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Seagram Declares War On Napster
GrokSoup writes: "Seagram Chairman Edward Bronfman declared war on online piracy in a speech in San Jose on Friday. While many of his arguments are hard to dispute -- Napster-like music-sharing services have turned a blind eye to theft -- he makes others that are tougher to support. For example, Bronfman said that anonymity isn't privacy, arguing that we have a right to the latter, but not the former: '[online anonymity] is nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank.'"Apparently some folks have a hard time figuring out that the stuff in quotes and italisced is a quote from the submittor. That's not me writing above - that's GrokSoup.
It sucks that napster is constantly being made the scapegoat for a much deeper and more imporant issue.
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This guy, has chosen death.
I'd like to point out, though, that of all communications mediums, the internet is the one with the least anonymity
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
since when is putting on a ski mask illegal?
This article makes a lot more sense when you realize that Seagrams doesn't just make seltzer anymore. I don't know if that's common knowledge...
MSK
I declare war on Seagram's alcohol branch.
...
He can't argue when I say that alcoholism disrupts families, causes death, unemployment,
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What does that Seagram company have to do with Napster anyway? This smells like an unknown company trying to get some visibility through controversial press releases. It worked for unkown artists like Dr. Dre, so why shouldn't it work for some company noone has ever heard of, eh? I wish they wouldn't get the visibility on /. at least.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
from the speech:
:) I'll go ahead and delete all my mp3s now, just for you.
I have moved those lawyers - or some of them - but I have done so, and will continue to do so - not to attack the Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to protect it. For its benefit.
Wow, see? Its really because he loves, and he only wants the best for us. Gee, I'm so happy to be loved by you
Did anyone else notice that he was giving this speech at Real? And when all know what champions of privacy they are.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
For some reason I feel like a mafia don is calling me a criminal.
If the only logic these corporations have behind removing your privacy is "*pout*.. we're losing money... boo hoo!" then they can blow me. My personal privacy is more valuable than your corporate ledger any day, no matter how many thieves are out there.
The fact is, privacy won't stop people from stealing. How many people walk into a store and shoplift even though they know cameras are surrounding them? How many people speed even though they know there are patrol men potentially lurking around every corner? How many people cheat on their taxes? The truth is, the less privacy individuals have, the easier it is for Seagram's and others to steal from us. Easier to track where we go, what we do, what we buy, how much we make, what they can sell to us,when they can sell it, whether or not to give us health coverage...
Just to further prove my point, an AOL user recently complained to me because, unlike eBay, my auction site doesn't require people to send me a photocopy of their driver's license, their social security number and their credit card number.
I was floored. This person thought it was improper business practice (nevermind the fact that the site is not a business, but a FREE non profit-site) not to collect this extremely sensative data on every one of our 3,000 members.
If people expect that from the places they do business with, I'm afraid to know what the average person would sacrifice for the "sake of government" or the "sake of children" or the "sake of corporate pockets" or the "sake of jesus" or whatever else is this month's "for the sake of...".
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
What a joke. who's stupid enough to start a war with technology? Do these assholes actually expect to push it back for more than 2 minutes? When napster gets shut down by a stupid judge who doesn't understand the tech, that is when the technology people will move to products like metallicster and gnutella, where there is no single server, no IPO, no individuals to file suit against. I would love to see netPD track all fifty gazillion IP numbers that are plugged into napster servers at any given time. If they can (doubtful), they will get huge privacy invadement lawsuits and the next software that gets as popular as napster will have IP spoofing as a built in feature so when some stupid consulting firm like netpd tracks them they get the wrong people who get pissed cause they don't even have such software, much less MP3s. They'll probably track them to amish settlements.
So stop wasting your time trying to protect your freedom to use napster. Devote your time to anarchy and pissing off these companies.
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all." -- Robert A. Heinlein ("Life-Line")
This is my observation, it is not my moral judgement on either side of the issue.
By design, the software promotes copyright violation, even without the knowledge of the user.
"Without their knowledge?", I heard you say. That's right--Napster by DEFAULT sets all the files in the directory that you download mp3's to shareable with the rest of the world. So if you once downloaded a Metallica single, now you're also giving it out to others, which is a matter of completely different magnitude.
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Are we going to blame everything on Napster? It seems like it. Soon we'll see "Rapist says Napster contributed to crime" on /.. Next time I rob a bank or something I'm going to blame Napster. That way I'll have the RIAA backing me with an army of lawyers in my case.
-Antipop
This is nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank.
This is not the equivalent. In the real world you are allowed to wear a ski mask down the high street and be anonymous. You are also allowed to wear a ski mask while robbing a bank (the robbing the bank part is the illegal part). I can see what is wrong with piracy, however being anonymous while online is the ONLY way that people who don't usually surf the web will get on it. Having a unique ID in ALL you communication over the internet seems to be what this guy thinks, which is definately NOT a good thing.
Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to get away with stealing, or hacking, or disseminating illegal material on the Internet - and presuming the right that nobody should know who you are.
...
One of the major attractions of the internet to some people is the prospect of anonymity - creating an online persona to experiment and discuss what you wouldn't normally in a public, non-anonymous forum. The whole idea of not knowing exactly who you're talking to is both a blessing and a curse (is that really a dog on the other end?), and it's what helps many people who are normally pretty introverted actually express themselves. Anonymity does not propagate stealing, it permits privacy and expression.
Here, we have already seen some major successes:
Another recent victory confirming the application of copyright law to cyberspace involved the unlawful dissemination of DVD anti-copy codes.
Since when was this case a victory??? It hasn't even come to trial yet!
In the appropriation of intellectual property, myMP3.com, Napster, and Gnutella (which has stolen from the breakfasts of 100 million European children even its name) are, in my opinion, the ringleaders, the exemplars of theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful appropriation of someone else's property.
ok... so an open source program is a ringleader of piracy? This guy's logic is amazing!
Those whose intellectual property is simply appropriated on the Internet or anywhere else, are forced to labor without choice or recompense, for the benefit of whoever might wish to take a piece of their hide.
If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery.
So... trading mp3s is equated with slavery!!!
Let this be our notice then to all those who hold fairness in contempt, who devalue and demean the labor and genius of others, that because we have considered our actions well and because we are followers without reticence of a clear and just principle, we will not retreat.
For in the end, this is not only a fight about the protection of music or movies, software code or video games. Nor is it a fight about technology's promise or its limitations. This is, at its core, quite simply about right and wrong.
Thank you for letting me speak from the heart.
And what a cold, misguided heart that is... This is not simply right and wrong. It is about freedom, and he is saying freedom is bad. This guy needs to be educated. I'm disgusted.
Funky! Check out their history . They started with wines and branched to owning DuPont, and bought up MCA (Universal Studio's) 4 years ago.
reporting a crime
But in the United States, one had the right to face one's accuser. Anonymous crime reporting makes that more difficult.
I think what's at the heart of this issue is not that music is being widely distributed by Napster, but is that the MP3 format and the widespread acceptance of MP3 has the potential of destroying the record industry.
Record executives hate to admit that they essentially rape their artists. And I'm not talking about the Backstreet Boys and N Sync, who are no-talents and deserve to be raped, but real artists who produce great music and see most of the revenue from that music fall directly into the pockets of those execs that treat them like slaves.
The future, in executive minds is very clouded because they know that it's quite possible that some of their best, and most abused artists will up and leave them, starting up very profitable distribution channels via MP3.
They have some choices. Either they pay the artists more money, which they'll never do, lose their artists, and everything they would have otherwise earned from them, or attack Napster in a feeble attempt to discredit and destroy MP3 in general. Guess which one they've chosen?
I'm not defending Napster here. Any form of copyrightable material should be legally protected from theft. If the author says "you must pay for this, or you are in violation of our copyright" then that statement should be respected and adhered to. But I don't believe that napster is in any way hurting the record industry. It costs about ten cents to manufacture a CD and only a little more than that to distribute it. Most of the cost of a CD goes directly into the bank accounts of record executives and is never seen by the artists. Casette tapes never did and MP3s never will even come close to offsetting the amount of profit that is being made in the industry.
A lot of artists are already making pretty good livings off of MP3 distribution and the record industry has no control over them. I bet that scares the shit out of them.
The funny thing is, you act is if napster has done something good. Well, I mean good as in righteous.
Who else should they go after? Gnutella?
You have to set a precident. You have to prosecute one person, to show that everyone who pirates MP3s are doing something illegal. You have to take a stand, against what you belive is wrong. You can't just appeal to society as a whole and say "Pirating MP3's is bad". As much as I don't agree with some of Metallica's slipery slope of beliefs, I am compasionate of the fact that they actually stood up against the pirating of MP3s.
scapegoat
2 a : one that bears the blame for others b : one that is the object of irrational hostility
The hostility and blame towards them is not at all uncalled for.
Drivers license and ss#?? I've been selling and buying on ebay for quite some time...but i've never had to do anything to my driver's license or type my ss#.
What are you talking about?
I think people who wear ski masks while using Napster should be arrested. They should be made to write "When I download MP3s, I'm downloading communism" 1000 times. If they still do not understand the moral rectitude of our captialist society, they will be sold into slavery and forced to make music that will distributed over Napster. We'll see if they ever pirate music again!
I'm going to live forever or die trying.
How about Seagram's, who in the appropriation of money has stolen mother's, fathers, brothers, sisters from the lives of tens or hundreds of millions of children with the willful distribution of an addictive and impairing 'drug'(alchohol)?
