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MS Calls On Kids to Stop Thought Thieves
theodp writes "Microsoft is calling all UK kids aged 14-17 to enter its Thought Thieves Competition. Remember kids, finalists must agree to formally license all intellectual property rights in their film on terms acceptable to Microsoft. And don't forget to download your free Thought Thieves Poster!"
That's Microsoft's job.
"Ms. PEEAAABODDDYYY!! Bobby is stealing my THOUGHTS!!"
No-one wants to steal Microsoft's idea for a "Thought Thieves" competition.
Didn't Bill steal most of his ideas from other people?
I don't know, this whole thing is just bizzare.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Microsoft brings us Orwell's grand vision of 1984, but 21 years late. Slipped deadlines, that is so typical of Microsoft.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
(And not just for the 14-17 year old British girls).
I wonder if they'd like my entry "GPL Wars: Revenge of the Linksyth".
"Anakin, don't use that code! It's a trap!"
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Basically, they'll be including stickers on their new products that say "Don't Steal Thoughts."
I seriously feel sorry for those guys. Oh, woops they're filthy rich, nevermind.
You think that's funny? Try this:
http://freetodd.org/MS-Poster.gif
This poster was stuck up all over my San Diego, California college campus.
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
What would I do if I saw someone passing off my ideas as their own ?
;-)
Well, I'd probably suspect it was Microsoft.
There's an idea for at least one entry
I thought of that first!
H
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
Just contact the kids that did that movie.
Everyone has bought a porn tape that was just too disgusting to watch. Or you know someone with a box full of hermaphrodite and scheisse-pron.
How about we steam the labels off all of those and mail em to Microsoft?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Its funny because all the school kids will just log on to Kazaa right after this lesson...
Seriously you can't brainwash 14-17 year olds its too late by then, at this age they are already burning CDR's, smoking behind the wall and trying to use the colour laser to print fake ID's and £5 notes for the local off-license! Ah the good old days, when VCD's where as easy to come by as that slutty girl in your class, and everyone was discovering sharing, memories... Kids these days with their Napsters and Torrents, they have it easy!
If Microsoft seriously wants to brainwash then they're going to have to aim for the 8 year olds or lower. Do some classes where kids make macaroni and glitter pictures and then someone takes them and pretends they made them and then beats the kid to within an inch of their lives while playing Beethoven too loud, now that's brainwashing!
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John Cleese and Aardman productions to produce film for Microsoft's Thought Theives competition. Rumour has it the film shows clay versions of Microsoft Software Developers talking about what it would be like to code free software.
Tony Blair announces that 1000 teenage thought criminals have been rounded up for thought crimes. They will be re-educated at the Ministry of Love and given a chance to repent for their crimes through death.
In further other news, Bill Gates has announced that Linux is unexist. Purge all memory of "Linux" from your brains now to prevent being labelled a thought criminal!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
"Microsoft ruft alle BRITISCHEN kinder vom 14-17 an, um seine Gedankendiebkonkurrenz einzutragen.
;)
Erinnern Sie sich an Zicklein, finalists muß damit einverstanden SEIN, alle Rechte am geistigen Eigentum in ihrem Film auf den Bezeichnungen formal zu genehmigen, die für Microsoft annehmbar sind.
Und vergessen Sie nicht, Ihr freies Gedankendiebplakat zu runter-laden! Microsoft in errichness 2005 JAWHOL",
Sounds alot scaryer
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Better than that - for sheer irony's sake I hope at least a few hundred send in badly edited cuts of the old 1984 apple adverts ;)
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
When I was in middle school they had us watch an "educational" video about software piracy called "Don't Copy that Floppy". It didn't work. Here it is: http://www.archive.org/details/dontcopythatfloppy
"Who's going to believe a talking head?" - Herbert West
Unfortunately, this means you lose. Sorry.
EVERY web page made with FrontPage is a criticism of Microsoft...
I keep a Jew in the room over.
in fact he pays half the rent.
so where's my free Windows XP copy eh?
This is even richer than when the MS Front Page license including a clause forbidding the use of Front Page to make web pages critical of Microsoft.
Ah!
So that's why all the anti-Microsoft sites seem to display correctly in Firefox.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
From Microsoft's poster:
"So how would you feel if you saw your hard work being passed off as the property of someone else?"
Gee, I don't know, maybe you could ask the guys who wrote the BSD stack?
This news just approved: 1 in 3 high school students are retards. More on those Epsilon Semi-Morons after this..
I think that it's very likely a large number of those students were simply ignorant. When asked whether they support X or Y and they don't know much about either, then you'll get a lot saying Y just because they want to answer something.
Hmm... Maybe this explains two latest US presidential elections ;)
A small group of freedom-loving youth come together to write a very helpful free software program that helps people around the world solve some problem they have, and then an evil corporate entity comes along with an overbroad software patent, files a lawsuit and takes ownership of the program as damages. I wonder how they would deal with such a film ;-)
At least the Brits now have a place to send all your coasters and AOL CDs - collect:
Because the idea was lifted from 1984!
Actually I think that a lot of the current music crisis was sparked in the schools.
No seriously it happened before you can even remember.
Some child psychologist circa 1975 said they should STRESS sharing in kindergarten, we got programs where children were told to share toys and got less toys than kids, teachers stressed that lending toys when you weren't playing with them was good behavior and praised us for it.
Microsoft's initiative is indeed attacking the source, they're just too late.
Their next initiative: don't lend billy your toy truck when you're not using it and he'll buy it from you for big $ thus making god happy!
Haven't we reached the point where Godwin's law has become a self-defeating intellectual cliche in its own right? I find that I generally regard invoking Godwin in a debate to have the same effect as the situation the law intends to describe.
kid == a young goat
see dictionary.com
...just my 2 gil.
Yes and no. Yes - they thrive by implementing ideas from other companies. No - because it's not stealing. The whole "intellectual property" (and now "thought thieves") crap is language bastardized to make you believe that thoughts can be owned just like material property.
Of course it's not stealing. It's Thoughtcrime. Get with the program.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
What does being poor have to do with anything? So if people are poor, they should be able to steal cars and gas to get to work? Or, and if people are poor, they should be able to shoplift from stores because, you know, they're so poor!
Seriously, what are you, a communist? Yeah, it's a pity that some people are poor, but our society in the US is pretty-well constructed.
And guess what? Our laws are fair, to both the rich and the poor. There are very few double-standards.
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