TJIC's done some amusing blogging recently. Posts on economics, politics and economics, local government and economics (hint: spend the money on salaries, and use the money you would have spent on salaries to buy the truck), misleading news reports, and the interesting statement "If [Lincoln] hadn’t initiated the War of Northern Aggression, we wouldn’t have to deal with [poorly-run Mississippi schools] (and, anti-immigration folks take note!, we wouldn’t have the issue of Mexican immigration - the CSA would)."

You may want to check them out.

Continuing in the copyright vein, I think a business opportunity exists for a photo studio that didn't rely on copyright to stay competitive. The commercial would look like this:

(Woman comes into a photo processing store)
Woman: I was going through my attic and I found my old wedding photos. I'd like to make copies of them.

Store clerk: Those are nice; they look professionally done.

Woman: They sure were.

Clerk: Then I can't copy them without permission from the photographer. Professional photographers have threatened to sue us if we reproduce their photos, because they own to copyright to the photos they take.

Woman: But these are photos of me and my husband.

Clerk: Copyright goes to who took the picture, not who's in the picture.

Woman: Doesn't copyright expire after a while?

Clerk: Yes, 120 years if the photographer worked for a company, or 70 years after the photographer dies if he didn't work for a company.

Woman: But that company's bankrupt; they can't sue you.

Clerk: In that case the company's assets would have been sold off to somebody. You'll need to hire a lawyer, at $200 an hour to research who got the copyrights.

Woman: A lawyer! To reprint photos?

Now, to be honest, you can't sue for copyright infringement without first registering the copyright. And I know Olan Mills, Sears, or any other photo studio isn't filing for copyright (and paying the filing fee) for the thousands of photos they take. And regular people who take photos also get the copyright to their photos. Even so, photo labs won't reproduce professional photos, but will reproduce amateur photos.

Of course the idea is that you need to go back to your photographer to get reprints. And since your photographer knows you can't legally go anywhere else without written permission, there's a chance you'll pay far more for the reprints than you ought to.

But a photographer that hands you a permission statement with your photos ("We charge competitive rates for reprints. However we grant permission for you to have somebody else reprint these photos if you want to.") would have a unique selling position. The sitting fee for the photos would pay for the photographer, and the price of reprints would pay for the reprints (that's how the photo labs stay in business after all). It's a sound business philosophy, and as people bump into copyright issues more, it may occur to somebody that it's a good business strategy. It says "I'll honestly earn my pay by letting you choose someone else if I ever let you down. See if any big studio is willing to make the same promise."

Once in a while I've toyed with the idea of studying law. However, I've always decided it's a bad thing, even for someone evil like I am. However, a write up of teaching Jewish law has me wondering if that would be a fun profession. Of course I'd need to convert to Judaism.

On two not-very-related notes, Anna Nicole Smith suddenly collapsed and died. Since her son also collapsed and died, I have to admit part of me is expecting a real-life Diagnosis Murder episode. Most of what I know about Smith involved her various lawsuits, one that actually made it to the Supreme Court (whether she legally qualifies as her billionaire husband's heiress). Since Smith just had a little baby who will inheirit whatever Smith legally inheirited, that lawsuit will continue.

One thing that I find intriguing about attorneys is the project management side of their work. However, law offices are run more like lawsuit factories now (well-paying factories, though). So the lawyers are probably happy that the newest heiress is only a few months old. It's hard to get a jury to believe an infant is really a gold-digger.

The other not-very-related story is copyright. Last night I heard a local radio show that consisted of callers venting on how they feel morally justified in using peer-to-peer networks to get all their music and movies without paying for it. I don't believe I have a right to copyrighted matieral, partly because I hope other people won't ever have a right to my copyrighted material. If I don't want to buy a whole album "because I only want, like, one song on that album," I pay iTunes (or Wal Mart, or several other companies) a buck for that one song.

On the other hand, copyright used to be an industrial law. That is, the copyright message for a book isn't meant for the book's readers; it's meant for competing book publishers ("don't you dare try to publish your own version of this book"). Likewise for music albums, computer programs, pictures and movies. But, over time, the readers, listeners, and users have become their own publishers (web sites), musical engineers (remixing songs), and whatnot. I think it's time to rethink some fundamental policies of copyright. A normal person ought to be able to do whatever he would reasonably expect to be able to do.

John Edwards is an interesting character in the Presidential race. Professor Bainbridge gets the right quote at his blog:

Edwards aide Amanda Marcotte wrote, in a posting to her personal blog, on "What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?"

The other Edwards blogger, Melissa McEwan, has come under fire for referring to Christian conservatives as “Christofascists” in her personal blog.

Thursday, the campaign issued a statement from Edwards saying that he had been personally offended by the remarks and that the bloggers "have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word."

Hmmm. As a lawyer, Edwards made millions of dollars being skeptical. However, after reading these quotes Edwards is sure that they weren't meant to be offensive? Hmmm.

Could Edwards please tell us if "hot, white, sticky Spirit" was supposed to be a respectful term? Was "Christofascists" supposed to mean "Christians who can get the trains to run on time"? Is Edwards really that dumb, or does he really think we are that dumb?

Ha, ha.