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Well, I can see why we must have had a run-in if you see things in such black-and-white terms. When people imply that there is only one truth and they posses it, it always sounds a little totalitarian. I really don't have any interest in being on your friends list, but in answer to your questions:

1. Neither
Bush - Corporate Whore, underhanded dirty-pool player, liar, fascist.
Gore - Corporate Whore, directionless policies, prototypical beurocrat, no vision.

2. Leave 'em where they were and end corporate welfare and personhood and out-of-control military spending. Then adjust as necessary to keep the budget balanced (most likely way lower). Use government spending to build killer infrastructure projects like high-speed rail, cheap broadband, efficient space transportation. Sit back and watch the economy grow like kudzu and the welfare rolls dwindle.
Infrastructure gives ALL citizens a stable base from which to build and create. Spend money on that and rest will take care of itself. Spending One Billion Dollars and several young lives per week in Iraq isn't promoting the general welfare or defending US citizens as the Constitution mandates. It's our tax dollars down the rat hole. Deploying a non-functional missile defense system just lines the pockets of well-connected defense contractors at the citizens' expense without helping defend us from anything. We currently spend more than all other countries combined on our military. Is that necessary? We could easily track and identify terrorist organizations by watching international cash transactions but US corporate crooks use the same channels to launder their income and avoid taxes so it goes unchecked.
We, the People have lost control of our government. It is now in the hands of Energy conglomerates, defense contractors, and religious fundamentalists. If speaking in favor of citizens and against the traitors who have usurped our revolution is unrightfully bashing "america" (I guess you mean the United States) then, by all means, keep me on your Foes list. I prefer to be a foe to traitors.
We, the People will take our government back.

I don't mean to come off as a racist or anything, but seriously. when you are in fact a terrorist, wouldn't it make sense to sharpen up a little, maybe try and cut down on the co-worker-thinks-im-a-terrorist-because-i-look-lik e-this factor?

How can the courts do that? because noone has challenged them yet.
This is just like why we broke away from england. That was a revolution, and its what we need now, they keep taking rights away so slowly we get used to it, then they take some more, i highly recommend everyone read "the federalist papers" it was written by the founding fathers and what they REALLY meant in great detail when they wrote the constitution, among other great topics.

its still "We the people..." right?
it was supposed to be each state ran by the state by the people. NOT the federal government running the whole show! Im by no means a conspiracy theorist. Who was is, ben franklin that said we need a revolution every 200 years to keep the government in line? how old is this country?

9/11 changed the rules.

No, no it didn't.

9/11 just woke up a bunch of idiots who had been blissfully ignorant of the world situation. Terrorism has been an ongoing problem for a long time, the United States is just lucky we avoided most of it for so long.

As for changing the rules, the rule in question is the Bill of Rights. "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." PATRIOT Act be damned, it's still mostly a free country. I'm free to hate the government and pass out bomb making instructions. The Constitution doesn't end with "unless it's really hard, then you can ignore all this."

OTOH, if he wants to overthrow the fucking government perhaps he'd like to move to Liberia or Burma.

If you're so keen on wiping your ass with our Constitution, maybe you'd like to move somewhere like China where they'll happily abridge your freedom of speech.

Me, I'll stick around. Sure, it sucks that our freedoms make it harder for police to bust criminals, let hatemongers spread their message, and let just about any wacko get a gun. But the tradeoff is that I know I'm protected from police abuse, I can spread good healthy messages, and I can purchase a gun to defend myself. Our forefathers knew that freedom was dangerous, but decided that it was worth it.

There's actually a bill that, if passed, will mandate special labelling of copy protected CDs. There also seems to be a DMCA modification stuck in at the end permitting circumventation of copy protection for fair use and scientific research.

This probably won't be on any .gov sites yet as it hasn't been introduced... It's just a draft. If you check the PDF, the date of presentation is still blank.

I'd keep an eye on Thomas over the next week or so. Once it's been read on the floor, it'll wind up there.

29 July hasn't even been entered into the Congressional Record yet. You can keep an eye on this page and look at that day's information on submitted bills to find a bill number. Then you can search by bill number at thomas.loc.gov.

29 July hasn't even been entered into the Congressional Record yet. You can keep an eye on this page and look at that day's information on submitted bills to find a bill number. Then you can search by bill number at thomas.loc.gov.

