Slashdot Mirror
The Right To Read: Time Limited Textbooks
qbasicprogrammer writes: "Vital Source Technologies is now providing time-limited medical textbooks to universities. Password protected books as predicted in The Right To Read by Richard Stallman are finally becoming a reality." Starting on Oct. 28, (when the other part of the DMCA comes into effect), you could face a civil lawsuit and criminal penalties of up to five years in jail and a fine of $500,000 for reading someone else's textbook. See the NYU FAQ, the Advogato discussion, or the company crowing about new revenue opportunities.
If a person purchases a book they aren't allowed to let someone else read it? What kind of ridiculous day and age are we living in when electronic means are being created in order to prevent sharing and helping one another? Yes, please sign me up for the electronic devestation of my right to be nice to other humans!
--- Simple solutions are always the best
Think about it, it makes a lot of sense to have medical textbooks that are time limited.
Consider eating eggs for example.
1950 Eggs are good for you.
1970 Eggs are bad for you.
1980 Eggs aren't so bad for you.
It isn't unusual to be forced to buy the crappy book your prof published. I think that, more than anything else will drive whether schools move to eTexts.
News for UW students
OK, time for all you idiots that have been calling RMS a maniac to eat your words. He was dead on target with this one.
Quite frankly, I find the idea that you can be charged for reading over someone's shoulder one step short of the "Thought Police". No way would I ever spend money on a textbook that was licensed like this.
(BTW, I work for a publishing company, and I can tell you that the higher-ups would drool at the idea of such a system. The day I have to work on such a book is the day I quit my job.)
Well, isn't that wonderful. The number, and source, of required texts for our future doctors is no longer determined by need, but by contractual obligation to the publisher...
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Imagine a world where ALL textbooks are password-protected, time-limited, etc. How does Steve Wozniak learn electronics? How does Edison learn physics or engineering? How does ANY person of limited means learn ANYTHING? And how do we pool our knowledge on anything from "how do you set the VCR clock" to "how do you make starship"?
There are powerful societal reasons to keep information transfer as free (in all senses of the word) as possible. Unfortunately, these reasons don't translate well into the language of capitalism. There is no way to say "a rising tide lifts all boats" in Capitalismese.
Discussion question: How do you explain this to business people (who run the country) OR build it into the economy?
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The DMCA was created for things like this. You're not buying books, you're buying licenses to read books. It's like a library where you pay. And someone will come up with a way to break the woefully inadequate protection system they have there so people can read the books when they like, and they will be sued, even if they live in some other country. And we will be better off because with rights and freedom, chaos would immediately ensue.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Since we all know any "secure" form of information can be broken in any way or form, do they have a way of tracking which book goes to who? There's something to be said about just copying the text content only, but what does this company do when 50 people make copies of their books? Do they have a way of marking each cd in a unique fasion?
---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
This could turn out to be a net positive. I'm not suggesting that it will cause the public to "rise up" and strike down the DMCA, but... it could draw some serious attention and paint the whole thing in a seriously unflattering light. Most people I talk to don't know or care about the DMCA. When I try to explain it to them in terms of DeCSS, Napster, MP3.com, etc. their eyes just sort of glaze over. Maybe this is something that the average citizen can relate to.
I hope you all like the world you are creating.
Anyone that has tried to go through registration or financial aid in a university will know that this will go on without a hitch...
Universities are a military dictatorship (at least mine was, the bloodsucking bastards...), and the college kids are used to being screwed... royally... twice a day.
-- "Almost everyone is an idiot. If you think I'm exaggerating, then you're one of them."
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Do you understand the implications of restricting the free-flow of ideas in a democratic society? If the principal means of distributing knowledge are restricted, you have your first step (a big one) on the road to the creation of a self-perpetuating oligarchy -- with high and criminal-law protected -- barriers to entry. And what about the ability of individuals (this is America isn't it) to self-educate from easily affordable and readily available sources of information. What about the World Wide Web?!
On the other hand, maybe ubiquitously available napster type applications, plus faster bandwidth availability, and wide-spread dissemination of dvd-encryption busting tools will leave these fascistic proposals on the scrap heap of history.
Here's Hoping.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
Redmond WA, Monday 28th August -- Microsoft Press today announced that they will be moving all their current publications into a time limited form.
This is designed to alleviate the current problems they have of failing to get it right the first time.
We were unable to get a comment from microsoft, but a preprepared press release says "By allowing a user to only use the textbook for the first hour after purchase we hope to be able to provide up to the minute content. Since our standards change so regularly users will never be misled by outdated content".
Beta testers were reported to be pleased with the books although there have been several injuries as a result of the impromptu warning:
"This textbook will self destruct in five seconds"
So how long before med students are downloading "Principles of Internal Medicine" at the krad super 'leet med text warez site?
Click here for Hot Teen Action
Click here for Sanford's Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy
Click here for QuakeV
Can't wait
Before everybody starts to scream about having these guys drawn and quartered, I'd like to remind the esteemed Slashdot audience about such thing as freedom, and in particular, the freedom of contract. If there is no monopoly situation (and it doesn't seem like it) then why in the world should anybody be prevented from making a product (even if you believe it's bad) and trying to sell it? After all, that's what market economy means: good products succeed and bad products fail. For a good example look at Divx (Circuit City idea to sell time-limited movies, etc.) Was there any regulation/legislation necessary? No. Did the stupid idea die on its own? Yes.
Same thing here. These guys have to compete with real textbooks which, among other things, have resale value. If you think that you'd like to keep that textbook as a reference even after the course is over, why, then, don't buy the time-limited version. As long as there is a choice, I don't see any problems.
Granted, if any attempt is made to force such textbooks on people, I'd be in the front rows of the lynching mob. Other than that I have no objections to having a choice between a $120 paper textbook and (hopefully) $20 time-limited DVD.
It's funny how all the pseudo-libertarians around here are unwilling to let the market decide...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
No. They are licensing your use of a CD to 'read' those books.
It's legal, but it's bunk.
W
The difference between paying $600 a term for the 'vitabook' and paying $2000 for 'real' books is that YOU GET TO KEEP THE REAL BOOKS!
I don't know about you, but most people don't like to read from a screen, not in the last place because you can not make annotations on your screen (well, at least it won't be a very smart idea :-)
:) my opinion *might* change....
While a portable TFT screen may help overcome the portability and glare problems, making annotiations remains a problem.
Especially in textbooks I want to make a lot of annotations. My opinion is that, up to now, most software that I have heard of that tries to let you do this, just plain sucks. Nothing beats a pencil and paper sometimes...
Now with that new write recognizion hardware you see around lately (running Linux
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
About 20 years ago, when I began college, through just a few years ago (when I finally went back and finished college) the University and the professors used radically different methods:
1. They would have "new editions" of textbooks quite frequently. The main difference seemed to be the wording or order of questions assigned for homework. Calc books were the most amazing. Did not know Business student calculus was so dynamic as to require a new adition of the same book every year or 2.
2. "Class packs" were common a few years back, until some lawsuit against Kinko's stalled wholsale copyright violations by professors. Somehow, a way was found around that and class packs were available again, for a pretty hefty price, given the "quality" of a pile of xeroxed paper. BTW, even though the pile of bad quality printed paper was a collection of other's work, don't dare make a copy for a friend or the prof. would have a fit.
It seems that this latest twist has the same effect as the tactics used before, except the professors/textbook writers do not have to move the questions around every couple of terms.
However, in the past there were not any criminal hammers hovering over the students for these violations.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Sure, the FAQ does go on to say that you can return it if you're not satisfied, but students starting in 2001 are told "It is our position that ALL dentists must have excellent computer skills to maximize their skill and knowledge as dentists." To help them build excellent computer skills, Apple PowerBooks and VitalBooks are mandatory.
Meanwhile, back at VitalBooks themselves, they comment:
Here at VitalBook, we've taken care of little details like choice. Heck, you don't even need to be taking a given course to charge people for it:
And that pesky used book store where people can save a little money on their education and help protect the environment with reuse:My biggest hope is that as companies get increasingly... well... evil, it will become clear to everyone that this must be stopped. I don't want to live in a world where I license everything and own nothing.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
This would make it illegal for Microsoft to sell licenses that restricted use of their product to one computer or one purchaser. The rights they convey to you would also be conveyed to any person you wished to transfer that software too. If you had permanent access to some medical database, you could transfer that access to somebody else (setting the ground for the notion of inheritance of intellectual property).
Now, to the benefit of copyright holders, I think it is fair to allow them to build in limitations that permit only one copy of an item to exist at a time. So, if you transfer your rights to an item, you cannot continue to share those rights. But I think there should also be built in requirements to allow for limited duplication of material for archival purposes (how many of us have lost our CD's to scratches?)
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
What happens after I graduate? For students who subscribe throughout dental school, the VitalBook you have when you graduate will always be active. The College is finalizing a plan for alumni which will be announced later. If you decide to return the VitalBook after 90 days, or you do not renew the program after the first year, your VitalBook will become non-functional and will not work at all.
The NYU FAQ implies the DVD will still be readable (meaning NOT time limited) -- just won't be updated. It appears the story leading was misleading.
KenNow it seems that even knowledge is becoming ISO9xx-ied.
Have these guys actually found somebody to share their pretentions with them ?
Let's take a look to their partners list...
Jeeesus... They don't need partners, they construct theirs !
It is also strange to see Mac Powerbooks on all of their Vital Book-related pages though I am sure this will rather run on MS platforms.
Grrr...
PS: When will the toilet paper also be subject to non-disclosure-agreements ?
Maybe when electronic noses will be there to check who did uses one another's.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
How does this work?
Easy enough, simply put an "effective" access control on the book preventing more then one person from reading it, and then get them on "circumvention".
Since the DeCSS trial has showed us how relative the word "effective" is (to the surprise of those of us who though it had something to do with working as advertised), a pair of those "secret spy glasses" toys for kids is probably enough.