Of course, why fight for tougher drinking laws and greater penalties for crimes perpetrated while under intoxication instead of seeking tougher laws on privacy and anonymity, which effects the might-dollar you value so much?
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
I know that this entire speech is being ripped to shreads as we speak, but this left me dumbstruck!
Why not just say, "Napster, which has twisted my favorite activity, napping, into a multi-national conspiracy to destroy the foundation of the Unitied States' economy!
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"It looks just like a Telefunken U47"
I honestly think this girl was drunk or on crack or something. Or maybe just the result of too many free AOL CD's. But the point still stands that some people expect to just have to hand out their personal information. Or even want to. It's rediculous. When so many people are so careless with their rights, it makes me fear for the respect mine will be given.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
Don't make the users out to be any more or less guilty of piracy.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
and then he gets really crazy.....
I couldn't agree with you more.
The bottom line is, users have absolutly no protection from companies keeping a full digital biography and tracking data on every person in the world. If they keep a digital biography of me and they do it wrong, and sell it to other companies, and then to others I, as a common user, have absolutly no recourse under the law to stop seagrams from distributing this bad data for fun and profit.
This is why anonymity on public internetworking is not only prefered, but it's vital to an individual who values quality of life and a small amount of privacy.
___
Yea, and verily God Himself will strike down the heathen Napster users. They they shall burn in hell, tortured by their demon computers as punishment. Music on the Internet is the voice of Satan himself...
What's with that about "stealing the breakfasts of hundreds of million of European children"?? Are we about to see a ring of RIAA employes around Napster's offices singing "Tears are not Enough"?
I'm listening to "I'm Afraid of Americans" by Bowie/NIN at this moment. Highly appropriate. And yes dammit I own it. No wait, I don't *actually* own it, I am listening to it with the grace of the RIAA becuase I happen to posess a certain platter of glass. Go figure.
It is interesting how these big entertainment people always have the same kind of rant. Bast on two ideas I just don't agree with.
First - all property is property:
<I>You own a home. You own a car. They're yours - they belong to you. They are your property. Well, your ideas belong to you, too. And "intellectual property" is property, period.</I>
And I just happen to disagree. I think that an idea cannot be owned. Period.
Second - an idea will disappear if not owned:
<I>For the great ferment of works and ideas, including your own, if taken at will and without restraint, have no chance of surviving any better than did the buffalo.</I>
But nobody owns Debian GNU/Linux, Gnome or the new Linux-IA64 kernel. And they seem to survive very well.
I do agree that the internet and digital convergence are difficult concepts. And it is sometimes very difficult to make a living on an idea alone. But I don't think that the arguments the big entertainment industry makes are true. I have seen how the internet brings people together to freely create better processes, concepts, software code, procedures, designs, ideas and the very content that the big entertainment industry think they alone can create.
If they enact a bunch of laws, it certainly will be even _more_ impossible to transfer files!
Why, if they do both, I fear that we will never again be able to download an MP3, my friends!
Yes, indeed, the knowledge some human beings have about programming TCP/IP sockets code will summarily be erased from human consciousness if and when technology like Napster is outlawed.
(Get with it, corporate America.)
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Other than the gifts of God and Nature, that which is free is free only because someone else has paid for it. What of the extraordinary gifts of software and whole operating systems of which we sometimes read? They are rare, and sometimes they are loss leaders. Some of the donors may regret their generosity when later they are confronted with their children's college tuition and orthodontic bills, but yes, they have given, and they have given freely.
I don't know how to take this statement. Did he just brush off the entire open-source movement? Is he implying free/open source software authors will be poor because they do nothing else? Is he saying the only way to release good software is to charge (preferably high) prices for it?
In the appropriation of intellectual property, myMP3.com, Napster, and Gnutella (which has stolen from the breakfasts of 100 million European children even its name) are, in my opinion, the ringleaders, the exemplars of theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful appropriation of someone else's property.
Well, two out of three ain't bad. You know and I know that myMP3.com was a way for people to listen to their own music in places where they couldn't play their CDs. It was irregular, probably required permission from the record companies, but no one was being stolen from. The subscriber had to buy a CD...and if I recall, mp3.com also bought the CDs. As for Gnutella's name, I don't suppose he's heard of Gnu's Not Unix? Or homage?
If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery.
On that topic...isn't there a brouhaha taking place in front of Congress right now, due to a law allowing record companies to appropriate ownership of artists' songs?
It is against this that we have initiated legal action. It is not, and will not be, because we wish to suppress ingenious methods by which our products may be delivered, but because we wish to maintain rightful control and receive fair compensation.
And then there's this comment...
It can devastate a musician who sells a few thousand copies of a homemade CD to his fans in some small and little known community. And these would only be the first casualties. The rest would follow as the very basis of the New Economy was undermined.
I nearly coughed up a lung laughing after reading that statement. Ed Bronfman doesn't give a rat's ass about a musician he's never heard about that's not raking in millions for his Universal holdings. He's more interested in maintaining control - note the previous comment - over the distribution channel. "It is not...because we wish to suppress ingenious products by which our products may be delivered."
I would never have heard the music of the Romergency, Twitch, Devin Townsend, the Evolution Control Committee, RaverFX, and other artists/groups without mp3s that those groups offered! And Bronfman's trying to tell people small musicians will be squashed? Oh, of course, they have to be protected by Universal, Sony, and the rest of the cartel! They need to sign contracts and hand over their ownership of songs if they want to see any money! After all, that's the only thing that matters in music, right?
Give me a fscking break.
On a related note...Metallica, Dr. Dre and the RIAA take one side. On the other side, there is Limp Bizkit, Chuck D, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, and Bob knows how many indie musicians. Ladies and gents, the music industry is about to go to war with itself over mp3. You heard it here first...or not.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I have discovered a massive conduit for stolen intellectual material. They call it 'email', but beneath it's innocuous sounding name hides a great evil. As I write this, there are potentially gigs and gigs of illegal material flowing all around the world.. entire chapters of books, song lyrics, and the misuse of corporate trademarks are all taking place - but that's not the worst of it! Using a technology called "attachments" actual songs, TV shows, and stolen software can be exchanged along with the plain-text.
I have done a little research, and it appears that the major ring-leaders are a company going by the name of 'MicroSoft' with their 'hotmail' service (even in the name they are brazen about the 'hot' or 'stolen' nature of the contents!) and a company that goes by the name of 'Time/Warner/AOL' operating under the alias 'Netscape Webmail' (Which I assume relates to the web of lies and trickery that the service enables).. I have heard that there may be some other software that make use of this 'email' technology, but I think we have to go after the biggest most brazen CopyRight Theft Enablersto send a message to the internet community at large: 'Sharing is bad! Communication is Sharing!'.. We must get congress to ACT NOW and stop these 'ringleaders' while we can..
air and light and time and space
Anonymous crime reporting is fine. Anonymous crime accusing is an altogether different story; I don't think very few people have ever been, or ever will be, prosecuted on the basis of truly anonymous accusations without corroborating evidence.
You must not read Jon Katz articles.
> And just because someone who steps into that bank might steal something doesn't give you the
> right to force them to hand over their photo ID, their social security card, their passport, their
> medical history, their address, their phone number, how many children they have, etc.
No, not for walking in. But to be an actual banking customer, to use the services of the bank, you need to supply some credentials that you are who you say you are. Your rattling off a huge list of absurd things that banks don't actually ask for doesn't hide the fact that you probably appreciate my not being able to waltz into your bank, say I'm you with no proof, and empty your account.
> unlike eBay, my auction site doesn't require people to send me a photocopy of their driver's
> license, their social security number and their credit card number.
Um, did you ever stop to check if this person was on crack or not? eBay requires no such thing. Either you're making the story up, or you're blithely taking at face value the word of this AOLer that you spend the rest of your missive trying to discredit.
Not that it matters, anecdotal evidence not being worth the paper it's printed on, to mix aphorisms.
The actual problem with your rant is that you freely interchange 'anonymity' and 'privacy' as synonymous, essentially begging the question that you're alleging to answer. So, in simple terms:
Anonymity is not having to supply any identifying information. This is a good thing in certain contexts, expressing unpopular opinions, for instance; it's very very bad in others, the above-mentioned banking being one of the best.
Privacy is a related but different issue. Given that complete anonymity is roughly impossible in a closely-knit society, privacy is the issue of to what degree people can expect their personal information to be kept secret by third parties that acquire it in the course of normal business. Almost always a good thing, although I'm sure we could all come up with a situational straw man or two where privacy could be considered harmful.
They really are two different things, there are situations where privacy should be expected but not anonymity, and that's as it should be, as best I can tell. Freely interchanging the two terms muddies the water of the privacy debate in a harmful way.
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"Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to get away with stealing, or hacking, or disseminating illegal material on the Internet - and presuming the right that nobody should know who you are. There is no such right. This is nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank."
Actually, you put a ski mask on BEFORE you rob the bank. Putting that ski mask on is legal. Walking into a bank with it on is probably legal (though perhaps not). Robbing them is illegal. Similarly, on the net, being anonymous is legal. Browsing someone's auction site while anonymous is legal.