The true vote was in committee where the amendment on the TV ownership cap and nothing else. The vote was 40-25, which my trusty calculator says is less than 2/3rds.

apologies for pegging onto your highly rated comment, but I wanted to let people know that Gutenberg was not the first guy with movable type -- it was the Chinese/Koreans (depends on what you consider moveable enough)

For a bit of history, see this page which says the the Chinese started with ceramic type, and the Koreans took metal type into a new level...

Korean metal print block

this guy talks about how Gutenberg might have been the first to mass produce MT - that could be a first (I don't know, either).

The rules are that you own the copyright as the words flow from your pen (keyboard, or whatever). To defend your copyright, however, you have to file with the copyright office.

Although you have a copyright, you cannot "use it" until you've filed with the copyright office.

So, what they are doing is just more fud.

They've not been assigned anything yet, so don't get your knickers in a twist!

Even if they eventually get the copyright for SysV code, it doesn't matter (see my prior post on this).

What makes software so special? Is he also against people getting paid for painting, drawing, making movies, music, or writing books?

All these things, software included, share a fundamental characteristic: they are all forms of art - a personal expression of the author that can be appreciated and enjoyed by others for nothing more than what other people perceive that it adds to their own life.

RMS's argument (as I understand it) is that software is a rigorous description of how to perform some task, and so should not be eligible for copyright.

In support of his argument: you cannot copyright a recipe or a formula. Copyright generally applies to a particular expression of an idea, and not to the idea itself.

In opposition to his argument: nowadays, copyright law explicitly allows computer programs to be copyrighted. But then, RMS is not arguing what the law is, but what it ought to be.

And in case it isn't obvious, he does think that literature, pictures, music, etc. should be eligible for protection by copyright.

"Judge, I want to ignore this license which I never agreed to"

The BK license is a click-through EULA like any other. Just like all of them, it's not valid.

Unless your country decides to pass a law making them binding, it won't effect you. (Even if your nation allows electronic contracts, the software vendor would have to take some steps to record the agreement in a valid manner. BitKeeper, like most publishers, does not do that)

If a person permits you to download his software without obtaining an agreement as to how you'll use it, you can do whatever you want (execute the code) so long as you don't violate copyright (make copies of the program, which is unnecessary if you've already got a copy from the publisher)

So if a spammer uses some copyrighted information in the contents of his spam, can the copyright holder use the DMCA "subpeona cause I feel like it" clause to find the spammer?

Also, there's a section in the DMCA (section 1309.c) which says that if you didn't realize it was copy protected, it's not you're fault. Maybe a loophole?

I thought Thomas Jefferson took care of this problem around 1791?

These DTV guys need to watch the History Channel more often.

For those who track these bills, it has been assigned bill number HR 2752. This link goes to the Library of Congress Thomas website status and summary page for the bill.

1. You seem to be aware that not everywhere is the United States, then in the next sentence, you ASSUME that everyone is in the United States.

2. "If you have something worth saying, you should be willing to stand behind what you say."

You mean like this obviously worthless trash?

I tried the Library of Congress next, and found eleven hits on Title="THERE'S ADVENTURE IN": nine by Julian May and two by Neil P. Ruzic, spanning 1957-1961, from Popular Mechanics Press or (after 1961) Hawthorn Books.

Face it. You will not get a solution to a technical problem like spam from these jokers on Capitol Hill. And for those of you who think spam is a social problem, you will not get a solution to a social problem from these people either.

Wow. Why did I ever believe Congress was a place that American business, be it commercial, social, or cultural, got done? Did Congress always stand opposed to the individual as it does today?

Face it. You will not get a solution to a technical problem like spam from these jokers on Capitol Hill. And for those of you who think spam is a social problem, you will not get a solution to a social problem from these people either.

Wow. Why did I ever believe Congress was a place that American business, be it commercial, social, or cultural, got done? Did Congress always stand opposed to the individual as it does today?

Actually, HR 2601 looks pretty useful.

Sure, it won't put Mickey in the public domain. What it WILL do is put thousands of other works there, works that are currently protected but which the copyright holder has no interest in exploiting.

It also calls for the creation of a database of works under copyright protection. This would be a godsend for many industries and institutions. Librarians would be ecstatic. So would anyone wanting to create using someone else's characters.

Of course, it won't go anywhere unless you write your representative.

