Copyright, you say?

Then talk to Jonathon Keats. He's all set to announce plans to auction off futures contracts of ...

... six billion neurons in his brain.

Keats, a 'conceptual artist'and novelist, wants investors to bypass the ideas and buy his brain, as Ryan Singel explains in his Wired article here

He copyrighted his neurons this spring and, "The copyright, like all copyrights, lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years, thanks to an extension granted by 1998's controversial Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act," says Singel. "Keats registered his brain as a sculpture, the structure of which Keats claims to have created thought by thought."

And, "I thought it would be nice to have immortality," he quotes Keats as saying. "I thought it was worth the $20 copyright filing fee to have 70 years of immortality."

At an IPO party at the Modernism gallery October 23, an option to acquire a million neurons upon Keats' death will cost only $10 and if he manages to flog the rights to all his neurons, he'll be $60,000 richer in which case, half will go to the gallery and the other half will go towards keeping his brain fed so he can come up with new ideas in order to increase the worth of his brain, says Singel.

And, his story goes on, "like any IPO, the sale of Keats' brain is preceded by a prospectus, which comes complete with twists on the usual declarations. 'While experts agree that Jonathon Keats's brain is currently in reasonable working order, past performance is no guarantee of future functionality, it says."

Whether Keats' sale is simply a bad idea (which means the brain might not be worth much) or whether it's a sophisticated argument against long copyright terms (meaning Keats might be smarter than renowned Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig) is a matter market forces will soon decide, Singel says, also pointing out that Keats may find himself under intense pressure in the future from those same market forces when his shareholders start expecting him to increase the value of their investments.

So is it all one big laugh, or is there something much deeper?

"Donna Wentworth, an intellectual-property activist who works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is the mind behind the Copyfight blog, said Keats' project originally seemed to her like a 'poorly conceived stunt'," Singel adds.

"On second thought, however, Wentworth suspected that Keats is onto something. 'It seems to me he's telling a story about the commodification of the intangible, by creating *intellectual property* in a very concrete sense," wrote Wentworth in an e-mail. 'With the way things are going, his brain may never fall into the public domain. It will be his property forever minus a day.

" 'Question is, does that keep his brain/ideas *alive* or does it stop the ideas from living a larger life - freely circulated, and part of our shared culture?' asked Wentworth."

sounds to me like he copyrighted his brian so every idea he ever had will have one copywrite so every thought he has ever had is not copywrighted can you bleave that? that means if he had the thought and it can be proven he had that thought it can be arrgued that that idea/invention is his under the DMCA

anit this getting a bit out of hand?

this is too bizare for me to even comment on. oops, I just did.

this is too bizare for me to even comment on. oops, I just did.

This is relevant because.......???????

I am getting tired of reading news that seems off the wall and not really relevant to our struggle with the RIAA and for independent music.

Off the wall stuff should go into a special section, if we have it at all. Notice how many people are commenting on news articles. Sometimes, there aren't even more than five entries- indicating people aren't interested in that news item.

CodeWarrior says he has left the dmusic network because he was told he is posting too much. I think the moderator of this news forum (ahem, Jon Newton) is posting too many news items. One day, I come here, and there's a list of news items with responses, but there aren't many responses to most of the articles. The next day, I come here, and none of the articles that were here the day before are still on top. They've all been replaced.

My point is, that if there's going to be complaints about too much individual news postings- we should narrow down the topics of articles accepted to real relevant and meaningful things. This story should not have made it to the top of the newsfeed.

That's just my opinion. I don't know if anyone else agrees with me, but I feel that way.

:-:~ PhantomGhost ~:-:

phantom. what is code warriors web address? The link on the stoppriaalawsuits.com doesn't work

Nobody gets their articles posted anymore, its always Newton or Leflaw

hope it's ok if I answered...

compmore...the http://codewarrior.web1000.com
is up, I just checked.

Here are mirrors...

http://codewarrior.freewebpage.org
http://www.hostultra.com/~codewarrior/
http://members.fortunecity.com/codewarrior2003/
http://www.geocities.com/codewarrior_wins
http://healthcare.drspages.com
http://22forum.com/CODE
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/codewarrior
http://codewarrior.greatnow.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti_RIAA_Cental

There is a corelation between "IP" and the RIAA's actions. What this artist is doing is pointing out what is one of the root causes of the copyright cartels actions...

The way the news works anyway is that the most recent item goes to the top..

you have to take out the < BR >
tag if you click on them. it's better to copy and paste.
-bulkeraser

bulkeraser

thanks. the link on the stopriaalawsuits.com site is one of his mirror sites and doesn't have a tag so I don't know what's wrong with it.

