Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 January 30

= January 30 =

Business plan
I am trying to write a business plan for my small company. Does anyone know where I can find a good template? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.177.84 (talk) 01:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Our articles Business plan and Content of a business plan might help. In particular the first reference listed in the former. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright question
public domain Question: My grandfather was an artist who died in 1950. I founs a website which is selling his works as posters. I thought the artist had to be dead for 70 years before it becomes public domain. I see paintings they are making posters for which are on my wall at home.Are they allowed to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lila98k (talk • contribs) 11:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Public domain--My grandfather died in 1950 and his work(much still in my possesion) is being sold as posters. Doesn't he have to be dead for 70 years before they can do this?Lila98k (talk) 12:04, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It depends on what jurisdiction you are in, and what arrangements, if any, he may have made for licensing his works. Please see Copyright, but in the end you should consult a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction, rather than expecting valid advice from a load of strangers on the web. That is why we do not give legal advice on Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 13:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * This may not be a question of copyright in the final analysis. I have a friend who found a great pile of paintings of exceptional skill by her grandmother. She soon realized that these same painitngs were done when her grandmother was relatively young and her style had changed remarkably by the time she had reached her artistic peak. The friend, who knew almost nothing about art, also found her grandmother's paintings in posters on the Internet. In this case, after not much research, we concluded that the paintings were put away because they were, in fact, copies of quite famous paintings done as exercises. As an aside, could your grandfather have sold the reproduction rights, which are quite apart from the ownership of the physical paintings? Bielle (talk) 01:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Electors of Hesse
Would it have been possible for the rulers of Hesse-Kassel to declared themselves Kings after the end of Holy Roman Empire? The other electors of Hanover, Bavaria, Württemberg, Brandenburg, and Saxony did so. Also is the title Elector higher than Grand Duke? Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 16:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * European artistocratic and royal terminology is not my strongest point, but I know something about German history, so I'll take a stab at this. Each of the other electorates gained recognition as a kingdom through the force of a treaty or negotiated agreement with at least one of the great powers of Europe.  In the case of Prussia, other European states were unwilling to recognize Prussia's proposed elevation to a kingdom without the approval of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.  Upon the death of Charles II of Spain, Leopold granted Frederick I of Prussia permission to name himself "king in Prussia" in return for a Prussian pledge of support in the impending War of the Spanish Succession.  In the case of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Saxony, Napoleon granted those states the rank of kingdom in return for their agreement to join the Confederation of the Rhine in alliance with him.  Each of those three kingdoms later abandoned Napoleon and secured recognition of their status as kingdoms from Austria or other powers.  As for Hannover, it secured the status of kingdom at the Congress of Vienna with the support of Britain, with which Hannover was in personal union at the time.  I don't think that there was any reason in theory or principle that Hesse-Kassel could not have become a kingdom.  However, it was a relatively small state and, I think, simply never had the clout to negotiate recognition as a kingdom by other powers.  As for your question whether the title of elector is higher than that of grand duke, I don't think that the two are really comparable.  That is, the title of grand duke corresponds to a rank in the hierarchy of monarchs.  However, the title of elector reflects a privilege, rather than a rank per se.  The prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire had a few different titles and therefore different formal ranks.  What they had in common was the privilege of electing the Holy Roman emperor.  This gave them a degree of power that other rulers within the empire lacked but did not change their formal rank.  Still, the title of elector was obviously a mark of status, in the general sense of that word.  Certainly a grand duke who was an elector was more important and powerful than a grand duke who was not.  Therefore, I think as a kind of consolation prize after coming away from the Napoleonic Wars without the kingly title the other former electors enjoyed, the grand duke of Hesse-Kassel continued to style himself "elector" even though the title no longer had any meaning, since the Holy Roman Empire had been dissolved.  Marco polo (talk) 21:46, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Chastity belt question.