That would be the 4th amendment in the Bill of Rights (not the Constitution, per se). It doesn't explicitly designate a right to privacy, only implies something similar:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That would be the 4th amendment in the Bill of Rights (not the Constitution, per se). It doesn't explicitly designate a right to privacy, only implies something similar:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Just a note: it may not be "every song ever produced" as I stated. Circular 73 has more information.

It's hardly suprising that as former Soviet republic would latch on to information technology as a fundamental right. It's a simple reaction to Soviet policy, which even restricted access to photocopiers. Indeed, the revolution in network and media technology played a big role in bringing down the U.S.S.R. -- much bigger than anything Ronald Reagan did. It's only natural for the Estonians to seize on this technology as a safeguard against a return to totalitarianism.

The RIAA does not own the copyrights to anything. According to the DMCA only the owner of the copyright can sue for infringement. The owner first must communicate in writing to the user's ISP, demanding that they take action.

The ISP is bound by law to inform the user, who has the right, under penalty of perjury, to deny that he/she is offering infringing material.

Now it gets interesting.

If the user denies that he/she has been sharing, the ISP must inform the copyright owner, and that copyright owner has a limited amount of time during which it MUST bring suit against the alleged infringer, or the ISP MUST restore access.

So, someone please tell me how the RIAA has the right to sue, since they own no copyrights?

Also, if every person sued denies they are sharing, forcing the actual copyright holder to bring suit, wouldn't the sheer weight of litigation costs make this a really bad strategy?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Wrong! I bought the software (with my laptop lets say). I own it. Whether I have to click a EULA button or not, I own it.

Since both parties agree, and there was an exchange of something of value it sure sounds like a binding contract to me. You do have the option of not agreeing, but you dont retain right to use.

Wrong! I already own the software. I don't need to agree to conditions. Microsoft can write anything they want into their EULAs. It doesn't make it legal. You can't force terms upon someone after they own something. Ford can't force me to buy goodyear tires either. Leases may be another story, but sales are sales,not licenses.

Currently most HAVE been upheld.. true not all, but most.

Wrong again!

Check this article out. I know it's linux journal but the quote is from a Judge.

"The Court understands fully why licensing has many advantages for software publishers. However, this preference does not alter the Court's analysis that the substance of the transaction at issue here is a sale and not a license," Judge Pregerson writes. If you put your money down and walked away with a CD, you bought that copy, EULA or no EULA.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5628

Btw you dont own the content of a record either..

Did I say I own the "content" of a record? I said I own a record. I can resell the record just like I can resell the book or movie I bought. I can play it backwards in search of hidden messages or figure out the guitar parts note for note. (reverse engineering :) They can't put conditions on it. I OWN IT!

Record companies tried to change the law. In 1993 they tried to stop stores that sell used CDs. Garth Brooks even went on TV to cry about it. But they failed. Just look it up in copyright law.

What you are proposing will work for general spam checking, but not for Bayes, which is what the original poster asked about. In reality, it's hard to test Bayes in a general case.

Having a copyright on a work does not mean that you own the work, it means that you have a limited-time government grant of the exclusive right to reproduce the work. See Copyright Basics. You can own a particular instance of the work, its physical manifestation, but not the work itself.

Following the links from the posted article, I found the text of the law in PDF format. The THOMAS Congress web site does not yet have the bill online.

FLAC may be your only option soon. WinRAR is a tool used by the online "warez" community for the purposes of illegally distributing software. For this reason, there are currently two bills pending in the US Congress that would make use of WinRAR and all other file formats without "redeeming social value" illegal.

Don't believe me?

H.R. 1950 (attached as a rider)
S. 671

Read 'em and weep.

FLAC may be your only option soon. WinRAR is a tool used by the online "warez" community for the purposes of illegally distributing software. For this reason, there are currently two bills pending in the US Congress that would make use of WinRAR and all other file formats without "redeeming social value" illegal.

Don't believe me?

H.R. 1950 (attached as a rider)
S. 671

Read 'em and weep.

Lamar Smith (R-TX-21), John Conyers (D-MI-14) and Howard Berman (D-CA-28) are behind this bill, H.R. 2517. It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee where Conyers and Berman are the top democrats and Smith is the number three republican. If you are a constituent of any of them, please let them know you are not happy about this bill.