That's not even counting the fact that you have to buy an Apple computer to view the thing, which they're happy to sell you, of course. Go figure.
I guess they think that being able to search easier is going to be worth the $1200 extra you pay for the books alone, but last I checked, textbooks tend to have a pretty good index in the back for that.
I would assume (hope, anyway) that they give you some way to highlight and make notes while you're reading, and if they had any foresight they'd search that when you do searches later, which might be nice. I'd still go with a good old book I can keep on my shelf and won't have to worry about them deciding to deactivate someday.
According to the faq, if you finish the program and pay all the way through the 4 years, you'll have the books and they'll work forever. If you give them back before the 90 day period, you get your money back and don't keep the books. So what happens if you quit in between?
I'll stick to real books, thanks.
Borogrove
Yes, yes, yes!
Come on blameless, you know damn well the DMCA has everything to do with putting WHATEVER THE HELL THEY PLEASE IN THEIR UNNEGOCIABLE, UNAVOIDABLE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT.
You know, if this ridiculous 'license' thing takes off, I'm going to copyright my license plates and charge cops every time they run a check on them!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Copyright is supposedly a limitation on freedom of the press for a limited time in exchange for encouraging more works to be created.
Copyright has been hijacked by the big corps at public expense; it is no longer for a meaningful limited time, and fair use, resale, loaning, viewing platform of choice, any number of traditional uses are history, according to the corps. Now here comes a new govt enforced violation of the spirit of copyright.
How can you call this libertarian? It's govt enforcement at public expense against the public good for private gain.
--
Infuriate left and right
American rampant consumerism... I'm wondering what the problem is.
You can either a) Buy the books at regular price or
b) Buy a limited-time licensed DVD-Rom with ALL the books on it, for a cheaper price. This is like a subscription.
Where is the problem? If you don't LIKE the idea of time-limited books, don't BUY them!
1.) The NYU FAQ says that you have to use an Apple Powerbook. Don't you think that they'll get a backlash from, say, the Windoze and Linux users who don't want to buy a whole new computer?
2.) Isn't it just a matter of time before someone breaks whatever sort of encryption thing they have on these and we get a DeCSS-like situation?
3.) What if you don't want to have to stare at a screen to read the book, but (god forbid) you want something tangible that you can scribble in and mark up?
We shall see what happens, won't we...
Because breaking encryption of any kind for any purpose is a violation of the DMCA. So long as they have some sort of encryption method (even ROT13 would be enough) then it's illegal to share it becase sharing requires breaking of encryption. If Quake had some method of only letting one human play it, then letting someone else play, which would require breaking the encryption method, would be a crime.
You haven't been paying attention to the DeCSS cases, have you? Access control measures are not the same as copy control measures. Hundreds of people are being sued in California and New York for creating/distributing a utility which allows them to watch DVDs - not copy them, but merely watch, especially in the California case - on unapproved players. Lawfully purchased DVDs.
Pay attention. This isn't about copying anymore (although copying is, of course, also covered). If your Vitalbook has a password, let's call it "foobar", and you give the password to a friend to read, both you and the friend have just circumvented an access control measure for private financial gain (otherwise the friend would have had to buy it). As of October 28, that is against the law. You're liable, and vulnerable.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
I just took my Harry Potter: Sorcerer's Stone over to a friends house for him to read to his kids. Um.. It's a gift! Yeah! That's the ticket!
I can see some usefulness of timely books, but reference to previous medical publications is why professionals build libraries. (heck, I still have PL/1 books) I suppose I'll just have to boycott these types of online publications, after all, if nobody buys them then they'll have to change. Publishers *do* know which side of the bread the butter goes on (the down side.)
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Adam Smith's invisible hand is a means, "a rising tide" is a goal.
The invisible hand is a meta-statement about a free economy. However, we don't have a free economy, we have built in certain restrictions (patents, copyrights, anti-monopoly laws, etc). Also, the real world is not identical to theory (real people don't have perfect information or perfect logic). For these reasons, it is sometimes possible for the economy to be on a path that does not head towards the goal the society wants (a rising tide). My question is: What restrictions do we remove/add/modify to make that goal more likely.
Phrased correctly, these problems are amenable to mathematical analysis. I'm not competent to do the math, but I'm taking notes in the hopes that I *am* competent to do the phrasing.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
This means that whoever produces the 'books' will have a lifetime ability to extort money from you: "Pay the yearly 'licensing fee' or we won't give you this year's encryption key."
Of course this year's encryption fee is just the 4 digit year (i.e. 2000, 2001) etc. but the DMCA forbids you to figure that fact out - since that is 'breaking a digital protection method'. The DMCA even forbids you to set the wrong date in the computer's clock to spoof a time when you had a good password - since that is 'bypassing a protection means', and subjects you to the draconian penalties of the DMCA.
Part of the reasons that women fear the outlawing of abortion is that it gives the police the right and the obligation to investigate every miscarriage. Part of the reason that geeks need to fear the DMCA is that it gives the police the right and the obligation to investigate everything that you do on your computer; "The CMOS clock on your machine is wrong, how do we know that you aren't trying to circumvent digital protection means on your computer? "
I can't wait until some lawyer figures out that all reading is covered by the DMCA since when you learn something you are making a copy into an electronic computer (your brain).
--
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been checked to see if it works.
"Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities."
How can VitalViewer claim to the publishers that a university will mandate the use of the VitalViewer textbooks? I've never seen a university say "if you don't use this text book, you will get an F". I thought grades were dependant on the student's comprehension of the material, not on the purchase of a book.
"Because the service is a global curriculum application, the fee comes in from each student each of the four years of their studies, regardless of whether they are taking that course that year."
This one is the most appalling. They're actually claiming that universities will force students to pay for a product that they won't even use. Courses normally require a "mandatory" textbook, but many students used the libraries' copies, and passed anyway. I've yet to see an exam require a copy of the book's receipt.
"By implementing the VSTi system, however, universities contractually agree to require at least three titles per curriculum topic. Therefore, the number of titles used by students increases significantly."
I think they forgot to add "whether they're needed or not".
Students are already having a tough time going through university or college because of the enormous costs. Here in Canada, university is partially subsidized by the government, so the costs are lower, but it's still very expensive to get through a 4 year degree.
The scary part is that some universities have already adopted the VitalViewer system.
bh
Ouch. Even though financial aid covers the cost, being locked into Apple would suck.
What does the VitalBook cost? For year one, the cost to the Class of 2004 is $600. If you continue in the program beyond year one, it will cost $1,200 annually (cost for the remaining three years is $3,600). Plus the cost of the PowerBook
What if I decide I don't like the VitalBook? First of all, the VitalBook has been extensively pilot tested and a beta-version was out for some time before the application was completed - that means, we don't believe you won't like it!
"Come the revolution, you'll all have strawberries and cream, and you'll like it!" This attitude bothers me enough, that if I was actually interested in going to dental school, I'd drop NYU from consideration for trying to force use fo the "vitalbook".
What happens in 2020, when the dentist who bought the VitalBook is trying to look something up, and his 2000 PowerBook dies, and his 2018 PowerBook isn't backwards-compatible with the VitalBook software? Books are always readable, unless they physically rot. Can you read those old MSWord 1.0 documents on 5-1/4 floppies anymore? Paper will never die, even if it stops being made from dead trees, because there is no technology beyond written language required to read it.
I could be wrong here, and I probably am, but the "Vital Source Technologies" website LOOKS like a total hoax. I mean, come on, lets THINK a little instead of immediately going into anti-capitalism knee-jerk.
1) This will create the need for 2 textbooks, the electronic and the dead tree version. Ever hear of community colleges (at least that's what they're called here in California)? Typically, a fair number of people are there because they can't afford state college. If they can't afford state, they probably can't afford fancy computers. Many community colleges offer large computer labs for the students becasue they know the students can't afford computers. Will publishers REALLY want to maintain 2 versions of the same text?
2) I _LOVE_ the part where the publisher will update the content every year as part of the licence agreement. Ever look at the copyrights for some of your books? Ever wonder if some of those guys are still ALIVE? I've studied under professors who have written books (yes,we used their books, but I got lucky, they were pretty good books), and typically, there was at least a five year span between editions. What author is going to want to work hard enough to update his or her material every year?
3) Ever have a professor who seemed to have the book MEMORIZED? They guy hasn't changed his lesson plan in 10 years, and he's retiring in 5 and doesn't want to ever change his lesson plan again. You think professors like this are going to want texts that change EVERY YEAR? NOT!
4) As someone else pointed out, Universities make $$$$$ off used books. I know I typically got less than 1/2 of what I paid for a book that was used in the first place when I sold it back. I don't think the Universities are going to want to give up that revenue stream.
5) But wait, you say, the University will REQUIRE all this due to the larger revenue stream of requiring 3 books per ciriculum. Uhhh, they _COULD_ do this now, with dead tree books. But they don't. Ever seen a university try to force professors to do something? It isn't pretty.
6) None of the links on the bottom of the page work.
I could be wrong. I probably am. But this smells like hoax to me, or (here I go qualifying already) at the most a straw man to gage reaction.
Merde, il pleut encore!
The Library of Congress keeps a copy of every book published in the United States, and is open to the public. Will a copy of these e-textbooks be provided to the Library of Congress and other libraries? Will they be denied legal copyright if they refuse to provide a copy? Will they even be considered books, or are they in fact just software? A lot of questions, I look forward, with a great deal of trepidation, to the answers.
True virtual libraries - Download a copy of a book from your public library with a 3week limitation. After 3weeks, it's unreadable. (Of course, when you dl a copy, it's not like you're removing it from the shelf, and therefore someone else can't get it, UNLESS books are distributed with single user licenses.)