Separating anonymity and privacy is naive. While it would be nice not to have to be anonymous to ensure privacy, history (and Realnetworks, among others) has shown us that the corporations we patronize do not respect our rights, so we must ensure our privacy the only way we can. The only way to ensure law-abiding citizens' privacy is to ensure their anonymity, and that of the criminals. This principle also exists in the physical world. Our legal system is based on the idea that it is better to let 100 criminals go free than to falsely imprision even 1 person wrongly.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
You could say that about ICQ as well - it makes it easy to transfer files between users, it just isn't too mp3-centric. You could say it about Usenet, which even provides an infrastructure for anyonymous trading of child pornography. You could say that the Internet promotes piracy because "it allows you to use Napster". But where do you draw the line?
The real issue is that copyrights can't be enforced efficiently on the Internet without limiting the users' ability to use mechanisms like Napster or Usenet for legal purposes. It's up to the interested parties to create a technology that makes the protection of copyrights possible, instead of demanding that personal freedom be restricted because they can't protect themselves otherwise.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Those laws do exist. We can argue as to whether they are worthwhile. But they do not make ideas into "property".
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
"So am I warring against the culture of the Internet, threatening to depopulate Silicon Valley as I move a Roman legion or two of Wall Street lawyers to litigate in Bellevue and San Jose"
Here we are in the year 2000, and corporate CEOs feel nothing unusual about comparing themselves to Roman Emperors. I find this abominable. But in a certain sense, this guy is absolutely correct. Corporations can buy politicians with ease, can have 16-year-olds arrested in Scandinavia, and ensure that the mainstream press focuses on sports and Britney Spears rather than on our eroding individual rights. Our society is evolving into a corporatist police state at a rapidly increasing pace, where CEOs ARE the new Caesars. I'm only surprised that this guy from Seagrams actually had the temerity to explicity refer to himself as such.
I, for one, much prefer participating in the barbarian "culture of the Internet" than kowtowing to wannabe Caesars.
Unhappy? Kill your television.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Edgar Bronfman Junior's neice is Lauren Hoffman, a fantastically talented Charlottesville musician.
I encourage all of you to download some MP3s of her music and relish the irony.
-Waldo
to defend legality. It is well known in Canada that the Bronfman family worked with organized crime in the States to bring alcohol into the US during Prohibition, and that many of the Bronfman owned hotels were really fronts for prostitution. Granted, these actions are several generations removed from the current leadership of Seagram, but his money is still tainted. Perhaps the granchildren of the Napster founders could act equally as outraged over illegal acts.
Nothing makes me happier than to hear this. Each and every day one more clueless CEO jumps on the bandwagon against Napster. Little do they know that MP3 was here long before Napster and it will be here long after. If they want to squander their resources defeating a service which, techinically, is legal, while more and more just like it grow in size, then I'm all for sacrificing Napster to further the cause...
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Isn't there a law that says something that is designed for legal activities (the sharing of mp3's, which is not by raw nature illegal), cannot be made illegal on the part of someone using it for illegal (trading copyrighted/commercial music) purposes?
Scuse me? Hello?
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Am I just dense, or am I missing some weird kind of logic here?
Both. You're being dense by assuming that a piece of intellectual property is necessarily sold when you buy the material upon which it is recorded. It sounds weird to you, but that is not, in fact, necessarily the case.
Let's look at a piece of sheet music as a first example. If I buy that sheet music, I buy the right to use it for performance. I do not buy the right to make copies of it. If I want to make limited use of it -- say, by making a small number of copies which I distribute for an orchestra to practice from -- I may be able to claim fair use if I'm charged with infringement. Beyond that, however, I do not have the right to redistribute the sheet music.
That's how copyright is intended to work. I bought a piece of paper and some ink. The arrangment of the ink constitutes valuable information. I can sell the paper, and I can sell the ink -- but I can't copy that arrangment of ink on paper, or, by extension, the information carried by that arrangement.
In your example, if your architect had copyrighted the plans, and had retained the copyright, then, yes, in fact, you cannot copy those plans. Sorry. If the work of architecture was held to be a work for hire, and part of the contract said that owned the copyright on the plans, then, yes, you would be able to copy them -- because you own the copyright. Again, you can always sell the paper and the ink. You can't sell the information encoded thereon, though; that's what copyright protects.
From the American Heritage dictionary:
Privacy: 1.a. The quality or condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others. b. The state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion.
Anonymity: 1. The quality or state of being unknown or unacknowledged.
In the context of the real and commonly used definitions of privacy and anonymity (not Bronfman's definition of anonymity as an instrument of crime), anonymity is nothing more than privacy of identity. If you have a right to privacy, then you also have a right to keep your identity private. What Bronfman suggests is that we should redefine 'anonymity' in such a way that it can only be used in the context of criminal behavior and use this redefinition as a justification for limiting privacy. Privacy is apparently alright, so long as it does not infringe upon corporate profits.
Technology exists that can trace every Internet download and tag every file. These tools make it possible to identify those who are using the Internet to improperly and illegally acquire music and other copyrighted information. While adhering to the principle of respect for individual privacy, we fully intend to exploit technology to protect the property which rightfully belongs to its owners.
I fail to see how tracing every download from the internet and tagging every file in existence (essentially tracking all online activity) is "adhering to the principle of respect for individual privacy." Perhaps he is using some newspeak definition of 'privacy' in addition to his newspeak 'anonymity.'
His initiative one, 'secure' media downloads, combined with the third initiative, using technology to trace downloads, sounds like they could be planning to encode serial numbers of some such into the media. The player could be made to send off information about the user and the media file being played to the company, so that they can make sure that the user has the legal right to do so. Naturally, this isn't an invasion of privacy (re initiative five), they're just checking up on you to make sure you aren't doing anything wrong. Anyone who objects is obviously a thief trying to hide their identity and trying to take your privacy away.
Just what the world needs - music files that spy on us and report us to the authorities if we 'misbehave'... *sigh*
This is a such a cheap shot I had to single it out. Is this trying to make it sound that such programs -literally- steal food out of the mouths of millions of children.This whole speech in general sounds very much like something from Orwell's 1984. I see definate echoes when he talks about pirates essentially making slaves of creators of IP, or the bit about anonymity being a threat to privacy.
This man scares me, and it is people like this that will destroy the internet as we know and love it.
Phillip Morris, Nike, Microsoft..
For such crimes against humanity and depraved indifference
I game, therefore I am...
I think the whole ski mask argument really scares me. If I want to walk in public and exercise my rights not to have my identity shared I should have that right. In fact I've tried to exercise that right more than once. When I show up to a protest to express my free speech rights my identity is a very contested issue. From London to Seattle and DC the cops use security cameras and photographers to try and record and identify who's protesting. Knowing this and not wanting to have a longer FBI file than I already had, I wore a face mask at a some of the protest in DC. In short I was demanding that I had the right to peaceably assemble anonymously. After leaving a permitted march where we walked on the sidewalk I was tracked down and harassed by the cops. When I asked them why they were demanding to know my name, address, place of work, friends names, etc... they said that 'detectives' had told them to track down and find out who I was. They didn't arrest me for trying to conceal my identity, but I was singled out because I attempted to remain anonymous. Some people are arrested for hiding their identify in a public space, 30 anarchists were arrested while sitting in a public park on May 1st in NYC at a gathering they actually had a permit for.
We need privacy and the ability to be anonymous in both the online and offline worlds. I'm fine with them demanding that I not take a gun in to the bank while wearing a mask, but I think we need to demand the right to privacy and anonymity. Corporations like Seagram doing give a fuck about your rights, they care about profit. If we are going to have secure rights, then we can't rely on CEO's and their vapid promises.
The power of technology is manifest in how it is applied within the social matrix.
I admit that I am guilty of piracy. I know that I am stealing. I have no lame excuse I made up to cover my ass. Now ask if I really care... the answer is no. My reason? I'm cheep.
You just made my day... for some reason the actual act of ripping someone off doesn't bug me nearly as much as the losers who try to rationalize it afterwards to protect their fragile sense of self-worth.
It seems that there are a hundred people out there spouting about how "information wants to be free" or "it's only a small amount of money from such a big corporation", for everybody who admits, "yeah, I'm stealing; I got free stuff and don't expect to get caught".
The right to life Jefferson referred to was in reference to a citizen's relationship with other citizens and organizations. The ocean was not included, as, unlike Soylent Green, it is not made up of people.
Good question. At the time that document was written, philosophical thought pretty much revolved around Descartes: I think therefore I am. Not true, of course, as you don't really think yourself into existence. Your whole grasp of existence (the little circle inside the big one) comes from thinking, though, so it's most central to it, though no real center exists.
According to the though of the time, in the statement from the DoI you quoted,
Life = Existence of the Citizen (That thing that predicates thinking)
Liberty = Action based on the Citizen's Moral Reason (moral as in right!=wrong, not moral as in Bible). Accepts that the capability of moral thought implies the responsibility to use it. (The "think" in any philosophical statement implies moral thought)
Pursuit of Happiness = Basically in place to allow people to determine what is best -for themselves-, in cases where moral reason produces a tie (vanilla or chocolate?).
Thus the argument for natural right: The fact that a person has the natural ability to determine the difference between right and wrong implies that that person has a responsibility to use that reason. Since this is (to Descartes, under existentialism, it would be the basic part of our Essence, which is different) the basis of our existence, it precedes all other responsibilities.
It therefore follows that any entity which cannot lay claim to the same right also cannot weigh its own responsibility equally against that of a person's.
