Slashdot Mirror

• Blizzard's WoW updates (that was who I was thinking off - a big "Doh!" with hindsight, but in my defence WoW never appealed to me.
• Diablo 3's digital distribution, probably the bulk of recent legitimate BitTorrent traffic.
• Linux/BSD distros, probably the bulk of legitimate BitTorrent traffic overall.
• Creative Commons and similar free to share, but rarely mainstream, media content via sites like ClearBits
• Asus' updates for large files

If that's it, then it's not exactly a ringing endorsement as to why BitTorrent as a protocol shouldn't be "managed" when set against the huge quantity of commercial software, non-free movies (incl. porn) and TV shows being torrented, is it? I was hoping for some major academic/scientific use like distributing vast amounts of data between institutions, or one of the MegaUpload type file lockers to offer a torrent option for downloading content uploaded to their service for distribution.

It is still the law, though. The reason governments exist in the first place is because man cannot live in a vacuum of moral absolutes. Murder is wrong. Theft is wrong. Rape is wrong. Without government telling everyone that there are specific punishments for specific crimes, anything can and will happen. No laws on rape? Watch men and women be violated even more than they are now. No laws on murder? Watch the spread of fear as roving gangs of vigilantes and sociopaths start killing not only each other but everyone else they encounter. No laws on theft? Watch everyone drop into the poor house except for those good enough not to get caught by their victim.

Don't get me wrong. I think current copyright law is immeasurably wrong. It does nothing for promoting the arts and is all about making every last corrupt dime out of a work as they possibly can. It's not about protecting the pseudo property known as IP. It's about power and money and who does and does not have it.

By widespread breaking of the law you are only proving the point that current laws need better enforcement and bigger punishments. I really don't like the alternative (indy bands and groups at places like Vodo, ClearBits, and Jamendo (and the like) or, you know, actually paying the RIAA for their artists' stuff (I'd rather pay the artist directly, thanks)), but if we are going to claim the moral high-ground of law abiding citizen and have a chance of being taken seriously, what is the choice?

No one sees copyright infringement as anything near revolutionary. To most people, those who willfully infringe are indeed nothing more than common criminals. Step up above that and walk the higher ground while lobbying your state and federal politicians. Otherwise, I don't want to hear about how unfair the system is. I know how unfair it is.

So, let's all download FreeBSD (or any of these), I'm sure we'll be doing the authorities a great favor.

I always wanted to write eBooks and even came up with character names, ideas, and stuff I role played all over the Internet to see what people think and how to improve my writing skills and make corrections and changes.

I submitted an Ask Slashdot Story on how to write FOSS eBooks but it hasn't been voted on yet to be a real story.

Look first eBook attempt was by Microsoft in 1999/2000 or whatever and the Microsoft Reader software and books in LIT format that the MS Reader could read on Windows CE devices and Windows operating systems on PCs. But it flopped and once again Microsoft failed at trying to do something else besides selling software. Now we got a eBook reader price war, and I expect more mega-corps to enter the eBook reader market. In 3 to 5 years the eBook market will boom as we find a standard like PDF or RTF that most operating systems can read and most eBook Readers can convert to their own format. I hope that OpenOffice.Org and other FOSS office suite programs use the ODT format or something to replace PDF,

Look I know I am not the best writer and make my own mistakes, but I learn from my own mistakes. I need a hobby as I am disabled and out of work since 2002 and wrting FOSS eBooks sounds like a good hobby and I am not trying to earn money from FOSS eBooks just write them, hope for positive feedback and positive criticism and maybe others who can join me and help make the eBook better and add their name to the credits and authors and the like. I don't even mind if someone puts their name or names before mine. I am not doing this for attention, nor notability, nor profits, nor anything but trying to help out people, esp ones just getting into the eBook market that doesn't know a lot about IT and computers and wants to learn. But we slashdotters when we write stuff it goes over the novice's heads and they don't understand it. So a series of eBooks I will write for the people without our knowledge or experience and stuff and write it in a simple way like a cook book or step by step book. I am not writing these for the Slashdot readers but those new to IT and computers who want to learn something about it and cannot afford college and other things like books on it that cost too much to buy.

If it starts a trend then blogs and newspapers and others will get turned into eBooks as well. Starting off a chain reaction.

We can educate people to balance check books and learn how to save money, how to fix a Windows machine with virus infections, beginner's guide to programming in commercial and FOSS languages, and proof of that is right here as the State of California tries to make educational FOSS eBooks possible we can write FOSS eBooks some schools can use that cannot afford the cmmercial ones anymore and this save their money by using eBook readers, PCs, Macs, whatever to read them.

More than that Nintendo just make 100 classic books for the DS series, and why not make more eBook stuff for the other video game consoles? Playstation 3 Sony claims it does everything? Make it read eBooks and synch up with a PSP Go to put the eBooks on it to make it another eBook reader.

shameless self promotion::: (you asked)

ClearBits offers unlimited bandwidth / distribution of up to 10GB for $45/year, $0.98/GB/month additional, and less for higher usage.

http://www.clearbits.net/about/member_benefits

Well since we're naming names:

What about the indie film made by a 17 year old that made it into a prominent west coast film festival, but couldn't snag a distribution deal?

https://www.hdehal.com/oceania
http://www.clearbits.net/torrents/179-oceania-an-independent-film-from-the-san-francisco-bay-area---high-quality

It would be great if the schools responded by setting up a massive file sharing system loaded with public domain, Creative Commons, GPL, and other legal content. There could easily fill it with hundreds of gigs of free legal music. I think pushing free legal non-RIAA music would be an AWESOME way to comply with RIAA demands to combat downloads of their stuff.

Just a few links to get them started:
http://www.dance-industries.com/
http://ccmixter.org/view/media/remix
http://phlow-magazine.com/free-mp3-music-download
http://www.clearbits.net/torrents
http://www.jamendo.com/en/
http://www.archive.org/details/audio
http://newteevee.com/2007/03/03/ten-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrents/
http://newteevee.com/2010/02/05/ten-more-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrents/

and another four or five hundred links:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Content_Directories

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