Quite funny, and this made me google it. Snopes has a great history of the copyright ownership of "Happy Birthday", which is currently controlled by a division of AOL Time Warner until 2030. That is, until copyrights are extended. . .again.

What do you expect, we elected "W" as president?

He is writting his own modern version of the Gettysburg Address, "..that this nation, under God, shall have a new dearth of freedom - and that this government of the Corporations, by the Corporations, for the Corporations shall not perish from the earth..."

(Original here.)

And that's an excuse for being a drooling idiot?

You a liberal arts major?

If your indie artist owns her own copyrights,

You must be. Copyrights don't have to be registered. I own my own words and you own yours, though I really don't see why you'd want to own yours. Though registering your copyright if you plan commercial use is a good idea, and you can go to The US Copyright Office and find out how.

I'm not surprised that you don't know this, given the improbablility that you'll ever come up with anything that remotely looks commercially valuable, there's no reason why you should.

I know IP (that's Intellectual Property in this context, not Internet Protocol) law a bit better than you, I've filed patent apps on two technology-related patents and I'm also published writer on computers and the Net. This means that people pay for what I write on occasion.

Who knows, study and learn and maybe you'll think of a business method patent you can slip by a patent examiner who isn't paying attention someday.

and she is dumb if she doesn't, then the RIAA can't attack your friends for hosting her.

There's a real world out there. In that world, scanbots search sites looking for .mp3s with names resembling that of songs belonging to RIAA member labels, and bots send DMCA takedown notices to ISPs. Your choices if you find your site or account unplugged are to remove your content or be willing to hire a lawyer to represent you in Federal Court. It is not required that a DMCA takedown notice be fair or reasonable.

Why don't you read up on how the DMCA is applied by corporations against individuals in the real world before you expose your abject ignorance any further? Of course, this might puncture your delusion that corporations can do no wrong, and I doubt even having your college money tied up in Enron stocks would have taught you better.

commies like the people who would argue with me

You think anyone who disagrees with you is a communist?

Just what kind of nut are you?

Note: there are several statutes that have to do with copyright law. Perhaps you should look the other ones up if you can count to several on your fingers. Though 1, 2, 'many' might be close enough to your purposes.

As for fair use:
United States Public Law 102-563
Audio Home Recording Act of 1992
SUBCHAPTER D. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN INFRINGEMENT ACTIONS, REMEDIES, AND ARBITRATION Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Elsewhere in the text of the law is how digital audio recording is treated differently, and the DMCA expands on this further.

The difference between recording off the radio to analog tape (legal) and recording to disk (illegal) is because the *AA organizations per$uaded Congress to make the difference using this as the original law in the area. In the recent debate between an RIAA attorney and Lessig, the RIAA attorney correctly identified this. Is everybody wrong except you? Or are you getting your info from Rush Limbaugh?

If you know how to use google, find the cite yourself.

I don't have to use a "straw man" in arguing with you, you are one. Why don't you run along and play with matches?

This is as much time as I can conveniently waste on someone ineducable. The waste of taxpayer funds on educating you might be worth getting concerned about, but there are bigger things to worry about than some pissant born-again right-wing GOP crazy who managed to get promoted off the short bus you were taking in high school. Tardbashing is fun, but it gets old after a while. I've wrung as much entertainment value as you have out of you.

Say something stupid later and maybe I'll take another poke at you.

this huge $44Trillion debt that is going to bite us in the ass in the next few years especially with these tax cuts,

The Federal Gov't budget was $2.1 Trillion for 2002. The tax cuts are $35 Billion/yr.

In comparison $75 Billion/yr goes to family farmers who have been obsolete for 40 years now, $344 Billion for defense, $460 Billion for Social Security and $850 Billion for welfare programs.

Here is a good graph showing national debt as % of gdp. We are not any worse off then we were in the '90s or the '60s.

The 2003 Senate Energy Bill (enter S.14 into "bill number") thomas.loc.gov offers loan guarantees for the construction of 7 new nuclear reactors in the US, as well as a new $1.1Billion nuclear plant in Idaho to produce hydrogen. If these are steps you want taken, you should write a letter to your Senators telling them how much your vote depends on their support of this bill.

currency converter - findsounds.com

how stuff works - infoplease

about.com - librarian's index

rebecca's reference - tom mayo's links
-words:

acronym/abbr -lookup -finder -bm

trans -babelfish -worldlingo -google bm

bartleby

phrontistery

pseudodictionary

jargon file
--music

epitonic - pitchfork

sonomu - electraum

gnod - audioquarium --books:

amazon - abebooks - bookfinder

gutenberg & onlinebooks

loc.gov - lambiek comiclopedia - rebecca's books

Maybe you should take a look at what the 106th Congress had to say? They seem to think it's possible anyway.

