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9 votes
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Sanna Marin's Finnish government could collapse, as human rights laws stalled – new Sámi Parliament Act is the right of self-determination
6 votes -
Eleven magic words
5 votes -
Automakers claim they can’t comply with right-to-repair laws
11 votes -
Apple executive on adoption of USB-C under EU law
13 votes -
Same-sex marriage is now legal in all of Mexico's states
15 votes -
Germany plans to legalise recreational cannabis
10 votes -
Lawmakers in Finland have approved a legislative reform that will ease the process of getting an abortion in the country
5 votes -
Regardless of the outcome of the November 1 polls, Denmark is expected to maintain its restrictive immigration policies
2 votes -
An averted terrorist plot and recent shootings in Reykjavík have put guns in Iceland in the spotlight
5 votes -
US Federal law now requires distribution of complete healthcare records to patients in digital formats
11 votes -
A Danish city built Google into its schools – then banned it
12 votes -
How to make class action lawsuits more meaningful to the public
Have you ever received notice that you might be eligible for something from a class-action settlement? Ever notice that the effort required to recover is significant, and the recovery perhaps...
Have you ever received notice that you might be eligible for something from a class-action settlement? Ever notice that the effort required to recover is significant, and the recovery perhaps insultingly miniscule?
I don't know of any data, but I suspect that's true of nearly every class action lawsuit, even those that win in court battles. Maybe the original plaintiffs get a decent recovery, sometimes there's injunctive relief (which means the court forces the defendant to do or not do something). Every once in a while, individual members of the class get a meaningful outcome (vw's dieselgate comes to mind).
The public interest justification for the outcomes where the recover for class members is really small, if one is even ever really offered, is that the cost of the action to the defendant serves as an inducement to all defendants to keep their act together. But see, Tyler Durden's explanation of the actuarial function from Fight Club.
My thought is that instead of any recovery for the individual class members ("fuck 'em, right?"), their portion of the money should go to a public interest fund dedicated to consumer protection. My reason for this is that these small recoveries don't make any useful change for the individual class member consumers. But collectively, might add up to enough to make a meaningful difference to the future activities of producers.
Of course, all the usual caveats about corruption and accountability come into play. But there's a few reasons it might help, if those can be overcome. First, it might prompt faster, lest costly settlements. The payouts would be lower, and also the transaction costs. This shifts the litigation process from focussing on big recoveries to high volume of suits, bringing in more defendants. It would also enable smaller firms to bring suit, the hope being that smaller firms would take on more marginal cases and get more action.
Second, it might actually create a feedback loop. If the fund gets large enough, it could lobby and investigate, providing more information more new suits, and identifying the worst actors, and encouraging useful regulation. Imagine if Consumers Union could return to its glory of the 80's and have a big lobbying fund?
Or, we could just have decent government level consumer protections (hahhahahahahahahah!)
9 votes -
Russian parliament introduces mobilisation into law
20 votes -
Denmark's former foreign intelligence chief has been formally charged with leaking highly classified information
8 votes -
Equaldex: a collaborative knowledge base for LGBT rights worldwide
5 votes -
The value of artistic legacy
My initial reaction to cloud_loud's post about the upcoming Winnie the Pooh slasher movie was viscerally negative - my gut feeling is that my life would be objectively better without a movie like...
My initial reaction to cloud_loud's post about the upcoming Winnie the Pooh slasher movie was viscerally negative - my gut feeling is that my life would be objectively better without a movie like this in the world tainting a treasured childhood memory for millions of people.
Then I thought back to my reaction to the Wednesday Addams trailer and it became immediately clear to me that it was just a 'me problem' - I had no sentimental ties to the Addams Family as a kid, but Winnie the Pooh was one of my mum's bedtime story staples. I trust Tim Burton based on his track record to bring a high-quality rendition of Wednesday to the screen, but these nameless & faceless filmmakers were suddenly antagonists in my mind for turning an innocent story about a talking teddy bear into a trashy slasher. But apples & oranges comparison aside, just like how there will be people against the idea of Burton's vision of the Addams family or Tom Hanks' portrayal of Mr. Rogers, there most likely will be people who enjoy this movie when it releases - it just won't be my cup of tea.
I then started thinking about the implications of franchises reaching public domain like in this scenario - for better or worse, creators can now build upon, remix or bastardize the world and characters of Winnie the Pooh. I recently had a conversation here on Tildes about the necessity of copyright, patent and intellectual property law where @archevel raised the question of whether a person/entity should be able to 'own' an idea, and on the surface the immediate answer is a resounding "no". But thinking deeper about it (especially in this context) pushed me down a different path, calling someone's creation simply an 'idea' is very reductionist. To me, an idea is 'a honey-obsessed talking teddy bear' - there's no characterisation to that, no soul, no story, no sense of being. An idea is a I-V-VI-IV chord progression (and thus holds no legal protections), but shouldn't the artistic integrity of Journey's Don't Stop Believing be protected even after the creators are gone? Why are we so indifferent towards parodies like this when it could just as easily be something more offensive like this that can harm the legacy of the creator just by association? I've always been a proponent of free speech/freedom of expression but thinking about it from this perspective is fascinating to me.
