MELANCHOLY ELEPHANTS
(This story is dedicated to Virginia Heinlein)
She sat zazen, concentrating on not concentrating, until it was time to prepare for the appointment. Sitting seemed to produce the usual serenity, put everything in perspective. Her hand did not tremble as she applied her make-up; tranquil features looked back at her from the mirror. She was mildly surprised, in fact, at just how calm she was, until she got out of the hotel elevator at the garage level and the mugger made his play. She killed him instead of disabling him. Which was obviously not a measured, balanced action—the official fuss and paperwork could make her late.



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NOTE: THIS STORY EXPLAINS HOW IN THE FUTURE FASCIST IDIOTS CO-OPTED THE COPYRIGHT STATUTE TO CONTROL THOUGHT AND DISCOURSE. It warns us about a draconian copyright future from the vantage point of 1985, well ahead of its time. We posted it after finding it at free site, so that we could stimulate discourse in regard to the DMCA, one of the worst statutes ever foisted upon the American Public, which is now under constant constitutional attack by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others.

Believe it or not, someone purporting to be "a represenative" of the author, has filed a DMCA notice demanding that we down take this wonderful, inciteful piece criticizing DMCA - like laws! We have decided to litigate this issue and seek 1). declaration of fair use 2) unconstitutionality of the DMCA and 3) declaration that 17 USC 101 definition of "copy" as requiring a material object and tangibility.

Stay tuned. We have been looking for a test case.
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---------more at.....
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:Jbb3s_ZS1BAC:www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm+melancholy+elephants&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Well done. A reality that doesn't seem so far fetched these days. Ity is a sad truth that we may well legislate an end to the constant growth and developement of the arts. I grew up playing classical violin. I realized very early on (at about 11 years old) That I myself had at that point read eneough score to probably see the large majority of melodic progression available in western music theory. All arts are dirivitive, inspiration comes from those before you and yo7 will serve as the stepping stone for the next generation of artists.

This is a well known SCi- fi short story written in 1984

Wow...

This is truly a problem we are facing right now - and we have the answer right here.

The story makes a good point, and I'm not in favor of the effectively perpetual copyright extensions we have now.

On the otherhand, how can Gnutella pretend to be anything other than a bunch of pirates if they don't even give credit where credit is due. Perhaps leflaw really is the original author - but I doubt it. I challenge gnutella to at least properly attribute this work to it's author.

And I challenge anyone reading this story all the way to figure out why this story *is* plagerism, and not an example of the derivative art it describes.