The argument that "piracy" is frequently used in place of "copyright infrinegment" may be true, but I don't think you can show me the text of a law uses the term "piracy" while I can certainly point you to the law about "copyright infringement."

This becomes important because the law about "copyright infringement" also contains a subsection on "fair use." And that subsection would complicate your argument.

Can you cite an example of a local law that allows theft?

First of all, theft? What theft? I'd like to see YOU find even a single example of a local law anywhere on earth that states copyright violation is theft. I'm really getting sick of this "copyright violation is theft" crap, especially from self-rightous idiots hurling insults and erroneous information. I don't usually flame, but I'm in a bad mood and you started with the "stupid" coment. Copyright violation is copyright violation, not theft. You may as well start saying rape is theft of sexual services and that driving with a broken headlight is theft of illumination.

If not then consider who the stupid one is in this case...

You want to toss insults? Great! Let's see who's the stupid one. The United States Library of Congress Copyright Office provides this refference: International Copyright Relations of the United States. It contains the following information:

The following countries do not recognize any protection of US copyrights :
Afghanistan
Bhutan
Ethiopia
Iran
Iraq
Nepa l
Oman
San Marino
Tonga
Yemen (San'a)

Armenia only has treaty relating to satallite programming.

The following countries have not established copyright relations with the US but "might" honor any relations (if any) that existed with their prior government:
Comoros
Jordan
Kiribati
Nauru
Nor th Korea
Palau
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Tuval u
Vanuatu
Western Samoa
Yemen (Aden)

There ya go! Of those 25 listing I'm sure at least 20 will happily allow this "theft". And you just asked for one. But we're not done yet!

While all other countries have some sort of copyright relations with the US, there is a vast array of different treaties and agreements. I couldn't even begin to guess how many more contries would not recognize/protect the copyright on this software. Quite a few I'd wager. Software is the sort of thing likely to fall through the cracks for any country the US only has partial treaties with.

But my primary point is that Nullsoft stated:

"you acquired no lawful rights to the Software and must destroy any and all copies of the Software, including by deleting it from your computer"

Even for the countries that do recognize this copyright it is an absurd statement. Different countries have different laws. Nullsoft's statement could be be partially or entirely false in any given country.

-

I'd love to answer your questions to the best of my ability. Whenever possible I'll try to provide references. When I refer to HR 25 ( the actual bill embodying the proposal ) you can check it out at thomas.loc.gov. Follow the link and type in "H.R. 25" in the "Search by Bill Number" box.

You asked:

1) The site repeatedly emphasises that you will now take home 100% of your paycheck - no taxes deducted. How does the split between federal and state taxes work? Are all states now required to take thier income solely from sales tax, and is the percentage they get fixed? Either way, is this an infringement on state's rights?

There is no requirement in the legislation ( HR 25 ) that the states do anything with regard to how they choose to tax their residents. You are correct that to do so would be an infringement on states rights. There are provisions in the bill though to allow states to voluntarily perform the sales tax collections if their sales taxes are in conformance with the retail sales tax in HR 25, and it allows them to keep 0.5% of the take for their troubles. I suspect this would tend to encourage states that do have sales taxes to bring them into conformance, and to perform the collections.

So in summary, you would only keep 100% of your paycheck if you live in a state/locality that doesn't level an income tax of its own.

2) How does this affect retirement/pension plans other than social security? Personally, I don't pay into social security, but I do pay into a state retirement plan which is IMO much better; would this plan force me to switch to social security?

HR 25 in no way forces you from your state retirement plan into social security. To the extent that your pension income would have been taxed as income by the federal government before ( I think all such pensions are taxed as income currently, I know military pensions are ) it would not be so taxed now.

3) According to the website, everything would be taxed at 23% (with a refund for "necessities"). Given that, as a college student on a very limited income, I pay almost no taxes, wouldn't I be voting to have less money if I approved this?

