27 hours and 10 Mtn. Dew Amps and a night in Little America WY, and I made it home... YAY.

Jack Valenti, longtime president of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) said this in 1982 in a testimony to congress: "Creative property owners must be accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property owners in the nation." Valenti and the MPAA aggressively lobby our government for stronger copyright laws, and this is his basic reason. It sounds logical enough, but it goes against a long legal tradition regarding 'creative property.'

Article I, section 8, clause 8, of the Constitution says, "Congress has the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." This clause does provide for protections on creative property for the purpose of promoting progress. Why would someone work hard to create a new idea if it could be easily stolen? But this clause does make an important distinction; it says that exclusive rights should only be secured for a limited time. This contradicts Valenti's claim that physical property and creative property should be given the same legal protections.

I'm learning a lot about copyright law from Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. I first saw Lessig on The Screen Savers, and I went to his website where the book is available for free in several formats (I went for audio and MS Reader).

The problem with current copyright laws, according to Lessig, is not that they give protection to creators, but that those protections have grown beyond what was intended by the framers and what is healthy for our culture. Take the limited time mentioned in the above quote from the Constitution. The original length of a copyright was 14 years. It could renewed, if the author was still alive, for another 14 years. That would cover the commercial life of just about any creation, allowing the author to make money, but sending the creation into the public domain while it's still relevant. Today the copyright term is 95 years. The only ones who benefit from such a long term are the corporations who hold the copyrights. No artist is still alive and hoping to profit from his creation after 95 years. This extended term also means that the public domain is starving.

I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know what Lessig suggests as a solution, but it's been interesting to learn how copyright law has changed over the years. And, sadly, those changes protect corporations and make it harder for individuals to be creative without fear of litigation.

I finished my last assignment yesterday. Finals are over. I'm going to be packing up my room today. It's been a long, hard road. But I made it. Sometime next month a piece of paper will arrive in the mail verifying that I am a Bachelor of Arts in the field of Youth and Family Ministry. I worked my tail off for that stupid piece of paper. At times I thought I wasn't going to make it. I sat in my room in our snowed in house in Wisconsin three years ago thinking this would never happen. But it did. I got a second chance and I took it. Once again, I would just like to thank all the people in my life who have stood by me and kept me going. Each and every one of you has made a tremendous impact on my life and I love you very much because of that. I'm going to miss you all terribly. Luckily I'll be able to visit a lot of you guys over the summer. And we'll always have this site. And then next summer. But a new chapter has begun. I am proud of us all. We're moving forward to bigger and brighter things. Don't give up on your dreams. Stay strong. Stay the course. Insert some more motivational cliches here. They're all true.

Get Movable Type

In response to all the madness from yesterday, Six Apart changed the personal license fees for MT 3.0. I still don't think we'll be able to upgrade though. Here's our numbers:

11 "Active" bloggers
12 weblogs

So this means we would require the highest personal addition license, which allows for 13 active authors and 13 blogs. The price, after you take out the $20 credit I would get for already contributing to MT, would be $129.95. I would love to be able to pay this much for MT 3.0. It's great software. The TypeKey comment registration system alone makes it worth it. Also the possibilities of lots of great plugins, much faster rebuild times, and an overall easier to use and manage interface make it the best blogging software out there, in my opinion.

Another major bummer about this licensing situation is that if I ever wanted to take on another hostee, they would have to pay $10 to be added to the license. My whole goal for this was everything is free. We're not out to make any money here. We're a bunch of friends who blog about a wide variety of topics and use our blogs to communicate with each other, keep in touch, things like that.

So basically, unless we can come up with a way to raise the money, I think I'm just going to stick with version 2.661, which will remain totally free. I think it works just fine.

Well, we're back in town. Coming soon:

Pictures from the trip

Discussion on Free Culture, the book I'm reading.