Outdated/limited information - Remember the early Netscape betas - they expired about 3 months after release to prevent people using beta quality software sometime down the road. For fields like physics, chemistry, etc where we general restructure how we teach and view our science roughly every 10 years, a textbook published in 1970 may be teaching not only misleading but WRONG information, and thus limiting the date on these things may be useful. But you'd still want to be able to access that information as potental historical value. And unfortunately, there's not a large number of cases where this happens.
Now, as I read the associated info for this article, most of the concept with time-limited books appears to be focused at colleges, which can make some sense. How many hundreds of dollars do you pay for books a year just as a scientist or engineer in school? Look at the cost of medical books, they're even worse. However, you can most likely pick up a copy of Office for less than $100 which will last you through your school years. If you could buy all your books that you'd use for school at 25% the list price, but only be able to use them through your school, after which you'd have to pay subscriptions to continue to use them, compared to buying unlimited use at 100%, I would think most students would jump on the former. I *still* want the option of the second to be available, as many professionals end up buying textbooks as reference materials, and at this point, the initial cost isn't terribly bad.
I can't see this yet being popular for average joe: even getting away from physcially holding a book and curling up with it before bed, there's still the probably of the fact that you don't buy the book, you license it. It may lead to cheaper book prices (get Tom Clancy's latest for only $5 for a 3yr limiation as opposed to $25 for no limitation), but it can also easily lead to pay-per-page, especially if it uses any net verification to make sure that you are reading your book. Password protection would be shunned - there's something in sharing a book with a friend that adding the password layer would ruin.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
According to the NYU FAQ, "the full cost of textbooks and manuals for four years of dental school is about $3000." They're offering the first year of VitalBook for $600, and each remaining year for $1200. So, for four years of dental school using VitalBook, you pay $4200, for a total savings of -$1200, less the cost of the Apple G3 Powerbook, if you don't happen to already have one for some reason. (NYU strongly recommends the one sold by, surprise surprise, the NYU Computer Store.)
Imagine that! You save -$1200, get to buy a tangerine-coloured laptop, and all you have to give up for this privilege is ownership of anything. Well, I guess you get to keep the powerbook.
This sounds like as much of a scam on NYU's part as on Vital Source's.
Interestingly, though, NYU says that participation in this is voluntary, while Vital Source's release to publishers indicates that it's partner universities mandate the use of their technologies. Someone seems to be lying.
There's no such thing as Scotchtoberfest!
http://www.peicommerce .com/HISTORY/ROMAN/CLEOPAT/LIBRARY.HTM
http://www.fwkc.co m/encyclopedia/low/articles/a/a001001097f.html
First posting isn't trolling. It's...first posting.
Apparently a dictionary wasn't one of those books you kept around to help you maintain your education...
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
after all, it's their "property"
But with the book thing, I believe most judges, D.A.'s, and other legal officials would be equally appalled at the idea of a book not being able to be passed along, shared, spread about to encourage universal enlightenment, that change would occur more quickly. And if I have to rot in jail with the Drug Addicts because I believe strongly in the right to Use and Dispose of my property in any fashion that does not cause injury to another, then so be it.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
They'll be able to run Windows; there's a 'PC Beta' section on the support page for VitalBook.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities.
Now see what the problem is?
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Ah, kids, back in my day, when I was in University, it sure was a different world. Would you believe we actually used flat, dead trees for our printed communication?
Hey, no laughing, or I'll quit reminiscing!
Yup, everything was printed on paper. That was back in the days when there were these huge multinational companies that were allowed to cut down entire forests. Would you believe that Brazil used to be a jungle? Amazing.
Whazzat? How did they protect their books? They didn't! This'll blow your mind: we had these big buildings called "libraries," where all these books were kept, and you could go in and read them *for free*!
Yah, you could even share your books with friends. Heh, once I even made a complete copy of one of my textbooks using this thing called a photocopy machine. You'd open up the book, put a page on the glass, press a button, and a perfect copy of the page came out of the machine.
No, there wasn't any encryption, Timmy. It was plaintext. I know! I know! It's amazing, I told you! Everyone could share books, you didn't even need to pay for them if you went to a library, you could even make copies of them without being caught.
Well, yah, that all came to an end at the turn of the century. That Digital Millenium Copyright Act sure put a halt to sharing books.
Seriously, would I lie to you? This is all true!
Yah, those were the days. You could get your information for free, and it was yours forever. Didn't have to pay Random House a yearly fee to keep them from erasing your mind, even. Once you knew stuff, it was yours forever...
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It has come to my attention that your license to use the English Language has expired. Further speech on your part will be considered an infringement. Our lawyer will talk to your lawyer about this.
Furthermore, your continued use of the English Language will be taken as evidence that your are using some form of DMCA-prohibited Circumvention Device, such as a brain. We will aggressively pursue legal action against the parties that distributed this "brain" to you. If you are engaged in the manufacture of these "brains", commonly through the mechanism known as "children", we will pursue legal action against you.
In October of this year, mere possession of this Circumvention device will become illegal, and our attornies will be at the forefront of this legal opportunity.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Where is this debate at now? Has the Clinton administration's Evil Copyright Initiative been successfully thwarted? Enquiring minds want to know...
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
I think you've forgotten than Macs *CAN* Run Linux. Like Linux PPC
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Now won't we have a dandy situation? We'll have "Cops in High Tops", posing as students in classrooms. They'll say, "Hey dude, I forgot my book, and I've got a huge assignment due, like, tomorrow, man! Can you, like, loan me your book?"
You'll comply, because you're a nice guy, and suddenly you find that you're calling mom and dad to bail you out of jail.
Dad : "What the hell did you do, son?"
You : "I loaned a textbook to a classmate."
Enough!!! This shit has to stop!
--SpookComix
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
We each pick a book and memorize it. Then, we recite it to anyone who wants the information. As we grow older, we teach our children our book(s) and they teach their children...and so on. The information is always available and free, since even the government can't "password protect" your memory (short of using a bullet).
I have a friend named Sontag who is very interested in this...he works for those who put the DMCA into action and now he's having second thoughts...
Once I thought Ray Bradbury was a little out of touch...not so much now.
BTW, just what is the ignition point of an e-book file?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
You don't.
You let them tie their own rope and hang themselves with it.
The United States, as the world's current sole superpower, is enjoying unprecendented economic prosperity. Unprecendented. In this climate I have found it impossible to discuss, much less make clear, a number of topics, all of which seem obvious to those of us who read slashdot and are informed on the issue, and are apparently unfathonable by most of those who do not:
Like the people of Philidelpha in the 1970s who refused to believe their mayor and police could do any wrong because crime was down (mainly as a result of their torturing prisoners and witnessess alike to coerce testimony and insure convictions, and the fact that they were terrorizing disadvantaged groups into submission), no one wants to hear negative or unsettling commentary on This Great Nation(tm) when things are so good. Add to that the specter of being considered "unamerican" or "unpatriotic" if you should be so uppitty as to criticize Our Leaders(tm), and you have an environment in which people are adamantly unwilling to listen to, much less believe, anything which even smacks of a pessimistic commentary on what is going on.
I can't even get friends who are activists in other areas of life to listen (and you would thing, as politically active and motivated people, they would at least be willing to ponder the topic). The degree of denial and unwillingness to look at and consider evidence that runs contrary to the common meme of "America is the greatest place on earth bar none!" is probably impossible for those to grasp who haven't been confronted with it directly. It is truly remarkable!
In a very real way we are being fattened for the slaughter.
I am slowly concluding that you simply cannot make people hear what they do not wish to hear. Soon enough the consiquences of this unwillingness to be informed will make themselves felt.
More importantly, if other countries are smart enough to persue more intelligent intellectual property policies, they will quickly become more competetive than the United States and economic fortunes will shift. Then, and only then, will Americans sit up and take notice.
On the other hand, if the rest of the world follows America to hell, well then, we can all roast marshmellows over the brimstone together.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I collect old science-fiction pulps. The other night, I was reading through ``The Gods of Mars'' again (it's book 2 in the Barsoom series). It's the 1965 pocket edition. Among other things, the Copyright notice says that ``This book shall not ... be lent out ...''.
The thing is, there's no way to enforce such a restriction on a physical book, and indeed later editions don't have the restriction. There's got to be a story there somewhere, if only one could find the right people to interview.
I have dozens of textbooks on the shelf behind me, and I don't intend to buy another circuits book because Addison Wesley thinks it's out of date.
The problem with the world wide web, and the reason publishers like it, is that information can be revoked at whim. Sure, CNN publishes hundreds of stories every week on the web, and you can access them quite a ways back. But what if CNN realizes that one of the stories it wrote last year was very embarrasing, but only because of some new information that has come to light. There is a strong incentive for them to remove the story from their website. (Remember they did this with a DeCSS story a while back, removing a very embarrassing link.) When a story is published on paper, the publisher can't recall the paper for a bit of editing. They have to live with their mistakes.
If all information is published "WWW" style, this starts to look like 1984. Now books are moving in to this territory. Today they're on CDROM, tomorrow they'll just be downloaded by a proprietary browser. Imagine a world where the page in the history book you're reading today is different than it was yesterday. Maybe the publisher updated it with "value added" content, but maybe they just crossed out a paragraph.
I recommend that people reject this kind of digital publishing. If publishers really want to publish a book electronically it should never be licensed in a way that limits the time that information can be used. If they want to put their information on the internet, they should use the Freenet, or some similar means to ensure that the information is not controlled by anyone once it has been released.
"Apparently a dictionary wasn't one of those books you kept around to help you maintain your education..."
Hmmm....
I Did keep the book on good maners though...
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Books are shipped with EULAs! What else would you call this blurb that I find in most paperback books:
This is from the UK -- do you have something similar in the US and would it be legal there?
Hi!
I suppose it would depend on whether or not you needed an administrator for Netware 3.1 and DOS 5.0 machines.
Believe it or not such setups still do exist. And if you did have such a setup the documentation for Windows 2000 and the newest version of Netware simply aren't going to be useful.