There could be a problem there. I think the brain includes a great deal of encoded copyrighted material. Every piece of music heard, every book read, every TV program or film seen, is encoded in that structure. That means it qualifies as a derivitative work, so almost every media company in America and Europe could claim its an infringement. Anyone who wants to buy the brain also risks buying the suits

PhantomGhost - I'm not a moderator. I'm the news editor. It's my job to post news stories. This story is about copyright, which is an issue. Bizarre it may be, but so is the entire copyright issue.

Well let's try to bring the story more relevance.

Consider this. Some scientist somewhere implanted a chip into a monkey's brain that lets the monkey play a computer game by brainpower alone. This was just in all the news sites.

Anyway, after about three months of thinking the experiment failed, the monkey stopped using its arm to control a cursor and started doing it with brainpower, having finally realized the ability to do so.

What if you could play piano or guitar just by thinking of the notes, the tone, the timbre...? And how fast would the RIAA try to charge royalties?

Date: October 15, 2003 @ 3:48 PM
PhantomGhost - PS: leflaw owns the site so he can post whatever, and whenever, he wants. And this isn't a news forum - it's for comments on this specific news item. The forums are elsewhere on the site.

Hey man, we are now sixty million strong, stand up and be counted.Don't you ever ask them why, we are going to sue you. sixty millions suits in every town,in every state. DMCA yea, they said they copied your computer what did they copy? Was it copyrighted works of yours in that shared folder. We have to find out what they copied. I think it was my copyrighted material.Let use it against them. Never thought the DMCA would come in handy. Since you do not need proof that they did anything wrong. All you have to do is say they did this to a clerk.What would happen to our court system now. Sixty Million suits how back log would they get. The DMCA just has to go bye, bye sue them. isn't copyright nice. twenty years is just fine wake up and smelled the coffee RIAA YOU can do it we can do it also. This law has to go and be rewritten from the very beginning. With the peoples rights first and for most

From Teach your children: You who are on the road, Must have a code that you can live by, For the RIAA you can't go by, And so become yourself, Let them know you won't stand by Because the past is just a good bye. Teach your children well, About this RIAA hell, Their father's hell did slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams. The one they picks, The one you'll vote for. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry, So just look at them and sigh and know they will sue you. And you of tender years, Can't know the fears that your elders grew by, And so please help them with your youth, They seek the truth before they can die. Teach your parents well, Their children's hell will slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams The one they picks, the one you'll know by. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry, So just look at them and sigh and know they will sue you

Oh man...I think God already has a copywrite on the brain. He may already be workin on a law suit because of cloning.

BTW, i dont give a crap who is posting or not...i come here for the reading of it all. good job Jon, leflaw.

I got posted......
and I too think jon does a good job.
I have been gone for last few days, any word on Bill, and possible replacement?

like hes replaceable, but you know what i mean...

~time flies~

i agree Phantom...it wouldn't be hard to post these types of things in one of the forums. when i read on the main page, i want to read the most important news first and fast. it's a suggestion on how to make this site better, not bash the admins...i hope you can appreciate the difference

Well a lot of articles do come up, but I think its hard to judge relevance. From what I can tell most articles have some symbolic relevance at bare minimum. I appreciate the variety nonetheless, though I often miss articles. I prefer that to checking the site everyday and seeing the same articles over and over.

I saw this on the moveon.org website from yesterday:

Dear MoveOn member,

They said it wasn't possible -- that Congress would never roll back
new FCC rules allowing a few big outlets to control our country's
media. But with tens of thousands of phone calls and hundreds of
thousands of emails, we won by 55-40 in the Senate.

Now the campaign to block the FCC's disastrous loosening of media
ownership rules has reached a make-or-break moment in Congress.
Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have
indicated that they will not allow a final vote on the rule change.
They won't allow it because they know they and their contributors in
the nation's biggest media corporations could lose. But if they don't
allow a vote on this soon, we could lose our chance to roll back the
rule change this year. We need your help.

Please call your representative today.

Let the staffer you speak with know that you're a constituent, and you
are calling to ask your Representative to sign the letter urging
Speaker Hastert to allow a vote on the resolution of disapproval
regarding the FCC's media ownership rule changes. You may want to add
that by not allowing a vote, the Speaker and Majority Leader are
ignoring the will of the public, the courts and their own colleagues.
(The resolution is SJ Res 17. The letter is sponsored by
Representatives Leach, Price, Markey, Burton, Hinchey and Sanders.)

You also may want to call Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader DeLay.
You can reach them at the phone numbers below:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert
(202) 225-0600

Majority Leader Tom DeLay
(202) 225-4000

Tell the staffer you speak to that you want DeLay and Hastert to
allow a vote on the FCC rollback.

