?  If so, then you are more hopeless retarded than I feared.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Because, ya know, normally children do inherit whatever property their parents have.

    Of course.  I'm assuming the guy writing the book got the publisher to give him a free copy, which he'll leave to his kids.  Duh.



  • @El Disposo said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    (something)

    Not only do you have that backwards -- until 2004, ...

     

    We have always been at war with Eurasia.



  • @shepd said:

    @Lingerance said:
    You seem to be confused about the difference between a good and a service.
    I take it you don't understand how book publishing works.
    Plumbing is a service, it produces no goods, once the services is rendered it produces no additional revenue until the services is required again. Books are a good, they can be made en masse. The more that are made, the more can be sold, the more that sell, the more royalties are collected. You seem to be confused about the difference between a good and a service.



  • @Someone You Know said:

    To be fair, peanuts are not actually nuts in a biological sense; the plant is a member of the family Fabaceae (beans).

    Wow, it's a biological family [i]and[/i] a hexadecimal number!



  • My favourite part is "rapeseed oil."  I think maybe they meant "grapeseed."  And it's listed twice so it doesn't seem to be just a typo.



  • @Aaron said:

    My favourite part is "rapeseed oil."  I think maybe they meant "grapeseed."
    No, they meant "rapeseed".  You're probably more familiar with it as "canola," which is a specific type.



  • @shepd said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Because, ya know, normally children do inherit whatever property their parents have.

    Of course.  I'm assuming the guy writing the book got the publisher to give him a free copy, which he'll leave to his kids.  Duh.

    Just like when a parent who owns stock in Microsoft dies, the shares are confiscated but the child gets to keep the promotional copy of Windows ME.



  • @Lingerance said:

    Plumbing is a service, it produces no goods, once the services is rendered it produces no additional revenue until the services is required again. Books are a good, they can be made en masse. The more that are made, the more can be sold, the more that sell, the more royalties are collected.
     

    The most important difference IMO: a plumber gets the money for his work quickly (immediately or within a few days), while an artist gets the royalities continuosly. BTW, if copyright would immediately vanish after the creator's death, an old or ill artist would have a very difficult time to sell the rights of his work.



  • Morbius, you read LGF?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Of course, we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil by drilling more and promoting nuclear power, but I suppose you find those both objectionable.

    I agree with promoting nuclear power as an energy source in general, but unless you can find a way to get people on the electric car bandwagon or have developed a portable nuclear reactor that's safe for use in a car, that won't do much to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, as most of our electricity is generated by coal. 

    IMO, you've been drinking too much kool-aid on the drill for oil thing. IIRC, in the US, it currently takes about 10 years from the issuance of the rights to drill in an area for the region to produce its first barrel of oil (ATM, can't find a credible source). Besides that, Canada and Mexico supply most of our oil anyway, with Venezuela or Nigera (depending on the metric) coming in third (see here). I agree that many of the countries on that list politically don't like the US/Western culture, but with such a long TTM, there's little that starting drilling for oil now will do that simply promoting electric vehicles, changes in driving habits, and general living adjustments (public transportation, moving closer to the places you frequent) won't do just as well.



  • @rad131304 said:

    a portable nuclear reactor that's safe for use in a car
     

    We're getting there.

    There's even a Fallout reference in the comments.



  • @rad131304 said:

    IMO, you've been drinking too much kool-aid on the drill for oil thing. IIRC, in the US, it currently takes about 10 years from the issuance of the rights to drill in an area for the region to produce its first barrel of oil (ATM, can't find a credible source). Besides that, Canada and Mexico supply most of our oil anyway, with Venezuela or Nigera (depending on the metric) coming in third (see here). I agree that many of the countries on that list politically don't like the US/Western culture, but with such a long TTM, there's little that starting drilling for oil now will do that simply promoting electric vehicles, changes in driving habits, and general living adjustments (public transportation, moving closer to the places you frequent) won't do just as well.

    1) These are the same arguments we heard 10 years ago against drilling in ANWR.  Sure would be nice to have that extra production now, right?

    2) Oil is a traded commodity.  The price is driven by a variety of factors.  Making a committment to drilling more today would undercut future dependence on foreign oil, which would have impacts on even today's price.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @rad131304 said:
    IMO, you've been drinking too much kool-aid on the drill for oil thing. IIRC, in the US, it currently takes about 10 years from the issuance of the rights to drill in an area for the region to produce its first barrel of oil (ATM, can't find a credible source). Besides that, Canada and Mexico supply most of our oil anyway, with Venezuela or Nigera (depending on the metric) coming in third (see here). I agree that many of the countries on that list politically don't like the US/Western culture, but with such a long TTM, there's little that starting drilling for oil now will do that simply promoting electric vehicles, changes in driving habits, and general living adjustments (public transportation, moving closer to the places you frequent) won't do just as well.

    1) These are the same arguments we heard 10 years ago against drilling in ANWR.  Sure would be nice to have that extra production now, right?

    2) Oil is a traded commodity.  The price is driven by a variety of factors.  Making a committment to drilling more today would undercut future dependence on foreign oil, which would have impacts on even today's price.

    1a) Having the supply would be great ... if we could actually do anything with it. We barely have the capacity to refine the existing crude oil imports because the US has not built a new refinery since 1976; we make up most of our gigantic gasoline deficit (36m gallons in 2005 IIRC) by importing from countries on the previously mentioned list (see here).

    1b) It would also have been nice for GWB to have not screwed other drive-train and renewable technologies for hydrogen fuel (see here) which one would have weaned us off the oil teet all together, rather than just move us to the domestic one by drilling in ANWR or offshore.

    1c) At some point, we need plants to filter out that pesky CO2. Personally, I like breathing.

    2) WTF does the fact that oil is a traded commodity have to do with this? I thought we were talking about using less oil, not the effing price.



  • @rad131304 said:

    I thought we were talking about using less oil, not the effing price.
     

    Dude, these two things are so intimately related, they're practically assfisting eachother right up to the elbow.

    But that only goes for the part of oil that is used to produce fuel. The rest is used for a veritable phalanx of plastics from the clothes on your back to the hardware in your computer, as wel as medicine and fertilizer. Unlike energy sources, there are precious little alternatives for the production of these items, breaking the price/demand curve somewhat.


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