Skip to the modern day, and here's where we go wrong. An organization's existence is predicated on something other than Moral Reason, which is the sole realm of sentient individuals, maybe gods if you swing that way. Corporations, for example, have a primary responisibility to make a profit (except the kind I work for
However, thanks to a Supreme Court decision back during Reconstruction (late 1800s), Corporations have been granted those rights, despite having no responsibility to moral reason. Thus they get to participate in the political process, and we get to put up with the DMCA.
Just as a side note: all this is also the reason Campaign Finance Reform will never work, once political speech was granted to the Corps, nothing short of an Amendment will take it away.
-jpowers
-jpowers
I simply can not believe that depths to which some people will lie. Perhaps Seagrams is just ignorant of this, but as a US Citizen you do have a right to be anonymous. To speak anonymously, to buy things anonymously and yes, to even walk around, all day if you want, with a ski mask on to remain anonymous. You do have a right to anonymity. My guess is that Seagrams is saying this as part of a larger straw man argument to equate anonymity with criminal activity and hence to be able to dismiss it out of hand. Whatever the case, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., is totally and completely wrong. However, its this kind of thinking that is not only incorrect but its dangerous for us as citizens to dismiss his argument out of hand. Alot of people think this way, and alot of those people, like Mr. Bronfman, have tremendous power to change the laws so that anonymity can be restricted and to try and take that right away.
Here are some references to back my assertions on anonymity:
McIntyre v. Ohio
Flood Control on the Information Ocean: Living With Anonymity, Digital Cash, and Distributed Databases
Talley v. California
--
Python
Python
as i recall from my history classes, wasn't seagrams the greatest bootlegger ever?
deep connections throughout organized crime?
gave rise to joe kennedy and the kennedy political dynasty?
who the hell is this to talk about crime and criminality? a huge portion of seagram's early fortunes were built on it.
when did i elect this ahole? who is he to say what me and my friends can do over our ip connections? why should he know what i do online?
why is this moron allowed to stand between the musicians, many of whom want me to have mp3s of their music, and end users?
truly, the record industry is panicing, losing control over the musicians they have raped for so long.
f*ck seagrams. hypocritcal losers.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
same status as normal property. But the way he makes the case is
tendentious. The differences between ordinary property and
intellectual property are enshrined in law, and I've never met a
lawyer who didn't think intellectual property was anything other than
messy.
Society would fall to bits without some way of apportioning our use
of material goods. The same isn't true of intellectual goods, and to
pretend otherwise smacks of intellectual dishonesty.
Then allow me to clear the waters and clarify the need for both.
Today, at least in the united states of america, there is no law preventing me from collecting and redistibuting a digital biography on any persons activity in the comunity. This data may consist of seemingly irrelevant facts about you and your daily life, but distrobution of this data, or tracking data, has value to the right person in the right market.
The cost of keeping, maintaining and distrubuting this data falls every year, and the laws to address this problem continue to be ignored. As tracking data continues to be collected without the expressed consent of the person being tracked, what is a person to do?
Opt out. Remain anonymous when possible. This is the only tool a person has against keeping bad information from proliforating without his or her consent. There is no legal recourse for an individual whos tracking data is incorrect, incomplete, or patently false. There is also no legal recourse for an individual to try and stop the distrobution of this data. One's only hope is to keep it to a minimum.
I favor laws asking companies to ask the consent of the user before collecting and redistributing tracking data. I favor laws giving the user an oportunity to view and dispute the data being collected about her. When these laws are in place, I'll gladly use my GUID with confedence that I have legal recourse to protect my digital biography. Intill then, anonymity is the only tool.
___
http://www.seagram.com/financials/annual_reports/s eagram99-AR68.html
This corporation is MASSIVE!
List of Musicians (over 1M records sold) under contract:
Aqua
98 Degress
ABBA
Andrea Bocelli
The Cranberries
Sheryl Crow
Bee Gees
Boyzone
The Brian Setzer Orchestra
The Cardigans
Vince Gill
Dru Hill
Enrique Iglesias
Elton John
É o Tchan
ERA (Eric Levi)
Florent Pagny
Jay-Z
Kirk Franklin
George Strait
André Rieu
Shania Twain
U2
Caetano Veloso
Rob Zombie
List of Record Company Subsidiaries:
A&M Records
Blue Thumb Records
Decca Record Company
Def Jam Recordings
Deutsche Grammophon
Geffen Records
GRP Records
Impulse! Records
Interscope Records
Island Records
MCA Records
MCA Nashville
Mercury Records
Mercury Nashville
Motown Record Company
Philips
Polydor
Universal Records
Verve Records
Common products:
Universal Studios
Universal Music
Chivas Regal
Captain Morgan Rum
Absolut Vodka
Steinlager Beer
Grolsch Beer
Mumm wines
Tessera Wines
Sterling Vinyards
Perrier-Jouet Champagne
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
might be fun and easy to kill buffalo with a gun, but i'd love to see you try to take one down without your pussboy weapons helping you.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Seagrams Company Portfolio
UNIVERSAL MUSIC (Record labels)
A&M Records
Blue Thumb Records
Decca Record Company
Def Jam Recordings
->King Recordings
->Murder Inc.
->Roc-A-Fella
->Violator
->Def Soul Records
->Island Records
->Capricorn Records
->Rounder Records
->Mercury Records
->countless `artist' owned labels
Deutsche Grammophon
Farm Club
Geffen Records
->Dreamworks
->E Pluribus Unum Recordings
->Outpost Recordings
->Zombie A-GO-GO
GRP Records
Impulse! Records
Interscope Records
->TVT
->WaxTrax
->Almo Sounds
->Coolsville Records
->Flip Records
->Jake Records
->Nothing Records
Island Records
MCA Records
->Curb Records
->Jersey Records
->Radioactive Records
->Twisted Records
MCA Nashville
Mercury Records
Mercury Nashville
Motown Record Company
Philips
Polydor
Universal Records
Verve Records
->Blue Thumb Records
->Chess
->Commodore
->Decca Jazz
->GRP
->Impulse!
->Priceless Jazz
->Swingsation
->Verve
Other businesses:
GetMusic.com
UM3
Universal Music Enterprises
->(Record Label)Hip-O Records
Universal Music Publishing Group
Global E-Commerce & Advanced Technology
Universal Music International
Universal Music & Video Distribution
Universal Manufacturing & Logistics
Maybe I'm taking a strange viewpoint, but to me, copyright is what _lets_ me do that with some assurance Seagram (for instance) can't take that material and say "We wrote this! Go pound sand". Copyright (at least in writing) is automatic, and gives me the right to be associated with my own work wherever it's used. Maybe it gives other privileges, maybe not- the one I care about is that I get to share stuff and be reasonably safe from having people copy it AND PRESENT IT AS THEIR WORK.
I bitterly resent any line of argument that suggests I must either forbid sharing, or accept total loss of ownership over my own work. That is _bullshit_ and goes against the spirit of copyright. Copyright means I _can_ share in good faith, and that people can copy and exchange my stuff a whole lot, and _still_ if someone tries to take CREDIT for my work and present it as their own, I have recourse. There is NO obligation on my part to prevent anyone from downloading my work, copying it, giving it to friends or whatever. I can allow people to trade my songs on Napster for decades and it doesn't mean the authorship of them is up for grabs. I can let people download my stories and post copies on their own web pages if I choose and that doesn't equate to my allowing them to claim authorship.
The funny thing is, posters like Vanbo ranting about Freenet never intend to create a situation where anything made public is legally 'authored' by whoever claims they authored it... they're attacked as if that's what they're doing, but they really haven't given a thought to that aspect because it never occurs to them that anybody _would_ go around laying claim to other people's work. Meanwhile these idiots on the other side are trying to imply that if you don't 'defend' your copyright against types of USE, it is meaningless- and that's a crock! Copyright is for life, you have to sign it away to lose it, copyright is automatic, and it is about your right to lay claim to the authorship of YOUR OWN work. The details of use are insignificant next to this...
While I am a firm in the belief that intellectual property rights must be protected to encourage and reward those whose labors result in expression, idea or other creation (in reality the only new things under the sun) because to do otherwise would greatly impoverish our society, I also think that Mr. Bronfman is wrong-headed in his approach towards the protection of these rights.
Privacy is the perhaps the greatest concern of the modern citizen. We already have the spectre of the social security number being used as a national id code, despite the original intent that it not be used as such. There are hearings before congress in progress as we sit considering the problem, and possible legislation that will control the way these numbers are used.
It seems that the greatest failing of the founding fathers was to anticipate the need for privacy in a modern society. But how could they have envisioned the computerized database. Clearly we need an 11th member of the bill of rights to solidify supreme court rulings that have merely given us an imputed right to privacy - one who's strength waxes and wanes depending on the composition of the court.
Without such Citizens have their privacy eroded by technological advances, and as such lose the privacy that the founders intended when they forbid government activities such as unreasonable search and seizure.
There is no more important political issue before us today.
Mr. Bronfman seems to think that the only people who will provide us with content are people who are after money, and without that incentive there will BE no content. Without corporate content creators, the internet would be "a valueless collection of silent machines with gray screens."
The internet was here before you could make money off it. It would be here without that money. The thing that's killing it is not violation of IP, it's massive quantities of lawyers sending cease-and-desist letters to web page creators as fast as they can type. Without intellectual property protection, those people would be free to create; whether they were doing it themselves or taking from others or whatever. And the internet would NOT be a "collection of silent machines".
