Hi @Tizme1
Thanks so much for clarifying the stance on copyright – I should have gone and checked on the website about that, myself, but failed there. It'll take a lot of consultation since there's been something of a trend towards standardising copyright length throughout the different world territories and although for books, films, dramatic, artistic, and musical works, in the UK (and many other countries) it's 70 years after death of the last surviving author, composer, writer – partly to do with inheritance, that the fruits of your labours should benefit the author and the first two generations of descendant, and partly due to life-expectancies – discussion is going on to extend it to 95 years after last death. But throughout the world, that varies from death+0 years to death+100 years. Copyright in recordings of music (and thus performance, arrangement, and production royalties) expire after 50 years in the UK and many other countries – but, these days, that's not going to support a musician into great age. Again, it's shorter in some regions but rarely longer. Copyright is about protecting the creators of work (or the person/organisation they choose to assign/sell their copyright to) and, as far as possible, protecting the vulnerable from exploitation – although there are a couple of countries where once the original copyright expires the work becomes the property of the State rather than public property, per se. But here, and in most of the 'western' countries you can always publish under a Creative Commons licence (varying from anyone can reproduce/perform/adapt with permission and/or credit, to time-limited 'free' use, or certain groups - Godspell, The Daniel Jazz, and some other works, can be performed without royalties required but only by schools. There were around 25 different types of Creative Commons Licences, last time I checked, but the original author still retains the original Copyright unless they assign or sell it. With both the current protections and freedoms, anyone who wanted to give up their copyright 14 years after their death could probably do that under existing practises and rights. But, in a competitive, developing world I'd be surprised if this plan could meet the agreement of all UK-based creators, publishers, and producers. (Gosh, that went on a bit, but I'll leave it as is.)
You're right about Caroline Lucas' supporters – they have an absolute right to support who they want to and she
is a good MP, I don't really want her to lose her seat. I'd like to see more Green MPs; I think that Chris, who's standing in this Constituency for the Greens, would make a good MP. You'll not blame me for hoping that Sheila, our Labour PPC, could knock Justine Greening out of Parliament - unlikely, I know, but she
is the closest rival for this year – and that Labour will get enough seats, overall, to be clearly ahead of the Tories, even if some sort of grouping is still necessary for Ed to lead the next Government! And I take your points about Natalie Bennett - the party has certainly grown at all levels under her leadership but, if anything, the criticism and pigeon-holing of the female leaders is harsher than on the men. It's ramped up now because the press are getting harder on everyone, as the election veers ever closer, and the 'traditional' party machines are now treating/targetting the Greens, SNP, and Plaid Cymru, as serious threats rather than as a sort of entertaining side-show to the main event. It's easy for us all to get caught up in that rather than seeking common ground and saving the
arguments heated-debates for actions planned or taken, rather than the perceived characteristics of individuals.
I haven't seen those interviews of Ed's, from Friday. Watched the Chatham House speech, and some other political bits and pieces through the day but had some Executor's duties to deal with, in bursts, interspersed with escaping here into The Haven for a mixture of relative light relief/different-sort-of-serious.
I'm glad we're seeing more of you and hope we
will see more of you. Pull me up if I get carried away or out of order, eh? As my late father always said, "The important thing is love."