Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Nerves, Unis, Subtitles
Yes, does that come with insurance? An anonymous reader writes "Channel 4 news has a small report on the way that financial institutions are moving their computer systems and data backup out of central London to establishments such as The Bunker and Sealand."
Suddenly, those places seem a bit like less of a novelty and more good plain sense.
Copyright vs. Presumptive Scanning, part VXIIIXIX AnElder writes "The SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) now reports that 'Recording companies have asked the Federal Court to allow their computer experts to scan all computers at the University of Melbourne for sound files and email accounts, so they can gather evidence of claimed widespread breaches of copyright.' Are libraries next? "Counsel for the companies, Mr Tony Bannon SC, said industry studies of piracy had found public institutions such as universities and libraries were the biggest repositories of unlawful sound recordings."
Speaking of brand integrity. increment writes "The Engrish TTT Captions Site that was mentioned earlier here has apparently received a cease and desist order from AOL/Warner Bros and taken down their hilarious bootleg screenshots of The Two Towers. You did know that AOL is the parent company of New Line Cinema, right? AOL probably contends that humorous captions 'degrade their brand integrity,' though they should be grateful for such a vivid illustration of the poor quality of bootlegs. A few mirrors of the site can still be found around the net."
What about robotic juicers for the home? CallNElvis writes "Here's another interesting (translate that to "Cool! I want one") site lazydrinker.com showing a tabletop automatic drink pouring machine. It seems to be a little more polished than the last one posted here. The site includes a pretty cool mpeg of it in action."
Blend it into Knoppix, please :) 3-D modeling program Blender was converted from a proprietary license to the GPL last October. What's been going on since then? An anonymous reader writes "A couple of days ago, Blender 2.26 was released. This is the first open source version, and has all the features of the previous proprietary version, except physics support in the gamekit, which was not owned by NaN, and could thus not be opened.
Blender is 'the vi of 3d-modeling,' and was Freed by the community, when NaN (the company creating blender) went broke. It is platform independent (with roots in Unix), scriptable, has a steep but rewarding learning curve, ingenious but nonstandard user interface, and can be used to make games, 3d-web-thingies (there exists a browser plugin) and of course images, animations and models (which among others, can be exported to POV-ray)."
Mandrake keeps moving -- give it a whirl.
An anonymous reader writes "The Mandrake 9.1 testing cycle is coming to an end. I haven't noticed any big fan-fare for testing this version, but I noticed that RC-1 is now on many of the ftp mirrors found here.
If you like the distro, don't forget to join MandrakeClub where you can help the company and have a say in what packages they include in their user-friendly distro."
No, you are wrong. Yours is the most ignorant.
Amendments to the Constitution ALWAYS override the main body of the Constitution. That's the definition of an amendment. Something that changes the original document.
The result of the First Amendment is the doctrine of "fair use." Fair use was not created by Congress, but was created by the courts in order to reconcile the clash between the monopoly clause (which authorizes the government to create speech monopolies in the form of copyright) with the First Amendment (which guarantees freedom of speech.) Fair Use was developed to "save" copyright from being declared unconstitutional in light of the First Amendment.
The theory behind Fair Use is that copyright is compatible with the First Amendment, so long as copyright does not suppress speech. In other words, I can be stopped from reprinting and selling copies of "Gone With The Wind", because "Gone With The Wind" has already been published, sold, and made available to the public. The public already has access to that particular speech, and is therefore minimally harmed by my not being allowed to publish an unauthorized edition.
That's the theory, anyway. In 1976, the copyright laws were rewritten, and the Fair Use doctrine was codified into law. However, the scope of copyright was so enlarged in the 1976 rewrite that the copyright laws are now arguably unconstitutional. Prior to 1976, copyright did not extend to derivative works. Now it does.
The extension of copyright to derivative works flies both in the face of the First Amendment and the copyright clause itself.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but the copyright laws outlaw speech that is derived from a copyrighted work.
The monopolies clause authorize Congress:
The 1976 copyright law goes far beyond this. In addition to giving authors the right to exclude others from copying and publish the works of the author, it allows an author to exclude other authors from publishing their own original works.
For instance, there are probably hundreds of authors who are fully capable and willing to write and create additional "Winnie The Pooh" stories and movies. Some of those authors might very well rival the vision and artistry of A.A. Milne. However, because the Disney corporation owns the copyright on Winnie the Pooh, the only Winnie the Pooh books and movies that we will see in our lifetime are the forgetable direct-to-video trash and crappy commercial children's picture books.
The 1976 copyright revision has been a complete disaster. It has resulted in the massive consolidation of copyright power, the forced destruction and dumbing down of culture, and a wave of speech suppression that has never been seen in the history of the United States.
Another good reason to join MandrakeClub prior to 9.1 is their ftp server download script.
On the day of the release, head over to MandrakeClub and use their download script. It tells you which servers have the distro and open slots, and you just zip on over there and grab them without having to wait in long queues/redialing to get into ftp servers.
It's like a world-wide mirror load-balancer. Pretty neat, IMHO.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
MP3 does not mean "copied from someone else who holds the rights."
It's just a format for storing music. I have hours of mp3's on my desktop that *I* am the copyright holder to, as well as some that were perfectly legally distributed freely by the actual copyright holder.
MP3 players can be purchased because it's perfectly legal to play recorded music.
Also, the idea that, even without fair use law, you must have *written* permission to legally have rights to play an mp3 is wrong. It's perfectly legal to do it with a handshake, or a blanket permission statement on a web site.
Requiring it to be written is just to a)make life easier for them, and b) cover their own asses as tightly as possible, see a.
KFG
Try looking here:
http://www.blender3d.org/Education
Mind you, living in Europe, I see some pretty awful local synch translations of films anyway. A friend who is in the translation business tells me that you get the same money to translate a movie as you do to translate a letter.
See my journal, I write things there
Australia is a signatory to the Berne Convention, which has a provision for "fair dealing" rights. However, under Australian law, "fair dealing" is confined to purposes of research/study, criticism/review, news reporting, or professional advice given by a lawyer or patent attorney, and is only allowable if it does not unreasonably prejudice the author's rights over the work. It is not certain whether personal listening falls under the heading of "study", but audio compression research seems to be safe.
On the other hand, even if ripping an MP3 is legal, putting it up for distribution is certainly not. And if I were counsel for the prosecution (disclaimer: IANAL) I'd probably claim that putting the MP3 somewhere other people could download it counts as distribution -- that could include just leaving it in your home directory, depending on how the permissions are set.
By the way, I bought my solid-state MP3 player from Singapore through ebay. When I bought my CD player, though, the shop assistant tried to sell me one that plays MP3 CDs as well, and couldn't believe it when I told him my workplace (I'm at Monash, too) had taken the position that MP3s were, by definition, illegal.
It is a woman's prerogative to change other people's minds.