There are plenty of computer text books that have withstood the test of times. Pretty much anything by Knuth (for example) is going to be useful probably long after we are both dead. Now if you are talking about books like "Learn foo in 21 days" then you are probably right, but there are plenty of computer manuals that will be useful for some time.
I'd like to see some of the bigger IT companies come out strongly against stuff like this and announce publically that no programmer who ever worked on such a project will be hired. There's a point when you have to realize that your job is evil and find something else.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The difference between paying $600 a term for the 'vitabook' and paying $2000 for 'real' books is that YOU GET TO KEEP THE REAL BOOKS!
Even if no expiration date existed on the Vitabooks (vitamins + books? What a silly name), one is still left with the problem of ensuring that the technology for reading DVDs remains current and convenient for decades into the future. Aside from the obvious "solution" of using DeCSS to extract the data and save it as hard copy (undoubtedly in violation of the licensing agreement), this problem appears to be without remedy.
Anyone remember the old 8" floppies?
Now, however, what if we added MORE competition? The idea I have in mind is a "just-in-time" publishing company that would sell textbooks to students in the format that they want (CD or print). By doing one offs, and perhaps foregoing huge profit margins that publishing companies think they need, you might be able to get pricing competetive enough that students would prefer buying from you. If you could also make it more renumerative to those actually writing the textbooks, then you'd see some success. As to potential copying problems with the electronic format, you could provide some limited copy protection -- enough that what with your lower prices and all, most students would rather just buy the book than mess with trying to crack it.
And then, when VitalViewer comes to your University and says: "Look! Electronic publishing!", the adminstration can frown and say "Hmmm. We already have that."
Tweet, tweet.
I see no fundamental moral difference between "replaying" a piece of music in my head - I do this all the time with very good accuracy (at least it hits most of the same cognitive triggers as the recorded version does) - and recording and replaying the music I've heard with a brain augmenting device such as a tape recorder or, in the futre, some kind of neural implants. Either way I am simply reliving one of my experiences as best I can and I firmly believe I have that right.
If I read some text, I have the right to make notes about that text in anyway I see fit and to review those notes at any time in the future.
I believe it is my basic right to talk about anything I hear or read while sharing my experiences with friends. I believe I should be able to show them notes I have taken. I believe I should be able to hum a tune I heard...or play and sing it with a guitar...or with a whole band...as accurately as I want to...or play them an mp3 or wav recording of any sound waves that were sent in my direction during my life. And if my friend can read my mind, I should be able to share those songs that I play back in my head with good fidelity.
If we are to limit a person's basic right to relive and share any of their life experiences then you are limiting their ability to live a human life, and there had better be a damned good reason to restrict such a basic right. I can't think of any good ones that have an overall benefit to humanity. And I don't appreciate people trying to take away those basic rights which may not be codified, but should be.
No because the oligarchy are busy exporting blue-collar jobs to 'competitive' countries i.e. vicious dictatorships. No, he or she will be on welfare and under constant harassment to take a minimum wage job in McDonalds, because, as you know, all the unemployed are scroungers and welfare-dependent. I'm a Limey, but the same rant applies over here too.
Publishers are guaranteed 100% market penetration at partner schools who opt to implement the Vital Source system. Purchase of all included titles is mandated by the universities.
In the VSTi model, students are mandated by universities to pay a yearly fee lciensing their reference curriculum.
By implementing the VSTi system, however, universities contractually agree to require at least three titles per curriculum topic. Therefore, the number of titles used by students increases significantly.
VSTi will control the Universities. The Universities will control the students. This shit will be mandated, and the Universities will have to sell every student at least three books per class!
NYU (linked above) requires it's students to purchase an Apple notebook to use this system(and highly recommend purchasing it through the campus bookstore). In a year or so, the entire system will be required of the students!
If they want this system to work, they'll have to make some serious adjustments. First off, they need to seriously slash the price of the books. They won't be able to complain that they have to keep them in stock anymore, so that cost is gone. They won't have heavy books, and therefore high shipping costs. They won't need massive shelf space. The publisher gets it's money from one nice source. All of these are good reasons to slash the prices dramatically. But what do you want to be that the price of books won't go down a bit? "These books are more convenient! They let you search! They are small! They fit in your pocket! You should expect to pay *more* for these!"
But in addition to that, they're going to have to let students loan or give their e-books to other people, just like with paper books. There can't be a restriction on that, or this system will fail.
We'll have to fight it if they don't make the system flexible, and beneficial!
--SpookComix
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
"Sorry, sir; I couldn't do the discussion questions. I ran out of time on my textbook."
If I were a med student, for example, and had to KEEP PAYING for the same damn textbook I thought I'd already bought when I signed up for the course, I'd be hella pissed. I'd mention DIVX (the bad kind) to my prof, but do you think he'd listen?
Good news though: Windows has screenshots. Who'll be the first to create an automated screenshot-creation tool (general-purpose, not specific to this) and make it available to those wanting to keep what they have paid for?
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I always thought you could do whatever you wanted with a book as long as you didn't copy the whole thing. You actually thought two people reading the same book was illegal? How did you ever get through study sessions? What are you going to do when you have kids? Not read along with them?
At the crux of all this is the fact that electronic books, unlike physical books, can be copied at will and with virtually no loss of resources or loss of quality.
One sane way to approach this is with a "one monitor per license" EULA. That preserves the original balance between copyright holder and reader.
Unfortunately, users won't hold still for it, and companies can't resist tightening their grip.
I fear that where we once had passionate arguments between Democrats and Republicans using words, we will now have violent conflict between Socialists and Fascists toting guns.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Perhaps the open source movement of the future will apply to more than just software. We are moving into an era where knowledge is becoming more valuable than goods. As is happening with the software industry now, we may see a future where people from around the world collaborate to share the information that used to be freely available in books.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So that's it for libraries then. I assume that this would make a library unworkable unless they paid a fee for every book withdrawal. More like renting a video.
This seems unjust. If I purchase a book I should be able to transfer it to another person, just like any other software I purchase. Infact this seems utterly unique in terms of the extent restrictions being applied. Imagine a music CD with similar restrictions for example, I wouldn't be able to let friends borrow it, and what about playing it at a party?
This can be taken to utterly riddiculous extremes, for example, what about a childens story book? Presumably I wouldn't be allowed to read it to twins without an additional license.
Books are physical objects printed on paper. We all know that there's a certain value to books that can't be replaced by something on the screen - they're more inviting, easier to handle, extremely convenient, not subject to power failures, and so on. I often buy books even when I could get the same thing online for free, and even though I have access to a really fast laser printer. I'm also writing a book at the moment, and I'm in favor of publishing it online for free as well as on paper (though that's up to the publisher). I don't think I'd lose money by doing that, and it would make the material more accessible and useful.
This company is providing a system for securing access to online resources. I don't like the sound of their motivations, but this isn't new. My high school's library (several years ago) had a CD-ROM collection that wouldn't allow printing. I was annoyed, but I didn't see any Slashdot alarmists bitching about it. I would classify anything published with this medium as "material", but not as "books". Books are something I can lend to friends, take anywhere, and photocopy as I see fit.
If you don't like a new trend in publishing, spend your money elsewhere. If you are involved with an organization that requires it, complain to the administration.
-John
Maybe this is an idea to use attacking the DMCA: Encourage your congresscritter to amend ADA1990 to include the following provisions:
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
Ignoring the obvious moral issues, what does this do to future access of a work?
Witness abandonware. Software publishers drop a product or go out of business and it is impossible to purchase a title and illegal to copy it; the title becomes "lost".
Imagine that with books. A publisher stops "support" for a book or goes out of business. With the "unlock code" unavailable, the book can never be seen by future scholars.
Imagine the world today if all the classical titles had been digital. The library at Toledo would have contained few books, as the decryption codes had been lost with the fall of the Greek and Roman civilizations. The Odyssey and the works of Plato would be unknown. As Europe tried to recover from the dark ages and the plague of 1348 ended, there would be no ancient scienfitic knowledge to rebuild western Europe.
The Book of Kells and Beowulf would be nothing more than mysterious discs in a display case. We would wonder about the Egyptians, as Budge could not read The Book of the Dead.
Stamping general knowledge "Authorized, monied persons only" will mark the beginning of the decline of the information age.
In the text, it says that all students are _required_ to purchase this copy of the book...
Image a world where ALL textbooks are free. How do the author(s) and editor(s) get reimbursed for their efforts? How do students get new textbooks? It is obvious that any extreme is very harmfull. Focusing on that, and that alone, only serves confuse the issues.
For one, you fail to see this method of distribution as an opportunity for would-be authors. There are literally thousands of worthy topics and authors that cannot be published because the current textbook economics do not allow for it. If the market that that book is not sufficiently large, it simply won't get published. This would allow for many more alternatives.
Secondly, you err when you say that "There is no way to say 'a rising tide lifts all boats' in Capitalismese". One of the beautiful things about capitalism is that it doesn't need to be expressly dictated all the time. The businessman need not know, or even particularly care, about the good of the common man. The "invisible hand" largely sees to that, or at least more effectively than any other previous method. By providing goods and services far more efficiently and cheaply than in any other system, we simply have more to offer everyone.
In this particular situation, I see no reason whatsoever to believe that books will become any less accessible or affordable on the aggregate. In fact, I believe a digital/per use system would, in fact, create a vastly more efficient market with even more competition, which would lead to a significantly better system for everyone. Though I am well aware that all too many slashdot readers claim that intellectual property is leading to the lockup or ownership of all knowledge, there is little evidence of it. One may own a particular phrase, method, song, or you name it, but those are only the means by which you obtain the end, not the end unto itself. Because there is almost always more than one way to do a thing, there will be competition. Prices will fall, just as they always have. [Where monopolies may form, they can be dealt with]
It seems logical to me. If the knowledge is "owned" by somebody then they can probably control what I do with it, right?