First, the refund for 'necessities' is a simple refund of 23% of the poverty line for your household size. For a single person the poverty line is about $8000 ( I'm pulling this from memory, but it's close). So as a household of one you'd get back:

$8000*0.23 = $1840 per year

$1840 per year / 12 months = $153.33 per month

So you'd only be paying sales tax on every dollar beyond about $8000 ( the taxes on the first $8000 you spend having been refunded to you ). Please also keep in mind that you're college tuition is exempt from the Fair Tax ( education is the only exempted retail good/service exempted). I don't know how much you spend a year, or how you get the money you spend, but if you earn it, you pay 7.5% from the first dollar for payroll taxes ( even if you owe no income tax ). So you're break even point as a single person ( just on payroll taxes ) is $11870.96:

$11870.96 * 0.075 = $890.32 payroll tax

or

( $11870.96 - $8000 )* 0.23 = $890.32 Fair Tax

So if you're making less than $11870.96 ( or so, keep in mind the $8000 is close but a little low ) you'll do better just based on not paying payroll taxes ( never mind income tax ).

4) Wouldn't this increase the rate at which society fractures into the "haves" and "have-nots", as those earning {m/b}illions would have almost none of it taxed unless they choose to spend?

This is an interesting question, and one that it's very hard to give a definitive answer to. Clearly someone with a very high income who doesn't spend will pay less taxes in this instance. However folks in the middle class who are working hard and saving rather than consuming in an attempt

Actually, the DMCA is the result of the US Legislative branch adopting support for the WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act (WIPO being the World Intellectual Property Organization). The DMCA was drafted as a direct result of the Treaty that the US signed (the treatiy being the WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act).

The Diplomatic Conference held by WIPO, which drafted the treaty, saw attendance from over 150 countries that agreed on changes to be made to protect IP. Some countries are more lax in implementing the WIPO treaty, others such as the US, England, Germany, and others aren't so lax.

Here is some more information on the subject THE WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATIES IMPLEMENTATION ACT -- HON. HOWARD COBLE (Extension of Remarks - June 23, 1998)

As Jonathan Miller once said,

in the U.S. they have two parties, just as we [in England] have two parties. They have the Republican party, which is like our Conservative party. And they have the Democratic party, which is like our Conservative party.

I'm not sure what to make of your statement that you're concerned more with criminal than civil litigation. This whole thread was a about civil matters (California's laws on implied warranties). As to criminal matters, local judges and juries in the South in the 1960s accurately reflected racist community values and exonerated some awful murderers and terrorists, some of whom took advantage of the Constitutional protection against double jeopardy and sold the stories of their brutal acts to the press.

If you think this is all ancient history, look at what local judge Edward Self did in Tulia Texas. When rogue cop Tom Coleman framed about 15% of the black population of Tulia Texas for selling cocaine in 1999 (one 57 year old hog farmer was sentenced to 99 years), Judge Self refused to admit evidence introduced by defense lawyers that demonstrated a pattern of deceit and shoddy police work by Detective Coleman. Later Judge Self lied about his refusal to admit this evidence and despite being caught lying and forced to recuse himself from appeals of the Tulia cases, Judge Self was re-elected. This spring, the cases were re-opened by higher authorities who don't have to stand for election in Tulia. Detective Coleman has been charged with three counts of aggravated perjury and all the convictions are being vacated. The State of Texas is preparing to pay the victims up to $3000 for each year they wrongfully spent in prison.

Before you get too enamored of direct local democracy, I would recommend re-reading Federalist X on the danger of faction and the tyranny of the majority. This spring, people farther removed from the local level got involved and

Comments on Slashdot's advertising are always on-topic.

Slashdot advertiser LegalZoom offers to apply for registration of copyright for you for $149. There is no reason you cannot do this yourself, for only $30.

Slashdot marketing does itself an enormous disservice by allying its brand with a bad deal such as this, in my opinion. If the Slashdot brand becomes associated with dubious propositions, then Slashdot advertising will become far less valuable.

U.S. Copyright Office

Blah, Blah, Blah.

I bow before your mighty intellect. You claimed I had NO valid arguments against DRM and with those three words have thoroughly refuted the other TWELVE objections I listed.

With those TWELVE points out of the way we can now proceed to the ONE point which you did address...

You don't know shit about the DMCA.

Sec. 1201. - Circumvention of copyright protection systems
(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures. -
(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title...