The issue here is not stealing. You haven't "stolen" something if the owner still has it. He keeps talking about people "taking" intellectual property from you as if you no longer had it when you were done. It's not like stealing your car, which he tries to make an analogy to.
The thing that is being lost is not the property, it's the control of access to that property. Well, guess what, Mr. Bronfman? You've been taking that from the consumers of the world for years, every time you buy and sell our personal information! That to me is far more important "intellectual property" than the latest Metallica album!! We don't have the right to control who trades our info, why should you have the rights over who trades your music??
I live in fear of what will happen if these wackos think they've been cornered. However, I see no way of avoiding it. They simply cannot afford to let their shareholders see them slacking off in the war to fight piracy, and given that they're going to start losing to the on-line indie artists who will eventually form their own web-based studios, they will have to respond in a way that saves them from the brunt of the inevitable shareholder lawsuits.
Buckle in, this is going to be a bumpy one....
That fellow is no better than Escobar's grandson.
--
Here's my mirror
First, this guy doesn't understand the internet. He assumes the standards and laws of America apply everywhere, and restricting the internet in America would stop piracy. Second, every country has different laws and views on copyright. Third, I've yet to see a copy protection scheme that actually worked, they just make life more complicated. Fourth, intellectual property rights are not as simple as he makes it seem. There are scores of patent and copyright lawyers who can prove this. And finally, there are several conceiveable reasons that the internet can be involved in fair use.
Now, on to the speech:
And "intellectual property" is property, period.
This must be why patents have a limited period of time before they must be renewed. It is property, but it's different than your car.
But there are those who believe that because technology can access property and appropriate it, then somehow that which is yours is no longer yours -because technology has made it simple and easy for someone else to take it from you.
Is he advocating gun control now?
For the great ferment of works and ideas, including your own, if taken at will and without restraint, have no chance of surviving any better than did the buffalo.
My favorite, the buffalo is doing fine now. Might have tried the Dodo.
What would the Internet be without "content?" It would be a valueless collection of silent machines with gray screens. It would be the electronic equivalent of a marine desert - lovely elements, nice colors, no life. It would be nothing.
My biggest problem with this. The Internet is simply a communications network. He doesn't differentiate between the Internet and the Web, or the great uses for communication that doesn't directly involve sales. What about culture and art? Are we to just whore our culture to profit?
First, we are focused on creating and launching a consumer-preferred and legal system for consumers to access the media they desire - beginning with music.
Then just give me the friggin' mp3. It can be converted no matter what you do.
Technology exists that can trace every Internet download and tag every file. These tools make it possible to identify those who are using the Internet to improperly and illegally acquire music and other copyrighted information. While adhering to the principle of respect for individual privacy, we fully intend to exploit technology to protect the property which rightfully belongs to its owners.
This will also allow them to track every access to every web site - health, politics, personal, and everything else. Is my privacy that cheap? Furthermore, do we have to rewrite the TCP protocols to log everyting to the FBI?
Another recent victory confirming the application of copyright law to cyberspace involved the unlawful dissemination of DVD anti-copy codes.
I'm pretty sure he made this one up. This trial is going to be very interesting. I hope the supreme court tears the MPAA a new one.
Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to get away with stealing, or hacking, or disseminating illegal material on the Internet - and presuming the right that nobody should know who you are. There is no such right. This is nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank.
No, anonymity means I decide what personal information you get from me. Last I checked, Americans were not required to carry around identification papers and show them to everyone. What's next, Stars of David? Can you put a video camera in my house to make sure I don't copy and distribute a CD I buy at BestBuy?
The massive power of the Internet can permanently wipe out and shut down in one unthinking moment, a writer who may depend for his living on the sale of 5 or 10 thousand copies of his book.
Uh, this has been possible for a long time. For some reason people still like prepackaged paper. And will for a long time. Oh, and should we outlaw libraries?
hackers and spies, pirates and pedophiles.
I love being grouped with these people. Do we link Segrams with Al Capone because they sell alchol?
So, in review, this guy doesn't have a clue about the Internet, and his view of it makes it a corporate sales machine, instead of the widespread communications network that it really is. The real reason these people are scared is because they realize they can no longer control the way we communicate.
FWIW, I wasn't being sarcastic. I really do think she's fastastic! Her new album, "From The Blue House," features John D'earth on his song "Whoever You Area," which is especially fantastic.
But, to each their own.
-Waldo
Don't ignore someone telling you to your face that he is going to send in the "Roman legions" and fight you as World War II was fought, with "more men and women, more weaponry and more money, and [the] money in turn [to] train more men and women and build more weaponry" than you have. This man is very, very powerful and has many strong associates. He has already told you that "being fair, or being just, in a battle for survival is often not enough." Don't doubt that the RIAA heads see this very much as a battle for survival, and keep in mind, as a previous poster has mentioned, that this person, as the head of a company that came to prominence exactly because of bootlegging, is perfectly prepared to be hypocritical without blushing.
This is an astonishing, impressive speech. This is the sort of speech that rallies the troops. These people are not joking around; if you feel that there is a different, better world just around the corner, understand that these people are moving full tilt to extend the wall.
I'm no orator to match with this kind of display, but I hope that in combination with the passions that many of us will feel just reading Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s words, this post can help to clarify to people that we are actually going to have to fight, very strenuously, for the things that we know are right. It's time to actively organize, join and support freedom-loving associations, and take personal responsibility to inform everyone we know about the opportunities and dangers that lie ahead for our societies.
I'm just going to close by restating some of Ed's own words, along with a little bit of dialogue that should clarify this small portion of his deception.
Musician: Hey, did you just copy one of my songs for your friend over the internet?Fan: Yeah.
Musician: But how am I supposed to make money from that?
Fan: Well, I love your music, but this money issue is not really my problem. Of course, I'm happy to support you in various ways, but you really can't stop me from doing this.
Musician: But that's an appropriation of my intellectual property. You're coercing me into writing music for your friend.
Fan: Hey, I didn't force you to record the song.
Musician: Well, there are laws about this sort of thing. I'm going to make sure that you comply with them.
Fan: Um... that's going to require putting together a police state. How can you tell whether or not I share information with my friends without verifying all information that passes between us? Won't you have to allow the police blanket rights to search my possessions for violating material? Are you going to outlaw the internet? I don't think that you want this.
Musician: Oh... I didn't realize... I hadn't thought about that... no, okay, I guess that I really don't want that.
============================
Musician: I'd like to make some new music and release it as MP3s.
RIAA: I'm sorry; no. Read your contract.
"It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded ... like a commodity rather than the art that it is." - Lars Ulrich, Metallica
Hahaha since when has it been illegal to copy somebody's breakfast?! (Assuming you don't regard file transfer and toast toppings to be in the same market, that is).
This guy's just talking with blind fury.
How much is ESR worth? How much could RMS earn in a week if he wanted to? Or any of the other "big names" for that matter? He's just trying to trick us into believing that Gnutella will ruin our kids' teeth! (<rant>besides what kind of civilised society penalises my children's health and education for the fact that I am a financial failure?</rant>)
Ok, say what you like about RMS's view on the word "piracy". But calling it "slavery" is just bloody ridiculous.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Ok but say "usenet" instead. Still MS and AOL would be "ringleaders" in a slavery^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpiracy ring.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Le nom "putin" - Est-ce qu'il est si similar (a une oreille francais) du mot "putain" qu'il porte un air stupid, ou est-ce que on doit croire d'observer la ressemblance?
Merci!
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Specifically, combating the dangerous and misguided notion that property is not property if it's on the Web, and the piracy that that notion perpetuates.
I don't think that most of us have any such illusions. We do have certain other issues that probably contribute to the "piracy" that he is warring against.
In addition, I want to discuss the very real difference between privacy and anonymity. In the blurred vision of speed and innovation, those two quite separate values have become indistinct, and that lack of distinction is currently having - and will continue to have - a deleterious effect on our culture, our society and the long-term growth of the Internet.
Translation: "If we can't find you, we can't prosecute you. If we can't prosecute you, we can't scare everyone into believing that we actually 'own' the 'intellectual property' out there, just as we own our cars, homes, etc."
Music is on the leading edge of this revolution, and because of that, it has become the first product to illuminate the central - and I believe the most critical - challenge for this technological revolution: The protection of "intellectual property rights."
As we'll see, he isn't talking about the "protection" of these rights. He's talking about the extension of corporate ownership and control.
For all of us, "property" rights are well understood and universally accepted. You own a home. You own a car. They're yours - they belong to you. They are your property. Well, your ideas belong to you, too. And "intellectual property" is property, period.
Here's where he really goes out on a limb. Intellectual property is not the same as physical property. Never has been. Hopefully never will be, although it seems to be getting closer every day thanks to the lobbying by corporations such as Seagram.
If intellectual property is not protected - across the board, in every case, with no exceptions and no sophistry about a changing world - what will happen? Intellectual property will suffer the fate of the buffalo.
What does he mean by "protected?" In every case? With no exceptions? What is he trying to pull here? Then there's his remark about the changing world argument being a sophistry. He says this in the same article in which he claims that the technological revolution will probably change the world much more than the industrial revolution did, and a few other similar remarks about the huge changes that will take place. Then he does nothing to explain why he believes it to be a sophistry. Sounds like he's just trying to use a big word to gloss over something he doesn't want to discuss.
For the great ferment of works and ideas, including your own, if taken at will and without restraint, have no chance of surviving any better than did the buffalo.