Please let us know when the you've made your call at:
http://www.moveon.org/fcccall.html

We've come a long way in the fight for media reform -- further than
most people imagined possible. Now we have to make sure that the
Republican leaders in the House don't hijack this process. Please call today.

Another website to check out:
www.mediareform.net (are they signed up on stopriaalawsuits?)

"suggestion on how to make this site better, not bash the admins..."

indeed

Code left because he was told he was posting too much? Who was the idiot who told him that?

is that the idea to post

this place is growing far too political. Not in an activist sense either, but in a whiny ass whole kinda way. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. I don't know anyone here by screen name well enough. But my message to you, you know who you are, better than I. Any and all of you who stir contension like some sort of evil stew. SHUT UP


Back to the original topic. Wouldn't it be funny if the RIAA bought out all the stocks and told him he could no longer speak because he would be illegally distributing copies of his thoughts.

This is stupid.

I am wondering (off topic) Why can people buy reproduction art of one type, but not another? You can buy a repro of "Mona Lisa" for alot of money, or a painting done by someone who is not dead. Do they get a cut? Are we all making reproduction of art, and sharing them over the internet? Music is advertised as an art. newjon? has this been questioned? I'd really like to know if anyone has looked at this.

interesting point, probably worth adding to the list.

purfus...i gotta laugh, i was just thinkin of that very idea. He would have to be killed. he would not be allowed to think. I could just see it now.

Jonathon Keats: I was thinkin . . .

RIAA: Stop you are in violation of copywrite laws!

Orinn Hatch: Blow him up if he does it again.

haha, maybe everyone will get an offer from the RIAA to buy their brains for 60 thousand dollars.

taegdv and Phantom, I can't disagree more. This seems completely relevant, and downright scary in some ways. I hope more news articles LIKE this get posted because they provoke thought, and any time thought happens its a good thing. Unless (as purfus and Accipiter777 pointed out) its copyright infringement, then its bad hehe.

I'm going to copyright my nuts so that every time the RIAA sucks them I will be owed a fee.. maybe i'll just charge them one flat rate and lets them eat my nutz all they want...

Johnathon Keats,

Next time I see you don't forget to remind me to punch you in the face. You unevolved monkey.

Idiot.

"this place is growing far too political. Not in an activist sense either, but in a whiny ass whole kinda way."

Purfus, you're exactly right.

Too many people here are acting like the culture destroying mongers that want to have the pledge changed, god taken off money, etc etc etc.

Let's clear something up right now

Free Speech guarantees you the right to be a complete moron.

So what? If you act like an idiot you can still be censored and it can still be reasonable. Censorship isn't always wrong, and radically opposing it 100% is just as facist and extreme as anything else.

And free speech doesn't protect you from from anything except legal recourse. And you are still bound to be responsible (ie. "fire" in a theatre).

Purfus is right, although these words are mine. Everybody has their view. So what? This isn't politics.com.

THIS is just BRILLIANT!

(Wish I had thought of it first!)

Um, I mean the article.

If someone did by the copyrights to his brain while he was still living wouldn't that be a form of slavery?

err buy not by

well, TheFirstNut, i still have to disagree. look at how much white space is underneath the News Summary. i think it should be split into News and (just underneath) Special Interest.

little things matter to me and i'm not half as picky on this site as i am on my own website...anything that can increase this website's effectiveness is worth looking into IMHO.

Get ready, this is off topic, but I wanted to address it.
Okay, let me see if I've got this right.
A story about some artist making a "statement" about copyright (IMHO) is wrong, but a story about Cat suing Disney for copyright infringement and defamatory action isn't?
I'm all about free speech. I'm all for clearing up the clutter in this site sometimes. I for one welcome stories like this one, since, again IMHO, if all the stories were about the RIAA or MPAA, it would quickly get boring. Besides that point, stories like this ARE poignant. It goes to show that some people are doing weird things, things they are allowed to do BY LAW. According to the law that sort of started this whole copyright mess (Bono Act). If you don't see the releveance gentle reader, move on to the next. You have the freedom to to just that. There is just a bit of paradox here that while you have the right to move on, you also have the right to say what you want. Well then!.. here's the answer to that one. Keep it on topic.
I for one and getting pretty tired of people saying "things are off topic" or "some of the news stories here suck".. IN THE FREAKIN REPLIES FOR A NEWS STORY! If you want to post something, then for goodness sakes, send it to newjon1 or leflaw, and ask them to POST IT ! That not only keeps the replies ON TOPIC, but gives you a wider forum to air your greivances. Think about it.. how many people just glanced at the teaser, then went right past this story, which meant they read none of our little rants here? IMO, the admins do a fine job of separating what must be hundreds of facts from fiction.
oops.. speaking of rants.. got off on one here. Sorry about that. More on this later I'm sure.
ttmmm