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Read it. Keep it. Read it more. It's not like you're removing it from the shelf so someone else can't get it...
As to expiring stuff- I truly hate that stuff, because all too often the situation is this- I use an early version, it works great, I try a later version and they SCREWED IT UP. Then the early version expires and I'm hosed. Furrfu. Software shouldn't expire. It's all too prone to obsolescence anyhow, why _guarantee_ that it will become useless? It's like sabotage.
I see a few other problems with this. What if you want to read your textbook in a place that is inhospitable to a computer IE a place with no power? Yes, the laptop has batteries, but does that mean I can only study for 2-3 hours until the batteries run out? Or worse, power receptacles will be at a premium now. Instead of sitting in a quiet cafe to study, you'll be fighting over the only two power receptacles.
What if your computer dies (I own an iMac, I can tell you from experience that Apple tech support is VERY expensive and isn't that good at all). You cannot tell me that a stressed out student isn't going to drop their powerbook at some point. Do they have to wait a week to get it repaired? Hopefully NYU and other colleges that participate in this will have emergency loaner machines.
What about if the disk is lost or stolen? I would assume that it would become more valuable to thieves once someone figures out how to decrypt them (and they will figure it out). Will replacement disks be offered?
I read a lot of my father's college textbooks. I learned a lot by doing that. I still refer to mine a great deal. Will someone's bright little kid be barred from looking at daddy's (or mommy's) textbooks because they didn't pay for a password? Ok so these are dental texts. I assume this will eventually leak over to things like digital design and programming books.
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Anyone certified to teach a college-level course, from community college associate professors to Nobel-winning careers academics, could offer part or all of that material, and be sure of having an up-to-date, well edited and maintained body of 'source' material. Plus, as online education gains legitimacy and accredidation, the content could be offered with Internet-based lectures, discussions, etc., to allow for a free (or low-cost) college degree with content way above the level that most trade and 2-year schools can afford to provide.
- Image a world where ALL textbooks are free. How do the author(s) and editor(s) get reimbursed for their efforts? How do students get new textbooks?
And if no one were paid to write programs, no programs would be written, right?While this application does have "substantial noninfringing uses", it gives companies more power over the user. Based on past behavior, it seems reasonable to assume that companies will use this power to squeeze as much money from the consumer as possible without regard to their rights. And while monopolies can be dealt with as they come, it worries me when a new opportunity comes along for companies to gain more power.
It's half of fair copyright law: protection of the copyright holder. If you can resell copyrighted works, that cheats the copyright holder of his income. Wouldn't you, if you were an author, feel screwed by one person buying a book, then passing it on to 20 others?
This isn't one-sidedly for the holder. Remember, book-passing has to be taken into account when setting prices.
Unfortunately, I don't see any efforts toward the other, much more important half of copyright reform: shortening the term to about five years after publishing. Copyright, like patent, is supposed a temporary monopoly on one's own ideas. Most copyrighted works make most of their profit in the first year; many in the first month. If you aren't expecting to make a sufficient profit in 5 years, you probably aren't doing it for the money.
--------
Actually, one of the guaranteurs of freedom is that we do _not_ have freedom of contract.
You do not have the "freedom" to agree to wages below the minimum wage. You do not have the "freedom" to live in an apartment without heat. You do not have the "freedom" to sell yourself into slavery.
You cannot give up your freedom to sue someone who has wrong you, unless a settlement has been made after the fact.
In the end, we remain "free" because we are prevented from giving up some of our freedoms.
This is a situation where, I think, where if everyone suddenly exercised their "freedom" to enter into such a horrid contract, we would all be much worse off.
-Dean
Mirror this comment!
~ppppppppö
By tagging each content component with metadata designating items such as chapter, sectoin, author, pulbisher, and access/print privileges, XML allows information to be readily located, reused, and controlled.
I read a book about 15 years ago fortelling of how information was the basis for the next economy. Those who control it will profit.
The problem with this model is that the machines we are developing are making it easier to "manufacture" or replicate information. Imagine if you had a machine that could copy your friend's car or house with no material cost to you. Manufacturing as an economy would collapse. That is the fundamental flaw with an information economy. Info is too easy to copy and redistribute. People will try to control information, but they will ultimately fail because you cannot restrain ideas. They are better off trying to figure out new methods to allow information to be shared instead of trying to bottle it up.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
agreed. one more point i would like to make : intellectual property? the whole concept has been mauled quite badly if it was even a coherent thought in it's conception. i do not think that corporations have reached a point where they can brain drain their collective employees and come up with a single thought. so we are talking about the thoughts of individuals...so why the fuck are corporate entities the ones clamoring for their "intellectual property"...oh yeah, i forgot, metallica and ice cube are the "artists" bitching...but other than that, i don't hear writers, musicians, or artists talking much about their intellectual property-probably cause they already got screwed out of that property by a record company or a publisher...maybe we need a new word for this thing that we have labelled "intellectual property"-like "swindled creativity"
Publishing a textbook is a labor of love for most. Sure, the 50,000 or so US publishers try all sorts of tricks to make money, but for some reason there's really not much to be made. Strange. In any case, the amount of money to be made by the author will keep him at his day job. All of the proffesors (engineering, greek and roman history) I've had with any pretense to publish a text were in it for recognition and love of the subject. They wanted to share as widely as possible.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
As I have been told by a professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business while taking a Software Management course (ugh - don't make me do that again!), she claimed that buying the course materials was mandatory for some courses. As appaling as I thought that was, I happened across some books after a Biz class had ended and sure enough, I saw this:
This was actually in the Software Management course materials book as well (it was taught by the Biz school) but the requirement was waived.
I don't think it gets waived by the Ivey profs. Anyone graduate from Ivey and if so, can you substantiate this?
Woz
- guarantees 100% market penetration at participating schools, --so students will be at your mercy--no sneaky going to the library, or borrowing a friend's book
- significantly increases the number of titles students purchase each year,--more money!
- significantly reduces overhead costs associated with manufacture and distribution of textbooks, and promises continued licensing of publisher materials through continuing education.--and all this costs you less!
In the process the VSTi model- creates a copyright compliant environment on campus,--you won't even have to worry about fair use any more! Someone wants to photocopy a chapter of your book for a class presentation? Hah! They'll have to get your permission first....
- gets rid of the need for used books,--You can make sell the same book over, and over, and over again.... And they'll have no first-sale rights, so they won't be able to pass it on to anyone else.
- tailor-makes solutions to fit the unique needs of each campus. Work out precisely the most that the market will bear on each campus, and charge the most you can get away with! No-one can resell your books, so there's no opportunity for arbitrage--everyone pays through the nose!
Sounds like a great deal for someone, but not for the advancement of knowledge....The story is here. Sigh.
Oh come on. What actual evil have these companies actions resulted in? Is your quality of life actually less? No. Is the average Americans worse? No. Have the size of libraries grown? Yes. Is music cheaper than it was before? Yes. Have the costs of specific medicines and treatments gone up on the aggregate do the corporations? No, they've gone down, it's only society's expectations that have gone up. All these, and many more, mythical complaints, yet few provably bad results.
There is one word for this: FUD.
- Currently, most of the people involved with this thread are paying a monthly/yearly/whatever fee for access to information in the form of subscriptions. Subscriptions give you a form of limited access to certain types of information.
Are you refering to ISP's & the Internet? There are a lot of differences:Apples and oranges. The Dark Ages were an accident of history -- Roman culture had essentially been annihilated by the combination of lead poisoning, barbarians, and other such things, and the feudal culture that resulted essentially was a form of stagnation. The fact that anyone had any learning at all in Europe was nothing short of a miracle once the strict hierarchy of feudalism was established -- there was no way out. Like Japan today, where personal freedoms exist in law but are often severely limited by cultural pressures (the nail that stick out, etc.), feudal Europe was stuck.
What's happening now with the copyright abuses of the DMCA is that corporations are attempting to milk every last drop out of cash out of people that they can get. This is stagnation of a different sort -- rather than admit to themselves that the pirates have won the war (and believe me, I don't take their side lightly since I find them mostly to be freeloading scum), these companies are going to court to preserve a business model that no longer makes any sense.
The social contract under which the concept of copyright was created has been destroyed, partly by the pirates, partly by the companies themselves. I think this may prove to be a good thing -- while plagiarism per se is a bad thing, the fact is that modern English literature began during a time (the Tudor era) where plagiarism and adaptation of what would now be considered proprietary ideas was rampant. The corporations will ultimately lose the war under the current business models simply because there will be someone always willing to hack them.
As for the issue of artistic rights, well... I don't know. I see both sides of the issue here, and what it comes down to for me is a matter of respect. I don't blame Metallica for wanting to get paid for their work, and I think a lot of people are misunderstanding their position. I think they *are* being hardasses, mind you, but to them it's a question of respect -- do you like what we're doing enough that you will support us so we can keep doing it? Stephen King decided to meet his fans halfway on the issue, and he's cleaning up. Metallica -- well, they don't mind bootlegs. I think that's gotten lost in the rush to judgement. The simple fact is that they've created new material, and they are justifiably pissed that people don't want to get paid for it.
At the same time, the capitalists have to realize that their day in the sun is ending. Yes, you have the right to make a buck, and nobody can be a reasonable human being to deny you that right. But the simple fact is that sometimes people do want something for nothing. This again is an example of the broken social contract. You give, we take -- but what happens when you can't afford to give any more and we keep on taking?
No, this isn't a New Dark Age. Not in the same sense. Some may be trying to do that, but the genie's already out of the bag. The social contract that has existed since the 18th century or so is gone, and a new one must be rewritten. I think we all had better just shut up and deal, no matter which side we're on -- the page has turned.
/Brian
Hey, whoever moderated the above post is doing a pretty crappy job.