Actually, the ideas will survive much more easily when nobody can control who has access to them. I think what he means here is that they won't be able to make as much money off of these ideas if they can't control them. He should just say what he means.
And why is this important? Because you, like we in the entertainment business, are thoroughly dependent on patents and copyright. You need them no less than we do, to protect your processes, your conceptions, your software code, your procedures, your designs, your ideas.
Actually, many programmers are quite set against patents on software. Or at least they are against the system as it exists today. But then they're just the creators, they often create for purposes other than profit. Corporations, on the other hand, exist to make a profit, so I guess I can see why he thinks this way. Copyright is a mockery of what it was supposed to be. It no longer serves just to encourage the creation of new "content", but to enforce the ownership of ideas for as long a time as possible, and the time grows longer every time these corporations go back to Congress to lobby for lifespan to be increased.
I have moved those lawyers - or some of them - but I have done so, and will continue to do so - not to attack the Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to protect it. For its benefit.
Oh, ok then. He's doing this for our own good , so that we'll continue to have an Internet. Thanks dad, but why don't you let us decide what's for our own good. I don't need this self-serving, disingenuous crap.
First, we are focused on creating and launching a consumer-preferred and legal system for consumers to access the media they desire - beginning with music.
"Consumer-preffered?" What makes it consumer-prefferred anyway? It doesn't exist yet. I think he means the creation of an "one-true-way." Anything else will be deemed illegal.
We are providing artists with a broader canvas on which to express themselves, and we are creating a far richer experience for the consumer. For example, consumers will have access to album art, lyrics, production notes and photos of the artists, links to other sites and, eventually, music videos. We'll also offer the chance for them to chat on line with artists.
We can already get all this stuff. Where's the innovation? Where's the broader canvas for artists? What are we getting from all this?
And because of the security our product will offer, consumers' privacy will also benefit because their files and their systems won't be corrupted.
Is that it? That's our incentive? He's going to have to do a lot better than that. I've downloaded over a gig of MP3s and have never had any of my files corrupted. This is just some crap he threw in so that it looks like consumers might see some benefit from his plan.
Second, we know that going into a record store and removing a CD is wrong. It is stealing. It is thievery.
Well, if you don't pay for it when you remove it, then yes.
We will re-emphasize this truth and articulate this message in an educational effort, with our industry allies, targeted to the great majority of people who want to do the right thing - yet, may not fully comprehend that accessing copyrighted material without proper payment or permission in the digital world, is as wrong as it is in the physical world.
Seems to me that the majority would like to support the artists without having to take it in the rear from the recording industry. I'm not sure what he considers proper payment. That concerns me. If I purchase a DVD, I should be allowed to access the copyrighted material that I paid for, but the MPAA (via the DMCA) would have you believe otherwise. They want to control the methods by which you can access the material you purchased. There's definitely a lot of changes coming up, but they are NOT going to benefit the consumer, or even the artist. They will benefit the middlemen.
The Internet world is a brave new world. But make no mistake, it could only have been created and it will only survive, in the context of our civilized world, which has taken humanity centuries to construct.
I wonder what he even knows about the creation of the net. This is just more BS and fear-mongering.
Whether it is better and more robust methods of security, or tools to track down those who ignore right from wrong, technology will offer the owners of property at least as much comfort as it may currently offer to hackers and spies, pirates and pedophiles.
This really ticked me off. He's rolling hackers and "pirates" into the same category of criminal as pedophiles. This is why using terms such as "pirate" to mean "copyright infringer" was a great propaganda move for these corporations. The term "pirate" comes with all sorts of negative cannotations attached to it. It's hard for someone to stand up and defend "piracy." And "pirates" can convieniently be equated with all sorts of other criminals, even violent ones. "Hacking" isn't even a crime, but hackers get rolled in as criminals. I know a lot of people here claim that it's ok to use these terms this way and that language changes all the time, but this is not just changing language, this is manipulation of public opinion by using loaded words, and twisting the meanings of existing words.
Technology exists that can trace every Internet download and tag every file. These tools make it possible to identify those who are using the Internet to improperly and illegally acquire music and other copyrighted information. While adhering to the principle of respect for individual privacy, we fully intend to exploit technology to protect the property which rightfully belongs to its owners.
Technology also exists to prevent such things from being done, which is why their technology will have to be accompanied by legislation. There are more "DMCAs" on the horizon. Besides, corporations almost never respect individual privacy if the potential profits outweigh the risk of a consumer backlash, unless they are forced to do so. Why should we believe this guy?
Another recent victory confirming the application of copyright law to cyberspace involved the unlawful dissemination of DVD anti-copy codes.
Excuse me? What victory? A preliminary injunction that, in all likelyhood, will soon be lifted? That case is far from over.
We will fight for our rights and those of our artists, whose work, whose creations, whose property are being stolen and exploited.
Damn straight. Only corporations such as his should be allowed to exploit artists' work. He says the artists' property is being stolen, but neglects to say that in many, if not most, cases, the corporation owns the work, not the artist. I firmly believe that artists deserve to be able to profit from their work. The problem is that corporations such as Seagram have not dealt with us in good faith. They buy extensions every so often to make sure that copyright doesn't fulfill it's original purpose of expanding the amount of artistic and creative works in the public domain, but instead is twisted to become a tool of corporations to maintain indefinite control over our culture by retaining ownership of the creative works and information that defines it.
What individuals might do unthinkingly for pleasure, in my view, they do with forethought for profit, justifying with weak and untenable rationale their theft of the labor and genius of others.
Here he is talking about Napster, myMP3.com, and Gnutella. If I'm not mistaken, Gnutella doesn't profit from the service that people obtain through using the program. I think myMP3.com was also fairly ethically correct, in that they at least verified that you posess the cd that you want to access from their servers. Napster is on more shaky ground, at least now that the "common carrier" defense has apparently failed, or at least needs to be backed up and argued a lot better than it has been.
Some of the donors may regret their generosity when later they are confronted with their children's college tuition and orthodontic bills, but yes, they have given, and they have given freely.
Cheap shot. He obviously doesn't like the idea of people giving their creations away freely. Cuts into his profits. Also shows that he's not really interested in what the artists want. He's just interested in his company's profits. Kinda sheds some light on his other statements.
Those whose intellectual property is simply appropriated on the Internet or anywhere else, are forced to labor without choice or recompense, for the benefit of whoever might wish to take a piece of their hide.
I agree that the creators should be able to be compensated for their creations. I simply don't think that this guy gives a damn about those who create the works that he wants to profit from. There is a big difference between giving the artist a means to earn a living from his work, just as the rest of us want to do, and giving corporations a means to own, control, and profit indefinitely from the work of these creators.
If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery.
That's a pretty over-the-top statement. Copyright infringement bears no resemeblance to slavery. This guy needs to tone down the rhetoric.
The massive power of the Internet can permanently wipe out and shut down in one unthinking moment, a writer who may depend for his living on the sale of 5 or 10 thousand copies of his book. It can devastate a musician who sells a few thousand copies of a homemade CD to his fans in some small and little known community.
More fearmongering, hardly deserving of a comment, but I'll do it anyway :). As he has stated, and as I've said, most people want to support the artists. The problem is the corporations who keep trying to increase their control and length of ownership. They are the one's causing the problem. They are the one's who control the pricing. They are trying to pull off a coup against consumers that will give them complete and utter control over the content that we wish to access. Think Divx was bad? We ain't seen nothin yet. Wait until such schemes are not left to live or die in the market, but are enforced by legislation. He says they are working on a "consumer-preffered" system. We've already seen how much consumers preferred Divx. What do you want to bet that his system ends up being "legally-mandated" system instead?
And these would only be the first casualties. The rest would follow as the very basis of the New Economy was undermined.
More fearmongering. As I said, this is a ploy to scare people into supporting the granting of draconian levels of control over copyrighted works to corporations. This has the potential to turn into another "war on drugs." We've already seen how "hackers" are treated by the government. Next we'll have 15 year-olds serving 20 year sentences for downloading Britney Spears' new song. (I'll leave the jokes about that being a fitting sentence to you guys :) The point is that these things are already getting out of control and people's lives are being seriously and irreversibly harmed due to minor infractions, just as what has happened with the "war on drugs." I'm not trying to do any fear-mongering of my own here. I'm trying to point out what is already happening and that what this guy is leading up to, if past and present events are any idicator, has great potential for turning into a system of terrible injustice.
To those who would abandon or subvert those principles, I say we are right with the Constitution, in which protection for intellectual property is founded; right with the common law; right with precedent and right with what is fair and just.
He needs to check the Constitution again. They've managed to pervert the whole principle of copyright and that's what has us in this mess to begin with. I have absolutely no sympathy for his situation.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Seagrams is trying to pull a publicity stunt.
It's obviously working.. *sigh*
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I love the way he defines property: if you own a car, home, or the copyright on music, thats your property. However, if you shell out 25 bucks on a dvd, universal/seagram still wants to control where/how you watch it, and even tries to prevent you from watching the film digitally. Like many coporations they are hypocites: they complain about market freedom, intellectual property and the like, but try their hardest to restrict consumer freedom and choice (see microsoft,recent riaa colusion finding etc...)
-brian
Linus Landed a pritty spiffy job based on his software.
It's akin to a time when you submitted a program for a job application.
Only now your submitting the program to the world let the public (not some simple minded computer illitrate manager) determin the value of your code and let people fight over who gets to hire you.