Is it legal today to force your son, or daughter to wear a chastity belt to prevent him/her from masturbating, or having sexual intercourse?. I've heard of cases in some countries and I want to know if in the West, or at least, in most Western countries it's legal or not. Well, thank you. --Maru-Spanish (talk) 17:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a request for legal advice that probably should be removed. Legal systems generally do not specify "You can do XXXX to your child". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 17:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a request for legal advice that probably should be removed, My answer: "...". I am not asking for a legal advice, I am not going to force anyone to wear a chastity belt. I am asking if it's legal or not in Western countries........ --Maru-Spanish (talk) 17:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Your intention is not the issue. Your suppositions A) that Western countries have laws that state what a parent can or cannot do forcibly to a child categorically i.e. irrespective of circumstances, the child's welfare, medical needs, etc. and that B) the Ref. Desk will declare what is and is not legal ARE BOTH MISTAKEN. We may only advise you to see the article Chastity belt. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * to answer in a moral (rather than legal) sense, I believe that most western nations would view it as offensive and dangerous. -- Ludwigs 2  19:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The epidemic of teen pregancy is also offensive and dangerous. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And you think chastity belts are going to prevent that? I think it will just create an immense increase in internet searches for lock-picking. (muttering grumpily about people who think that they can preserve a child's innocence by enforcing ignorance and obedience)   -- Ludwigs 2  20:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be treating the symptom, not the cause. In any case, the OP asked about laws, and unless the chastity belt article has some info, or unless there's a lawyer among the answerers, there's little more we can tell the OP. Parents have a responsibility to raise their children, and there's a lot of latitude granted to them. So, in the US at least, IF there's either a law somewhere (and it's liable to be at the state level rather than the federal) and/or a court decision, that specifically address this question, then it has to be assumed to be an individual parental decision. But that's a big IF. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Though I tend to agrees with Bugs, there's worse things they could be doing! And Ludwigs2 makes a good point about lock-picking, on which we have a decent article, Also Lock bumping FYI.--220.101.28.25 (talk) 23:38, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * At this point I'm reminded of a story about a chastity belt with a built-in guillotine. I'll leave the rest to y'all's fittingly fertile imaginations. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ! 220.101.28.25 (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking that guillotine lends itself more to an infertile imagination... -- Ludwigs 2 00:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Possibly - eventually. Or possibly to silence, which is part of the punch line of the joke. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In late Victorian times, there was a relatively large number of patent applications for devices to discourage "onanism" among male teen-agers, and it's hard to believe that there could be so many patent applications without at least a few of the gadgets seeing some degree of use. (However, most of them were not really full chastity belts, since the focus was often on preventing involuntary "nocturnal emissions", and it seems that few of the devices would have been inconspicuous when worn under clothing, or allowed unhindered bodily elimination.)  Anti-masturbation sentiment was a kind of cultural and pseudo-"scientific" trend of opinion in late Victorian times, but I don't know of any similar modern current of opinion that would lead modern child welfare functionaries to look benignly on coerced chastity-belt wearing... AnonMoos (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I found a real case! A mom in Florida had her (13 year old) daughter's genitils pierced to make it harder for her to have sex (OK, so it's not strictly a chastity belt, but same idea).  The mom was aquited of the child abuse charges, and the person who gave the kid the piercing was given a reduced sentence of 1 year in prison for operating a body piercing service without a license.  Here and Here are some more articles about the case (before the aquittal) if anyone's interested.  If this case is any indication (and it seems like a pretty sparse area of the law), making a kid wear a chastity belt would need to be considered abusive to be illegal, and would fall under boring old child abuse. Buddy431 (talk) 01:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * A fantastic find! So American! As the defence put it: "Who’s to say which of the decisions is right? Is it the government’s job to do that? It is the parent’s choice to decide what to do, not the government’s." That's the essence of what is wrong with the liberals'/socialists'/communists' Big Government - it is constantly trying to interfere with the individual's constitutional freedom to pierce his/her children's genitals.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 16:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)