Instead of moderating Jellicle down, you should moderated Kaa down, for posting an inciteful (not insightful) post on a topic he hadn't read anything about, clearly not even the links in the story.
At least ten posts point out Kaa's argument is completely unrelated to the facts of the situation, yet he receives a +5 score and people who point this out get a 0 Flamebait score for daring to point out that Kaa was talking out of his ass.
If you are a moderator who contributed to this situation, then you're a part of the Slashdot problem, where trolls and idiots get highly moderated while the people with something to say are ignored.
Try to think when handing out moderation verdicts, and read in Oldest First, not Highest Score order, and don't filter out 0 score posts, otherwise you're harming much more then you're helping.
- Software EULAs
- Stupid Patents that have slowed down progress
- DoubleClick invading privacy
- My.MP3.com getting sued for space shifting
I don't mean to sound like aYou might be able to sell such an idea to dentists, because sadly, a lot of dentists aren't all that bright. But any CS student would be nuts to buy into such an astoundingly greedy scheme. And any CS prof -- or engineering, or physics, or humanities -- should be burned at the stake for helping to promote it as long as there is still an alternative.
You can count on it that the only reason this thing is flying even as far as it has gone is that Vicious Source Technologies has paid NYU a huge bribe. Sure, it's called a "marketing agreement", but you know that it boils down to money changing hands.
The NYU dental school is a blight on the face of academia. Their next contract will probably be with a huge candy company.
> The SECOND you put that textbook in machine
> readable format... I'm making FREE copies
> for everyone. And since it's, by definition,
> "FOR NON-PROFIT EDUCATIONAL USE", you can't
> even sue me. So ha! It's not even piracy.
Well of course not. Afterall isn't piracy theft and murder on the high seas?
But there is a good point here. "Fair Use" clearly says that making copies for non-profit educational use is explicitly allowed.
Of course then again...they CAN always sue you, hell you don't even have to do anything to be sued. The question is whether they could win a suit against you for it.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I've looked over the NYU and VitalBooks sites, and I see nothing indicating that the books are actually unusable after one year --- they're merely obsolete. This isn't the DiVX strategy, it's the Windows strategy.
Now, if that mandated purchase thing goes through... ick. I'm a med student, and I've given up on buying the required textbooks, because they're not useful for the course. If I want a reference, I'll go to the library, or read the online fulltext the library kindly provides.
On a side note... $600 a year for dental textbooks? And that's the *discount*? Damn! Either dental school contains a lot more info than med school, or dental profs have many more favored texts.
These are the exception, not the rule, and even then their "damage" is questionable. I think you need to take a longer view, and view them more on the aggregate. i.e., What have companies done for us vs. What have they ACTUALLY cost us?
Software EULAs: They may suck. People are certainly entitled to get upset with companies that place them. But is the mere existence of a bad EULA proof of it being bad for society? Has the quality of software truely diminished since the introduction of the EULA? The consumer still has a choice. Software still does alright by the consumer (though I'd be the first to say that software industry is terribly immature).
Stupid Patents: Again, more the exception than the rule. If you talk to any patent laywer worth his salt, he'll tell you the real test of patents is not their existence, it is how they fair in the courts. In terms of actual quantifiable dollar damage due to stupid patents the figures are pretty low. What's more, there are hundreds of thousands of usefull products and services that exist today because of the patent.
DoubleClick: Ok, they suck. On the other hand, how many other viable revenue alternatives exist on the web for budding websites? How much preference do most consumers place on their privacy? If they don't care that much, who am I to say they should?
My.MP3.com: Very grey. Here we have a for-profit corporation (mp3.com) that wants to profit off of others intellectual property. I'm not so sure that it is unreasonable for the intellectual property owners to want to determine the terms and conditions of their property where it reasonably offers to potential to affect their revenues. For instance, let's say that my.mp3.com uses this service to launch themselves into centerstage, such that the IP owners become obselete. As much as you may find the record labels distateful, is it so absolutely wrong for them to want to protect profits? I don't think so. As much as I, as a consumer, may want a service like my.mp3.com, I'd hardly say that makes RIAA evil. Also, we may well see my.mp3.com coming back soon, or if not them, then some other similar service.
31. You receive one of the following messages:
"An error occurred during current date check which will prevent further execution of a TrialWare-enabled product."
"Sorry, this software is too old to use. Please contact your school about obtaining a more current version."
"An error occurred during current date check. Please contact your support resources."
Your VitalViewer TM is time and date sensitive. It is scheduled to expire early next semester. If you change the date and time, the application will complain. This is a security issue and will not be changed. If you have changed the date and/or time and are receiving one of the above messages you will need to go to the Dean's office. Please bring your laptop with you to the Dean's office as you will install the application right there. We cannot provide you with a copy of the application.
I can already see a new layer of campus bureacracy - the Dean of Information Technology and Copyright Enforcement.
Ultimately, loss of choice. You may not see it this way, but in places outside geek culture, where it isn't all about hardware and software and your next mp3 player, the world is very different. Try finding a quality piece of furniture or a decent set of dishes for less than an arm and a leg. Try raising kids. Try finding a car that seats six or carries equal cargo that gets 25-35MPH. Try being a single parent. Try meeting the insane goals of the college fund expectation.
Is your quality of life actually less? No.
It actually is roughly the same as ten years ago. The supposed prosperity for Americans is mostly for those who have a jobs that give them a lot of disposable income, which many, many, many lower income people don't. In most cases, families have to have two income earners or they simply cannot make ends meet. This is in part due to the pressure that the prosperity myth puts on people to buy things which they simply cannot afford or need, but also due to the fact that marketroids see themselves as entitled to the contents of our wallets.
Consumer choice is something that simply frightens these people to death. Corps don't want us to have choices or think for ourselves. An informed consumer is a dangerous one--and problematic for their bottom line.
Is the average Americans worse? No.
See above.
Have the size of libraries grown? Yes.
This depends on your point of view. My local library has levelled off in terms of non-fiction. My personal collection has grown by roughly 10 times during the same period, mostly due to inter library loan.
Is music cheaper than it was before? Yes.
No. A CD costs about 50% more than it did 10 years ago. I bought the first 25-30 CDs in my collection for about 10 bucks a piece. Price fixing had more to do with it than anything else, but I don't expect the consent decree to do much about that, either.
Have the costs of specific medicines and treatments gone up on the aggregate do the corporations? No, they've gone down, it's only society's expectations that have gone up.
Tell this to all the people who leave the doctor's office and can't afford the 100 bucks in prescriptions. Patent medications are horrifically expensive, as is any doctor's visit. Cancer patients are sitting ducks. Let's not get into Buroughs-Wellcome and what they do to AIDS sufferers. Why do you think herbs, homeopathy, and other alternatives have sprang up with such vehemence? Why does CNN have an article about how people are buying animal medicines to treat themselves? I would say that your assertion here is misinformed.
All these, and many more, mythical complaints, yet few provably bad results.
I don't see anything about these issues as mythical, but maybe I am actually old enough and conscious enough to have noticed the last 20 years--where were you when CD technology was introduced? I was a freshman in college.
There is one word for this: FUD.
Or in the case of your assertions, simple, gross, unadulterated convenient fictions.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
Capitalism is an economic system, not a philosophical, political, or religious one. We cannot make the mistake of jumping from a body of solid mathematical inference about the behaviors of financial markets to a core set of laws and morality to govern a society. If there were a social policy that would kill the poorest 5% of the population every year, but reintroduce ten thousand times as much money as they had held into the economy at the same time, modern economics would call it a Good Thing. (Come to think of it, that doesn't sound that different from the way that many national and international policies are formed.)
Personally, the day that I am required to constantly license everything that I read, listen to, watch, or learn from some orginial copyright holder is the day I invest in a typewriter and a shack in the woods. From that shack, I will begin writing down every thought I can, and using that body of work to flood the market with free ideas, which will of course bring about a devaluation on an agreggate basis, and get me shot by the Economic Police in short order.
Books are kept in various national libraries, as are newspapers, magazines, etc., but who is keeping archives of significant web news and content? This needs to be addressed, or we are going to lose a large and important slice of history. It needs to get stored in non-digital form, too.
Phil.
Software EULAs: The consumer does not have a choice. Every one that I've read disclaim all liability for everything. They all say that their program may do absolutely nothing, but it'll still be your fault for buying it. I can't think of an instance where a court decision was made on because of a EULA that I didn't agree with. However, I believe that if most consumers knew all of the things they are agreeing to when they open a software package, that they'd think three times before opening it.
Software Patents: I'm not saying that companies are pure evil and should all be destroyed. I'm just saying that, given the chance to stomp over user's rights in return for money, they'll do it.
DoubleClick: If consumers (here I go speaking for them again, sorry) knew that a human could view their surfing habbits and what catalogs they order from, they'd be a bit frightened. Most people have an expectation of privacy that doubleclick violated without telling them. Guess why DoubleClick didn't warn the people that were affected by it? IMO it wasn't because they thought the public didn't care.
My.MP3.com: Revenue was not being taken away from the record labels. People had to buy the CD first before they could access it online. Mp3.com was allowing owners to access the music over the internet. Yes, they might have been making a profit from the extra feature, but ISP's also make a profit for providing access to someone else's content.
For publishers, VSTi offers a content distribution model that
Let's take these one at a time:
"guarantees 100% market penetration at participating schools"
In other words, students will have absolutely no say in their textbook purchases if their school adopts this approach. As it is now, students at least have the choice of buying used books (I'll get to this in a moment) or shopping elsewhere for discounts.
"significantly increases the number of titles students purchase each year"
Having spent upwards of $300 per semester on textbooks when I was an undergrad, I can honestly say that this is not a good thing.
"significantly reduces overhead costs associated with manufacture and distribution of textbooks"
Do you think the distributors will pass those savings on to the students? Whatchoo talkin bout, Willis?