(3) As used in this subsection -
(A)to ''circumvent a technological measure'' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

Apparently you are the one who "don't know shit about the DMCA." The above text proves that you can violate the law merely by sitting motionless and thinking. You merely apply the descrambling process in your head and you've violated the law. As I said, circumvention is "thought crime". Five years in prison, $500,000 fine. For thinking.

You obviously have only read Michaels assertions on the DMCA

Yeah, real obvious [sarcasm].
I have no idea who "Michaels" is, but even if I have read whatever he's written it certainly isn't "all I know about the DMCA" because I've been reading the DMCA itself.

Don't redistribute your tools for modifying someones copyrighted work and you are fine.

You are obviously ignorant of what the DMCA actually says. As I showed above, the DMCA outlaws "circumvention", amongst other things. The DMCA has dozens of sections and hundreds of clauses. FULL TEXT of the DMCA.

You can even distribute your work as long as it's purposes extend beyond circumventing copyright.

There is no such thing as "circumventing copyright". I'll have to assume you meant violating copyright. You violate copyright, you circumvent a "technological protection measure".

And you are wrong. The DMCA does not abide by the supreme court Betamax decision which set the standard as "substantial non-infringing use". In the DeCSS case there were innumerable non-infringing uses. Fair, legitimate, and perfectly legal use is not a defense against the DMCA.

The DMCA outlaws things with perfectly legal and valid purposes because DRM becomes completely worthless if permit even a single way to defeat it.

You are an ill-informed, FUD spreading idiot with no knowledge of the actual law.

I have backed up every statement, I even provided the text of the law itself.

Instead you spew filth you read on Slashdot as if it is some salatious information, to which you alone are akin to. You don't know shit about it, kid. Go educate yourself before you give yourself an aneurysm.

You just "spewed filth". You haven't presented a single factual statement. Your entire argument amounts to nothing more than insulting me personally. That is known as an "ad hominem attack". It is an invalid argument. You can't attack my arguments or my facts, so you attack me. It's like being in an argument with a ten year old, you may as well say my mother dresses me funny. It doesn't make you right.

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DMCA is relevant to your situation if the license constitutes "copyright management information."

DMCA provides several provisions, not all of which are wholly evil. Section 1201 (a)(1)(A) (the "anti-circumvention clause") provides that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." it goes on to list a variety of exceptions. The failure to include enough meaningful exceptions is a serious flaw in the law.

Section 1201(a)(2) (the "anti-trafficking" clause) goes on to provide that "no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" among other things. This is not an entirely bad thing, though it has been terribly abused by RIAA and MPAA to prvent the distribution of things that do have reasonable commercial value.

Section 1202 (b)(1) provides that "No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information."

Rather than railing against the "DMCA" it would seem that supporters ofopen source ought to be strongly supporting 1202(b)(1). People concerned with legitimate security research ought to be interested in expanding the expemptions to 1201(a)(1), while people concerned with playing their digital content on devices of their choosing ought to be concerned with 1201(b) in general.

The copyright office is holding hearings on 1201(a)(1), though it is too late to participate if you haven't already.

Instead of uninformed bitching about DMCA as a whole, read the thing and express rational criticism instead of hysterical nonsense. You'll get farther that way.

DMCA is relevant to your situation if the license constitutes "copyright management information."

DMCA provides several provisions, not all of which are wholly evil. Section 1201 (a)(1)(A) (the "anti-circumvention clause") provides that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." it goes on to list a variety of exceptions. The failure to include enough meaningful exceptions is a serious flaw in the law.

Section 1201(a)(2) (the "anti-trafficking" clause) goes on to provide that "no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" among other things. This is not an entirely bad thing, though it has been terribly abused by RIAA and MPAA to prvent the distribution of things that do have reasonable commercial value.

Section 1202 (b)(1) provides that "No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information."

Rather than railing against the "DMCA" it would seem that supporters ofopen source ought to be strongly supporting 1202(b)(1). People concerned with legitimate security research ought to be interested in expanding the expemptions to 1201(a)(1), while people concerned with playing their digital content on devices of their choosing ought to be concerned with 1201(b) in general.

The copyright office is holding hearings on 1201(a)(1), though it is too late to participate if you haven't already.

Instead of uninformed bitching about DMCA as a whole, read the thing and express rational criticism instead of hysterical nonsense. You'll get farther that way.