That's not inherently an issue of something becoming public domain though, it's an issue of preserving the creator's legacy. Copyright doesn't just protect the creator's means to compensation, it protects their right to control their creations - the right to control their artistic integrity and the legacy they leave behind. Knowing that Milne and Shepard created Pooh to entertain children in a wholesome way, I think it's fairly safe to say they would not be happy with a slasher adaptation if they were still alive. If these filmmakers were using Pooh's likeness to parody Xi Jinping and push a communist agenda, would we care more about preserving Milne's legacy then?
All that brought me to the question of decency - whose moral compass should we guide ourselves by? Where is the line between socially-acceptable satire and obscenity? Western culture has been extremely cagey about some of the most natural things like nudity and sexuality, but here in Australia our government has no issue plastering billboards, bus stops and cigarette cartons with images of nicotine-stained teeth, abscessed mouths and diseased organs in an attempt to warn people of the dangers of smoking & excess sugar consumption - all in the name of public health. Everybody has genitals, why is our government happy to tell us that seeing boobs on a billboard could be potentially shocking for children to see when kids are exposed to NSFL images just by walking past the cigarette shelf in a store or a discarded carton in the street? When our cultural morality is so cagey about something as innocuous as a natural human body, why are we so unconcerned when someone perverts the life's work of a creator just because it's turned public domain? Should the creator have the right to protect their work from beyond the grave?
I'm willing to bet when Mickey Mouse turns public domain in 2024 the internet will be flooded with Beeple-style grotesqueries (NSFW) and everyone will get sick of profane parodies very quickly.
Just wanted to post a frame-by-frame analysis of the philosophical rabbit hole I went down today and hopefully stir up a conversation - I know these are fairly deep questions that none of us can really answer definitively but I still love to hear different people's thoughts and perspectives regardless :)
10 votes -
On my resignation as regulator of the Dutch intelligence and security services
14 votes -
US climate law gives Clean Air Act a legal boost after court rebuke
9 votes -
Vietnam says homosexuality ‘not a disease’ in win for gay rights
15 votes -
How NEPA works
4 votes -
New LGBTQ+ plan presented by the Danish government includes a proposal to expand access to legal gender change to all children regardless of age
4 votes -
‘Disturbing’: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
10 votes -
Scotland to become first country in world to provide free period products
16 votes -
Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde said she won't return a historical document to Poland, as it was a “legitimate” spoil of war
2 votes -
Atlanta’s Music Midtown festival canceled after court ruling made it illegal to keep guns out of event
15 votes -
The trans swimmer who won too much
6 votes -
Steam, Epic, PayPal and Battlenet have been banned in Indonesia
17 votes -
What colour are your bits? (2004)
3 votes -
Denmark bans Chromebooks and Google Workspace in schools over data transfer risks
25 votes -
Copenhagen left looking sheepish after feta cheese judgment – Denmark loses Greek cheese fight at top EU court
11 votes -
Amazon shared Ring security camera and video doorbell footage with police without a warrant
31 votes -
German antitrust body launches investigation into Google Maps
8 votes -
Recordings within eight feet of police illegal in Arizona under bill signed into law by Ducey
20 votes -
Single-use plastic waste is getting phased out in California under a sweeping new law
23 votes -
Minnesota lawmakers voted to legalize THC edibles. Some did it accidentally.
12 votes -
Couples wed as Swiss same-sex marriage law takes effect
5 votes -
California lawmakers reject ballot proposal that aimed to end forced prison labor
10 votes -
India bans single-use plastic to combat pollution
13 votes -
The conservative Supreme Court's favorite judicial philosophy requires a very, very firm grasp of history — one that none of the justices seem to possess
16 votes -
How the Supreme Court killed Roe v. Wade
8 votes -
Polish court rules that four "LGBT-free zones" must be abolished
16 votes -
Abortions can resume in Texas after judge blocks pre-Roe v. Wade ban
14 votes -
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; states can ban abortion
61 votes -
The Deep South’s dames of dildos
7 votes -
Germany moves ahead with plan to legalize cannabis sales
17 votes -
Ohio governor signs bill allowing armed school employees
15 votes -
In Iceland, traditionally a land of cat lovers, bans and curfews are redefining the human relationship with domestic cats
7 votes -
Adolescents in the US are chronically sleep-deprived, in part because most schools start too early. This summer, California will become the first state in the nation to require later start times.
24 votes -
Judge blocks Texas investigating families of trans youth
18 votes