"promises continued licensing of publisher materials through continuing education"
Ah, there's that "new economy" buzzword. Did you catch it? Hint: it starts with an "L" and we'll all be grabbing our ankles for it soon, if the coprporations have their way.
A bit further down on the page, I found this gem:
"gets rid of the need for used books"
Pardon me while I choke back my bile. A full-time student on a slim workstudy income absolutely relies on used textbooks in order to afford a full schedule worth. Bah.
-Legion
Dentist: "There, that isn't so bad, is it?"
Patient: "ih uuuuuurts u astard!!!!!!!!"
Dentist: "We'll have that root canal wrapped up in another minute.
[turns to computer, sounds of keys tapping]
"Hmmm. Say, you don't happen to know what a General Protection Fault is, do you?"
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Actually, the word "they" brings the connotation that the subset being referred to consists of more than one individual, whereas the words "he" or "she" do not.
In order to preserve the proper connotation, the proper answer would be to use the word "it", instead of "he" or "she". However, use of the word "it" brings on a set of other incongruities, most notably the reader of the sentence would not know whether the individual of the set being refered to was a human, a dog, or a box. In order to resolve such ambiguities, one must select either the word "he" or "she". Depending on the context the word is being used in, one (and only one) choice is appropriate. In the case where the context cannot resolve the ambiguity, the proper word to use is "he".
Or have we forgot English 101?
Actually, it would be great if there were a sexless pronoun in the english language, but unfortunately, there isn't. One can "break" the language syntax and use the word "they", however, as pointed out above, this can cause problems as well.
I say that we start acting like adults and get off this "politically correct" bandwagon - and start thinking!
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Well of course not. Afterall isn't piracy theft and murder on the high seas?
Nope, my copy of the OED traces the use of the word piracy in relation to the unauthorized taking of someone else's written work to the 15th century.
Sorry, you pro-theft (oh, I mean't um, sharing) people need to come up with a new argument...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
You've got to be kidding? You mean that they'd rather have the books shredded and ripped up than have them donated to libraries or charities or prisons!?!
Now that is arrogance and cruelty. There are so many people in the world who aren't literate, or aren't literate enough and would be helped by having books. Why not donate them to Africa or South America for people to learn english from? No. They rip them up and destroy them instead.
Forget it.. They're as fucked up as the RIAA/MPAA.
(As a side thing, there are times when a book's cover gets ripped off or falls off.. It's happened to several of my paperbacks. Will I be called a thief if I sell such a book?)
Once a copyright holder has been payed for their work, they have no right to restrict futher sale of it.
The reason for Copyright's is NOT to maximize profit. It is to encourage works in the public domain. Though it create's a monopoly, that monopoly is intended to be as mild as possible.
As there's one author and 6 billion people on this earth who may benefit from that book, I'd much rather have the author screwed, than allow that author screw 6 billion people perpetually.
Besides, it is the doctrine of first sale that let's libraries exist, that let's used bookstores exist, that let's you sell or loan a book to a friend.
If you're going to complain that all of the above is unfair to the author, you must like the DMCA, as it allows the copyright holders many rights they never used to have.
If you're going to complain that all of the above is unfair to the author, you must like the DMCA, as it allows the copyright holders many rights they never used to have.
Oo! Look! A man made entirely of straw! If he only had a brain...
I must like nothing. I don't agree with the doctrine of first sale, it was fine back in the days when people didn't even have reliable postal service, but now it's all too easy to transfer copies from place to place.
However, I don't believe that copyright holders should be granted a monopoly on production. They should be able to set a price, but then should be required to sell printing rights at that price to anyone who wants to buy them (of course, for this to work, they couldn't be allowed to keep changing their prices; they'd have to start high and only be allowed to lower the per-copy price). If you go to watch a movie, your ticket should include the price of a legal copy of the movie, and you should be able to buy a cheap DVD of the movie (for which no additional payment is offered to the copyright holder) on your way out.
The purpose of copyright is to encourage the production and distribution of works, not to maximize profit nor to maximize the number of works available in the public domain. The concept of fairness to both sides is central; there must be a balance between making sure there is an incentive to produce and distribute works, and making sure the works are not shut away from the public.
I don't like the DMCA because it gives the copyright holder much more than a guarantee of profit, it gives him control of his customers' use of the product.
If copyright was shortened to five years and limited to the right to set and charge a royalty from all publishers, and this was balanced by making copies non-transferable, I think we'd have a system that worked much more smoothly than the current one. Libraries and used book stores would no longer be the enemies of publishers, and would have access to all books over five years old. Copyright couldn't be abused to force distributors into monopolistic contracts (MS), to hide dirty little secrets (Church of Scientology), or to extort money for access to cultural icons created by men long dead(Disney).
I think it's a good balance: five years of guaranteed income from everyone who accesses your work, but no control over who gets it and under what terms, and then it becomes part of our cultural heritage.
--------
I paid well over 150 bucks for some CS books :-\
Times that by 3 for a semester yeah sure its not a lot but how many hours at 7 bucks an hour does that take?? :-\
Don't American universities have student associations, and staff associations (here in socialist old Oz we even have the temerity to call them unions) to fight this kind of battle?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
Maybe it's time to just start whacking all of this stuff up on freenet or some other "un-censorable" information sharing technology. Paying someone an assload of money to use their book as a reference for a limited amount of time is complete BS.
Maybe someone should start up an auction site out of the country that caters to the US and sells copyrighted material (not copies, originals) since Ebay and many of the other large auction sites will not even allow auctions for software, certain books, or CD's.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
What good is an artistic work that can never be shown, can never be used, and sits moldering away in some storage archive?
Nobody's *obligated* to sell their artistic work. That's why an artistic work NOT in the public domain can potentially do so little public good. If you want to maximize [commercial] artistic works, make copyright infinite in length. Yeah, in a few decades, you won't be able to SEE I Love Lucy anymore, but it'll be 'out there', furthering the public good, won't it?
You're also forgetting that copyright is a DISINCENTIVE to producing non-commercial works. Not every work out there was created by Disney for money, some were created by artists scratching an itch. (Linux, Hornet.org, etc)
I like your idea though, it's something I might agree with. But I don't think it's workable, the artistic work doesn't have to be sold for money, they may choose to distribute limited copies, and never sell another. (Beanie Babies) Or they may want to (as you suggest) use copyright to 'censor' their past.
Fucking moron? Why don't you write your congreemen about that?
There is not a scarcity of information, once it is created. The problem is that there is only a limited number of people capable of creating information that anyone else wishes to share. Information can be duplicated, but it cannot be created at zero cost. Now that gives you another glib remark that you can go about repeating mindlessly.
Land, at the time of European invasion, was for all intent, limitless in America. My analogy stands.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Ok so you don't like your life. How does this determine that things are worse than they used to be? How do you hold companies responsible? The price of basic goods and services (i.e., food) have relative to the wages of at least 95% the country. This is an economically provable fact.
Today you get more car for your money than you did 20, 40, or even 60 years ago. Today's cars are drastically safter, faster, and more efficient (relative to their size, weight, etc.). You just can't make that comparison.
College tuition has risen, but you really can't blame companies for this. The economy's success is largely to blame. More people are seeking and getting advanced education than ever before, and most are willing and able to pay substantially more than before. Yet we have essentially the same number of respectable schools as we did before, so this means more demand. Furthermore, there is tremendous waste going on in academia. I know, for instance, at most of the Ivy league and equivalent schools, the tuition could be reduced by roughly 10k without the need to change anything significantly (other than tuition, of course).
Maybe for you it is the same, or then again, maybe you just haven't counted. On the aggregate, however, there are thousands statistics, and other similar measures, demonstrating that life has actually gotten easier on the aggregate. You may call it a prosperity myth, but unemployment is at its lowest point in history. Most people are earning significantly more money, and not just the middle class and higher.
Libraries on the aggregate, not just your local library, duh.
Ok, so you once bought CDs for roughly 10 bucks a piece. You are the exception. On aggregate, after inflation has been accounted for, prices have fallen by something like 10%.
Ahem, this is one area with which I am quite familiar. The price of the SAME medicines has gone WAY WAY down. The difference is that people are far more concerned about healthcare these days and are willing to pay more. This demand has resulted in drug companies creating drugs which would never before be economically viable, due to lack of demand, lack of technology, and lifespan of the product in question. Those cancer patients that you talk about, simply would have never even had the option for that kind of care back then. AIDS patients? Forget it.
Just because people are doing "crazy" things does not mean medicine is worse. A drug company, may, for instance realize that this treatment also works on animals, and market a version which does not cost as much. This, however, does not mean that they could just lower the price, since the costs are not the production costs, it's R&D, education, and some marketing. In addition to the increased availability of extraordinary treatments and medications [which cost more], we the HMOs to make get reimbursed terribly difficult. Doctors find it very difficult to get paid, many are leaving or want to leave the profession. Medical manufacturers also find it difficult to get reimbursed, which is also a large issue. Patients find it difficult to get the treatment they need/want, because no one can afford to do things for free.
Second - The reason not to publish on paper is because the DMCA and VitalBooks goves them a legal extortion sceme which is just unethical.
Third - The Market has spoken.... there are too many publishers publishing too ineffecei ntly. A Free market person like you (and me) should have no trouble with that. Why do we need any of these publishers. Why can't people publish on their own without the Book Publishers? Why are you in the way of progress and efficiencie s of the Market? They can let others read their books - but they can't copy them. How hard is it to understand this? No - They can not according to the license. And even if they could, they're overly dependend on your prior aproval to be within reasonable fair use of the material. Your Company is willing to trade civil rights for Copyright Protections that are extra constitutional. That's a dangerous thing. Read http://www.nyfairuse.org for better insight. I no more want to protect publishers than I want to protect anyone else who has a business model which can not be sustained.