"Hello I graduated from Hope Collage" Cool you get a job on Technical support... the tech version of janitorial.
"Hello I wrote a program people use every day. BastardMail" Cool you get a job on our programming staff.
"Hello I made Slashdot" We'll run your servers pay you to run your site and we'll rank in on your banner ads.
"Hello I graduated from Hope collage" Wow thats cool but we allready have someone on tech support...
"Hello I wrote xmodem..." Xmodem? "Yeah the first standard file transfer protocal.. I made it public domain" Oh wow hay could you "No no thanks anyway.. I'm retired..."
Ohh yeah... open source programmers are crying allright....
In the mean time...
I guess Guinnis is the offical beer of open source and now Seagrams is the offical alcahol of closed source...
Slavery as in Ale...
I don't actually exist.
- Set your maximum simultaneous uploads to zero.
That's it. On the remote end, all attempts to download will be "remotely queued".Will I retire or break 10K?
One can temporarily possess; one can temporarily use. One cannot own.
The defining proof of this: Everyone dies. And that which was possessed or used is passed back to the world at large, to be temporarily possessed or used by another.
Maybe as more people understand this simple concept, we will see a tendency toward creating out of the love for the creative process itself, and as a gift to oneself, rather than for the temporal rewards of selfish ownership, control, power, and financial reward.
However, while the self-satisfaction gained in a creative endeavor should, idealy, be sufficient, also being credited as the original author of a work is not an overvalued reward, in itself.
While I don't think the world is ready to enter this level of self-contentment just yet (I know I'm not, my world still requires money), and I don't mean to come off as an unrealistic idealist or elitist, I do see this as the solution toward which the path of advancing technology will ultimately lead us.The current path, followed by many wealthy individuals and corporations, who would divide the creative efforts of all the world among themselves while not even being the original authors of that creativity, is littered with the victims of intellectual theft at the hands of those who follow it, and leads only to a dead end.
This second path is the one which points in the direction of a virtual cessation of creativity, as that land will have already been parceled out.If one artist or group, like Meta11ica, doesn't 1ike it's music to be pub1ished, ok, Napster can fi1ter the sharing of such music.
I changed the quote to contain no 1owercase 1etter L's. Did you notice? Users wou1d rename the fi1es to "M3ta11ic4", which contains six 1etters that can be written as 133tspeak or not.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Facts:
Identity means that physical objects will always be "scarce" - physical matter is only in one place at a time, take it away and it's no longer there.
However, patterns or forms (data) are not scarce, they can be duplicated and still remain in the original. Data cannot be moved or "taken away", only copied or deleted.
Data is always dependent on physical things, it cannot exist on ts own. This is because it's not a primary existent, it's the interpretation of a pattern in existents.
Rights do not conflict. If something conflicts with a right, it isn't a right.
The justification for physical private property is that it's the material expression of the right to free thought, that it's required for human life but is "scarce", and that a creator is the rightful beneficiary of his own creation.
Private property means the absolute right to do what I wish with my own property, unless I use it to commit force or fraud against someone else.
Intellectual property (IP) means treating data as private property.
Assumptions:
Technology increase will continue indefinately. We will likely reach the point where we have workable nanotech wihin this century.
Technology will eventually make arbitrary manipulation and copying of arbitrary data easy to the point of triviality. Computers do this already with digitized information; nanotech will extend it to physical form.
Conclusions:
IP necessarily violates physical property. It means that I don't have the right to arrange my property into the pattern you "own", even despite the fact that I'm doing so openly (no fraud) and with measurements I obtained fairly (no force).
IP meets none of the justifications of private property. Data you "own" is not necessarily expressed in your material property, so the first justification is irrelevant. Data is not scarce, so the second justification is irrelevant. No-one is forcing you to reveal data unprotected into the public domain, so the third justification is irrelevant.
Enforcing IP will get increasingly hard as the level of tech available to the general public rises. Assuming nanotech plus universal fast-networked computers, there is no practical way to enforce any IP short of having a policeman peering over your shoulder all day, or else banning public access to technology.
Therefore IP is not a right and it's enforcement violates rights.
"Information wants so be free" is a law of nature just like "trade wants to be free" - given a situation of choices, people will route around any restrictions except those that protect their own rights.
Therefore IP is as impossible, long term, as "a mixed economy" or any other such restriction-set.
Counter-arguments rebutted:
"Creators have a right to profit from their ideas"
Yes, they do, but not at the expense of my rights. Besides, they can still profit; consensual-contract law allows binding of arbitrary restrictions to released data.
"Contract law is too weak, what if some third party copies it"
It is (or should be) plenty strong enough; if the contract binds you not to release the data except under its own terms, then if some third party copies it they're "recieving stolen property" (since you broke contract by letting them) which is already illegal.
"Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. Likewise your right to use your property stops when it violates my rights"
True, but IP is, as I have shown, not a right. Also, you are not likely even involved in an "IP violation" - it could be me and a third party trading a copy of data from some physical property I already legitimately own.
"If information wants to be free, why will contracts work?"
People want contracts enforced because contracts are in effect a protection from the fraud of promising one thing in a trade and then doing another.
Can we agree that this would be a good thing? Does anyone think it wouldn't? I want to make sure we all agree on this.
Finally, an MP3/Napster opponent who leads off his argument by saying that intellectual property rights are the most important issue. Most of them jump straight to talking about theft and how much money they think they're losing.
Let me get this straight. If ideas are freely available, if they are given, taken, disseminated, distributed, shared, WITHOUT restraint, then they will die out. But if we restrain ideas, and make sure we control how they get distributed, then they can survive and prosper. Right.
No I don't. I don't think up ideas for personal gain, I think them up -- not to sound too self-important here -- for the betterment of humanity, for *everyone's* sake. They don't need to be registered in my name to do their job. If Thomas Edison hadn't patented the lightbulb, that wouldn't have stopped anyone from using it. In fact, had it not been for the patent system, Edison would not have been able to steal thousands of ideas, concepts and tools from other inventors and patent them as his own.
He uses the word "civilized" a lot. I don't think it means what he thinks it means. Look it up. Know what word is conspicuously absent from the definitions? "Law". Also "property", "business", "consumer", and "money".
It seems to me that if this were true, it would be self-evident, and he wouldn't need to repeat himself in an effort to drive the point home.
It will be interesting to see what measures this format will take to ensure that once one person downloads something, s/he can't share it with the rest of us.
Yeah, you know, my biggest complaint about Napster has always been that it keeps corrupting my files and my systems. Please.
Oh, if only Napster users *understood* that downloading copyrighted material they don't own was illegal! I bet they'd stop doing it then.
More demonizing of the term "hacker". That's productive.
And soon, tools will exist that allow those people to circumvent these file-tagging and criminal-identifying technologies.
Privacy is being able to close the door when you go into a public toilet. Anonymity is not being required to write your name and address on the door before you do so. Understand how these are important to each other?
Here at Slashdot, we call anonymous people "cowards". But we don't deprive them of the ability to post.
Which is the crime: putting on the ski mask, or robbing the bank? If knowing people's identities is all that prevents us from total anarchy, the problem lies with those citizens who care so little for their fellow people that they would freely commit crimes against them. We need to stop perpetuating a society that creates so many heartless citizens. But we don't need to blame the ski masks.
He has got to be kidding. Are we supposed to picture those 100 million European children crying disconsolately just because a piece of software made a pun on the name of their breakfast food? Are even puns going to be outlawed now? He says "stolen" as if the Gnutella developers were maliciously appropriating the name, like the pirates they really are. You know, when humor is outlawed, only outlaws will be funny, except for people who are unintentionally funny, like Seagram's chairmen.
These are pretty strong words from someone whose company makes most of its money by selling a drug (i.e. alcohol). If he wants to criticize MP3.com/Napster/Gnutella for enabling copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property, let's first talk about how many automobile accidents Crown Royal enables each year. Let's talk about the abusive fathers who hold a belt in one hand and a bottle of Chivas Regal in the other. Let's talk about Captain Morgan's contribution to date rape, or the casino patrons who are served free drinks so they'll waste more money, or the lives, bank accounts, and relationships destroyed by alcohol addiction. Frankly, I don't think Ed Bronfman is in much of a position to be moralizing about a crime as relatively trivial as music piracy.
I don't know, I'd say Gnutella was a pretty ingenious piece of work itself. And I'd be remiss were I not to point out that its developers aren't earning a single cent from it.
Oh, no! Anything but that! You know, it's typical that such a hardcore capitalist can't understand that some people really mean it when they say something should be free.
You hear that, Linus? What a fool you are, for giving away your operating system. Think of your children's college tuition! Forget the thousands of users! Forget the superior operating system, forget the challenge to the Microsoft empire! What will these things matter when it comes time to pay your children's orthodonist bills? Do you think you can derive some kind of *happiness* out of what you've done? Do you mean to take some sick sort of satisfaction from a job well done? What are you, some goddamned altruistic commie bastard? See where your generosity will get you! Hah!
Trading MP3s == enslaving the musicians. Got it.
Very stereotypically American tactic: bring World War II, the war that made the U.S. the superpower it is today, into the argument whenever you want to get the red-blooded American patriots on your side. Unfortunately, it has little to do with the issue at hand.
As someone else has already pointed out in this thread, the Soviet Union most likely "cracked" because its leaders were greedy and self-serving, not because it was based on an unjust system.