The part not in your FAQ. What is in your FAQ is clear and agrees with the DMCA and the opinions voiced by others in your industry at the Copyright Hearings. I can't share it with an upperclassman, or any unregistered user.And for your information, Copying is ALSO a Constitutional Right. Giving Copies away is even legal sometimes, especially in education, and sharing information is completely essential for a healthy society.
BTW - your quoting and copying of some of my message is a violation of my copyright in your world view .... go figure.
That's the problem.BTW - You DO give away copyrighted material at the point of sale. At that point, certain rights to that material has now transported to the customer as part of their rights under the 4th and 1st amendment of the Bill of Rights.
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
A slip of the tongue hardly makes me ignorant. One may be entitled to recieve, but the giver may not be entitled to give. In other words, while you may entitled to listen to that music in any way you see fit, the copyright owner still may be entitled to determine who distributes that, even if it is to existing owners. It is a fine distinction. What makes it grey, is whether or not allowing control to this extent is really in the best interest of society.
Though some may claim the Seagrams et.al are doing this out of malice, I find it hard to believe. The issue, at its core, is profits, whether directly or indirectly. I know, for instance, may of the other record companies are trying to create their own my.mp3.com clones, or wish to license with my.mp3.com. That does not fit with the assertion that they're trying to make you pay twice for that same music, or that they just want control for controls sake...
Or buy a copy every ten years or so. [...] This is Very Scary stuff here. The idea is that the content (book) is now controlled by a company who can turn off the content because someone hasn't payed up in the last year.
Reminds me of some hypotheticals that a former co-worker and I were tossing around a while ago -- I was trying to make the point that the capabilities and/or limitations of a technology can affect the de facto operation of a medium, setting parameters on it that do not necessarily correspond to the law and/or morality (big distinction, by the way), and yet these parameters come to be taken for granted, so that they are assumed to be part of the legal and/or moral nature of the thing, rather than mere side-effects. Whichever party is receiving the extra benefits comes to feel entitled to them, and then, when changes in the technology change these parameters, they protest. Here goes:
Suppose that at some time in the past, paper and printing technology were such that books would deteriorate and become unreadable after some period of time (like before acid-free paper, non-fading inks, etc., but say the period was much shorter and more regular, i.e., that a book would last exactly five years). For some books that you only buy to read once for light entertainment, it wouldn't be so bad, but for anything that you want to have in a personal library, e.g., great literature or reference material like dictionaries and encyclopedias, let alone technical literature or journals, you'd basically have to replace everything peiodically, buying a new copy of the same book every five years. Basically, there would be no such thing as owning a book in the normal sense -- sure, the volume would be your property while it lasts, but you'd really only be renting the contents. All else being equal, the books would probably be somewhat cheaper, because you're not getting as much value. Publishers might even offer some sort of discount on the replacements, e.g., 50% off a new copy of the same title when you bring your old one to be recycled. They could do this as a promotion, to encourage you to replace your books, but this would be entirely promotional, there's not necessarily any notion that by buying it the first time, you had in some sense bought a right to have its contents available to you forever.
Now, suppose an advance in printing technology makes it possible for books to last forever. It's most likely, of course, that publishers would just resist adopting the new technology (see DVD-audio). How about this instead: suppose someone invents a process that can be applied to a book to make it last longer (e.g., a chemical treatment to prevent the paper from yellowing, the ink from fading, etc.). In this case, people would go buy the chemical, treat their existing books, and never again need to buy replacements. Now the publishers would protest, arguing that "When you buy a book, what you're buying is the right to have access to its contents for five years; if you want to keep it past that point, you have to pay again," and they would try to insist that customers still owe them a payment for every five-year period that they own a book -- they might even argue that the books' deterioration serves as a copyright-protection mechanism, since it "effectively controls access", and try to have the chemical banned on the grounds that it makes it impossible for them to collect their payments. Customers would argue back, "No, we bought the book, to do with as we please. Before, we were buying a new book each time, not renewing our rights to the old one. The only reason we had to keep paying before was because of a technological limitation; you're not actually entitled to those ongoing payments."
How does that sound? Maybe when you buy an Encyclopaedia Britannica set, they'd say that if you pay extra for the gold coating on the edges, you're not just buying a few grams of gold, or paying for the extra production costs, but actually paying for the right to own the books for a longer time. And no, you can't paint a gold coating on them yourself, becuase that would be violating their copyright.
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
There is a larger issue at work here than just this evil notion of "control". Though all intellectual property ultimately revolves around control, control is just the means by which one attains the ends (i.e., profits). This issue is really not so different. Just as the labels will not allow you to pirate music, they don't want mp3.com to provide that service. They frankly don't want to "control" for controls sake, they want to profit. The more pervasive piracy is, the less likely they are to sell CDs; the more use of my.mp3.com, the less capable they are of positioning themselves in mp3.com's position [which erodes their ability further supplement their profits and promotional opportunities].
Though my.mp3.com certainly gave the labels a much needed kick in the butt and provided the consumer with a benefit, the body of law still looks rather favorably on the IP owners (the labels)--it seeks to protect the creator(s). It grants the labels certain rights and priviledges. Although the my.mp3.com service may not negatively affect current sales, it can affect future profits. It is of undeniable interest to the labels.
The essential question is: How do we, as a society, balance the label's interest against the consumer's interest? If you deny the interest of either party, you are avoiding the question. In my opinion, siding with my.mp3.com is to favor the short run over the long run.
If my.mp3.com goes unchecked: In the short run, you, the consumer, enjoy easier access to your music collection, and the label still seems to do okay. In the long run, the label runs the risk of being marginalized and hurt. Despite the fact that this service brings up new questions, I'd lean more towards allowing the labels the OPPORTUNITY to have some control over their properties, and thus preserve a more traditional notion of IP in a modern era, where individual sales of physical items likely wont mean what it used to. A bunch of labels have already started on a project to do their own my.mp3.com type service. Those who don't, will still face the wrath of the consumer, and will likely reduce their profitability--both in record sales and in online efforts. In short, I'd give the labels a chance.
The only reason the RIAA was able to sue was the confusion caused by the fact that my.mp3.com's software didn't make you rip and upload the MP3 directly (which would have been completely legal for them to provide). This is functionally equivalent to shared-dictionary compression, where you simply indicate which blocks of data you have rather than transmitting the entire message directly. The US Navy does this sort of thing with those extremely low frequently radio links which can be used by a submerged submarine but have low bandwidth; instead of sending the plain text, they'd just transmit a few symbols from a large code book available on each end of the connection. In addition to being very secure, it's much faster to send a few 4-letter symbols than a few hundred characters of English text. Sending a CD over a 28.8k modem is quite similar to sending a text message over a link measure in tens of bits per second.
The similarity in MP3.com's case is that the end result is identical - every single CD will be bit-for-bit identical and, assuming identical settings, every MP3 will be identical, just as in those large codebooks. Sending a few cryptographic hashes to confirm that you do in fact own a copy of a CD is a lot more efficient for a modem user.
Every single step would be legal if you were the only person doing it. You bought the CD, so you can legally rip an MP3, upload it to a private webserver and listen to it from work. You can use a compression algorithm to speed that transfer. You could even use a shared-dictionary setup, but there wouldn't be any point for a single user. The RIAA is claiming that it infringes upon their rights for you to listen to a stream of bytes if it was converted by someone else, even if you own an identical stream of bytes. That's why I say that this case is about control.
Some software companies attempt to do the same thing in their licenses. I've bought a few products where the shrinkwrap license claims that the CD is only to be used with a single machine. By the wording on the license, a network admin like myself should make sure that a single CD is never used on a different system, even if we own 30 licenses. In practice, not even the manufacturer's lawyer would try to claim that it's a crime that I grabbed a different CD to install a couple files, since they're all identical and we have a legal license for every user.
I find it interesting that the NYU links and some of the VitalBook links are all 404ed. Anyone want to bet that we won't be seeing hastily sanitized versions shortly?
Neither I, nor the labels [if we're to believe their legal documents], are confused about the key facts. Just because my.mp3.com is providing a service that is "fair use" for the customer, does not mean they are legally entitled to provide the service. As arbitrary as it may sound to you, it is within the rights of the intellectual property owner to make that determination. What's more, they actually have a pretty reasonable motive. I'm not sure if you noticed this or not, but my.mp3.com is a for-profit corporation. Mp3.com is not interested in charity--they have every intent to profit. These profits can come in the form of ad revenue and increased brand awareness [due to my.mp3.com]. Furthermore, if the internet is even half the boon people claim, mp3.com may be in a position to exploit this opportunity to turn themselves into a major player [not to mention marginalizing the labels in the process].
Likewise, if the labels were to put themselves in the same position [by replacing my.mp3.com], they too might enjoy the benefits. Why shouldn't they want to? Why do you assume their only reason for acting the way they have is to either be malicious or the result of ignorance? How can you still cling to this view, in light of recent efforts on the label's part to do the same thing?
Even if you are totally unappreciative of the labels' current position, a ruling in mp3.com's favor would set a precendent that might have possibly negative repercussions on future labels.
Imagine, for a moment, if the labels decided to change their business model such that they only charge, say, 4 dollars for a CD. However, they would do this under the assumption that people would utilize their cloned service on a regular basis. Though they would not force you to use it [i.e., you could theoretically just spend 4 dollars, without any tradeoff], they would, by virtue of their IP rights, be the sole provider of the transformation service for their own records. Thus people would come. They would they enjoy continuous ad revenues, marketing data, etc. They would also be in a position to capture music lovers' eyes, and reduce the very expensive marketing efforts they now need to engage in. It might even allow them to cut out the middlemen entirely [i.e., skip the CD step entirely].
The point is that, here we have a potential benefit for society that would be cut out by allowing mp3.com's interpretation that "fair use". It is not that irrational to defend IP in this application. Though I have no interest in the labels, I think this form of IP control should be allowed, and I think we should let the markets decide.