It's a scary world in which we have to thank people for the "privilege" of being able to speak from our hearts.
In closing, just remember, kids: don't get your philosophy from the same place you get your ginger ale.
[We Have No Product] [The Swindle
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Since when are people not fully responsible for their own actions?
That's one of the main problems with the American legal system. In order to get out of punishment, people all over and blaming their own stupidity or lack of morality on circumstance. As if the mere existance of Napster makes the decision of pirating MP3s (or not) for them.
Here's an idea for the populace: The Buck Stops Here. Too bad it's easier to blame addiction, their childhood, or technology instead.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
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There are two obvious problems with the fantasy you propose where anybody who has access to a computer can become the next megastar.
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I think what he's saying is that we need fewer megastars and more real musicians.
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Second: The current system based on media scarcity weeds out non-talented artists.
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Huh? The current system rewards the bottom of the barrel 'artists' by use of shameless promotion, media tie-ins, branding, and easily digested but ultimately soulless drivel.
Unless, of course, you actually find value in the likes of N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and any of the other teen pop 'sensations' that pollute the air waves.
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If I go buy an album at a store from a respectable label, there is a guaranteed level of quality.
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Whatever floats your boat. Frankly, 95% of the music out there sucks, no matter who is peddling it. The only different between the independant labels and musicians and the big ones is that the latter are better at selling it to the masses. A very small number of no talents get rich while the truly unique and inventive are lost in the crowd.
I'm not one to promote piracy, but I'm not against anything that makes the music industry obsolete - and this is the real reason why the execs are nervous... Piracy is only a very small part of the whole equation.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I grant that I'm only two weeks into /. so forgive me I step over my bounds, but if y'all will bear with a newbie and his interjecting thoughts. (This is all IMHO, subjective for the most part, so forgive me.)
Personally, I find the very thought of anyone (even this company Seagram, of which I am unfamiliar) attacking anonymity to be discouraging, mainly because of the inherent loss of security. My friends call me paranoid, but I prefer the term "security conscious." I don't want to go surfing the net and having corporate America (of the global economy at large) knowing who I am and where I am going. (Not that my life is THAT important to any government, but it's the point.) But corporate America seems to be trying to destroy what privacy we have. They *want* to know, just like the government, who were are, where we are, what we do, our habits, our interests... And people wonder why I use PGP...
(And of course, it's needless to say, but if we allow big corporations an inch to move, soon they won't just be stepping on our toes, they will be using as a living room rug in their CEO's big mansion.)
But is in not possible for privacy to be maintained without anonymity?
Consider that FTP services allow for anonymous logins, but most ask that you enter your full E-Mail address as the password. Even then, it's not really anonymous, because the FTP server still tracks your IP address and other information, so if they *really* wanted to, they could track you. The go for the IP, contact the provider of that IP, who goes through their logs, and bingo... You're caught. Almost every server connected to the Internet tracks IP addresses that I know of.
We've been losing our rights to privacy for years; we have no privacy anymore in real life. And the same battles are being waged and won by corporate America in the digital age. I vaguely remember a few years ago a fairly popular anonymous E-Mail system that was shut down because it refused to store personal information on its users, which angered its local country's government. (I forget the name of that system, even though I used it...)
To maintain my privacy, I use PGP. And call me paranoid if you prefer, but I have a 4096-bit key with 8 4096-bit subkeys. And now that the Eurpean Union has relaxes their export laws, I'm hoping for a 32K-bit key soon. =) Of course, I expect that if PGP becomes as well used as Napster, corporate America will then DEMAND to have all our secret keys as well...
In a perfect world, I could be an encrypted anonymous user. Maybe someday, but not while our legal systems spit in our eyes and shake hands with corporations.
Sorry for ranting and raving...
Seth Anderson BTW, I'm not 23 anymore -- I am TexasCowboy26 now. =)
Under the DMCA, you are not allowed to own devices that can circumvent copy protection. It doesn't matter how many uses there are for your decoder, the mere possibility that it could be used to circumvent copy protection renders it illegal.
NOT true, according to a lawyer from Morrison and Foerster, a genuinely kickass intellectual property firm that likes to be called MoFo. I love that!
"To facilitate enforcement of the copyright owner's right to control access to his copyrighted work, the DMCA also prohibits manufacturing or making available technologies, products and services used to defeat technological measures controlling access. Similarly, the DMCA prohibits the manufacture and distribution of the means of circumventing technological measures protecting the rights of a copyright owner, e.g., measures which prevent reproduction. But to ensure that legitimate multipurpose devices can continue to be made and sold, the prohibition applies only to those devices that:
Quoted from THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT, Jonathan Band, Morrision & Foerster LLP Washington, D.C. jband@mofo.com
Full article here.
Incidentally, the Mighty MoFo were the pro bono defense lawyers for Dennis Erlich in his litigation with Scientology.
Since the 1990s, when they bought Universal Studios, MCA and (later) Polygram. These days Universal (a subsidiary of Seagram) is the largest of the Big Four recording companies, and hence the largest component of the RIAA.
It's in their interest to criminalise file sharing software and non-encrypting file formats. Otherwise it's back to peddling whiskeys for their income.
Within a few years, unencrypted file formats for media such as music and movies will be criminalised. It will be illegal to distribute software for encoding or decoding these formats.
The framework for criminalising MP3 encoders/players already exists in the DMCA. As soon as SDMI exists, the RIAA will be able to threaten lawsuits against ISPs which host things like xmms and LAME, much as the MPAA did against DeCSS. Companies which do not phase out MP3 playback/encoding in time with the SDMI timetable will also open themselves to prosecution.
This will also restore the RIAA's position and its control of the means of music distribution; it will be impossible to author SDMI-compliant music without it being signed (and probably hosted on a special serialising server) by a distribution authority. Chances are the authorities will be run by our old friends Seagram, Bertelsmann, AOL Time Warner and Sony.
Well, that's probably what the RIAA is hoping will happen; hopefully they won't succeed in it; though they have literally billions to spend on making this a reality, and billions to lose if they fail.
The same doctrine will apply as to running FTP sites full of MP3s. Lawyers send a letter to the ISP, ISP pulls the customer's account and nukes the site/server. As long as you can get an IP number, you can get it pulled, unless a court rules that there's no ground for that.
Would you want to stand up to the RIAA's lawyers if you're running an ISP?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
---
Get a fucking clue you moron.
---
...And on that note, the debate ends before it has begun.
While it appears you have good musical taste, your interpersonal skills could use some work.
(btw: while you focus on classical music in your previous post, nowhere do you specifically state that you were referring to it at the exclusion of other genres. therefore, i think it's understandable for someone to assume you meant 'popular music' in general)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Balderdash. Descartes' path from doubt to certainty only works if you agree with him on a number of contentinus claims (such as, there must exist a benevloent and omnipotent God). Anyone convinced by Descartes couldn't take solipsism very seriously to begin with.
Double balderdash! :)
I'm an atheist myself, and don't see the need to throw any gods into philisophical conversations. They only serve a useful purpose in fun conversations of absurdities -- like "If I won the lottery"/"Lived forever"/....
Descartes might have been theist -- honestly I don't remember -- but his basic axiom doesn't require it...regaurdless of what the man wrote, said, or 'believed'.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Mr. Edward probably does not realize that the Internet existed long before any commercial applications were brought to it. There was no Amazon, CNN or EBay on the Internet only 5 years ago. The Internet attacted all of the above by providing a new market opportunity, this in its turn created more market - more people are using the Internet every day. BUT this was not the case only 5-10 years ago. I remember using the Internet for communication purposes at that time and there was no commercial content on the web and it was just fine - less ads, less spam, less assholes telling the Internet folks what to do. I understand that the tone of my voice maybe a little harsh but, Mr. Edward, with all due respect - go to hell with your commercial applications. No one here gives a fuck about you or your private property, if you don't like it you can go to hell or to court, there will be lots of stuff for you to do in both places and you still can not stop the nature of the Internet as of a sharing tool. A tool that people who are connected and were connected way before you came with your content.
Now, talking about thievery that goes on here, you mentioned writers and other copyright holders who will go hungry without the people of the net paying for their work but then you also contradicted yourself by saying that only a small part of the population actually uses the web to download copyrighted material in order to use it, well which one is it? Is the Internet really so big and important that your copyright holders will not be able to feed their families because of it, or is the web data sharing just a small part of the big picture, where most people actually pay to get their content? Before you answer that, ask yourself - are you bull shitting everyone when you are saying that you care about small time copyright holders? What you are really doing is building the legal grounds for your fucked up company to win some legal cases? Again - go to hell with your commercial material, go fuck yourself and the others too off the web, no one gives a fuck. Let's see how will every commercial entity out there go off line and stay alive? You are saying that we are lawless but what you don't seem to understand is that you don't come into people's homes with your own laws, the Internet is above your fucking laws. You are quoting the Constitution of the USA? Well HA, fuck you, bitch, USA is not the only fucking country on this fucked up planet. The Internet is our new home and our new community and if we decide to share stuff here, it's like sharing what you have with your family members, you can not deny one to share his stuff with his/her family members can you?
And another thing, you can stick a dog up your ass but don't fucking dare talking like that about Free Source Movement or Open Source Software, you fucking little bitch. You don't know what you are talking about, motherfucker.
Thank you, thank you very much.
You can't handle the truth.
Last post!
Sorry, couldn't resist...