Slashdot Mirror
Modding and the Law
S3D writes "An article at O'Reilly discusses modding as a cultural phenomenon and its relation to the law and authority. The conclusion is that social activists are modders too. They want to change the government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science. They want to change corporations, change people's day-to-day behavior, and change our own social relationships."
Fie!, I Read Slashdot's Text
Pox On Said Text
(It's not about /. modding afterall, so it's legal to mod me offtopic)
Andy Oram offers interesting insights, and paradoxically offers as a solution, modding our government. Cool!
Did I imagine it, or did the editor's just delete a dupe of this Google story?
They want institutions to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science.
If they're anything like Slashdot's mods, they'll also try, at times, to suppress facts that contradict their position.
What's so culturally phenomenal about modifying stuff? We've been doing it ever since we made flint knives. The only new aspect of "modding" is the restrictions unreasonably placed on it by corpolitics.
Argh.
Change *everything*? That's a good plan ... for what? One rhetorical question: Does different = good?
Yea, Ricers always did have a flagrant disregard for the law. So I guess there is some smoke coming form this fire.
But, I don't hold ricers and pimps in high regard either. They are typically low-life scum so, let's not go trying to elevate the status of "law modders". Ok?
Tah!
Bush needs to start ridin spinnaz, and put some neon lights under his limo, 'fo sho. Also get a badass sound system to catch the honeys attention.
Did the article mean "modders are social activists too" instead of "social activists are modders?"
Sometimes the right way to change things, isn't by going thru the system at all. For example, illegal copying. Inspite of all the brow beating and guilt trip morality, there is nothing wrong at all with sharing music with other people. They not only have a right to copy, but they also don't deserve punishment for it either, even if it's the law, and even if they know it. IMHO, the internet and rampant copying have done more good for society in the last 10 years than all the information in the last 100 years combined. Starving artists? Bull, most people have a far better chance making a name for themselves by sharing their creations freely.
I got excited for a second there...
modding has always been around. Only recently has it become any phenomenon through greed of the manufactorer. Could you imagine buying a car, and then being sued for replacing the factory deck with a new one? Looks like some corporations seek to stop selling any goods to anyone and instead just want to lease out the use of their property. If they do it should be clearly printed on the box. If not, when you purchase it, it's YOURS to do whatever you damn well please to do with it.
*DrugCheese rants*
You can call it "modding" but I think the we are supposed to try and fix social injustices.
> The conclusion is that social activists are modders too. They want to change the
> government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions
> to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science. They want to change corporations,
> change people's day-to-day behavior, and change our own social relationships.
Oh bullshit. YOU may THINK you are promoting that in YOUR activism. Other equally activist folk are promoting very different things. So stop projecting your own political notions on everyone else and pretending it is the only possible viewpoint.
Typical slashdot twaddle, what passes for politics and philosophy here isn't even cereal box pop philosophy. Bah!
Democrat delenda est
the article is dealing with modIFYing, not modERATEing. similar, not equal...
A fun game anyone can play.
This week; why social activist activity is like modding.
Next week, why modding and social activism are like biological viruses: 'both set out to commandeer the host and change its functions to their own end'.
The week after, why the IETF is like a shoemaker; both provide the tools that let people transfer information from place to place.
The difficulty with analogies is not creating them, but in creating ones that shed valuable light on either topic. This analogy doesn't help understaning of modding or social activism.
It is interesting to me that the main planks of the controlling interests were laid during the Clinton years:
The No Electronic Theft Act of 1997
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998
I guess we now know why Hollywood is so in bed with the Clintons. The established media companies, as usual, are fighting any trend that loosens their grip on us. Their latest ploy, the new TV program about a woman president, is just the latest transparent move (get us all used to the idea of Hillary in charge). Just think what onerous laws they will be able to pass once the Clintons get back into the White House!
I think modding and the related fanfiction (which can be considered as "add-ons" or even complete AUs to someone else's original creative work) derive from an even more basic impulse than to change the world. People like creating things, they like to tell stories, they like to make things. Most don't desire to be professional (at least initially) and maybe they don't have the talent. It is easier for you to tell stories/make new work based on what someone else has done as the universe/tools already exist. Also it helps you draw a larger audience as the audience is also familiar with the universe. I mean everyone when they were young after watching a particularly engrossing movie have made up stories in their heads how they were part of the Jedi or little plotlines about what happened after the end. Maybe you weren't entirely satisfied with some aspect of the movie/book/game and want to change it to suit yourself. All the internet does is allow something that previously would have been private gain an audience outside of your close friends and family. If you look at the rich cultural fabric of any society, you have stories that "grew" with each retelling as someone heard it in Village A, went back to Village B, embellish it a lot, and then someone in Village B went to Country C and changed it a bit to fit the local beliefs and maybe even mix it in with a preexisting story with a similar plotline. The idea of taking someone else's creative work or even a real story and using it for your own story that you tell someone else is one of the foundations of any country's creative fabric.
Also, when you think about it, isn't it healthier to have people, esp. young people sit around using their brains to create mods or write fanfiction (even if it turns out crap) than just sitting passively watching TV or playing games that someone else wrote? At least they are using their brains and doing something and trying to create something than just sitting there and passively taking what someone else is saying.
was an analogy stretched so far it just snapped like an overwound violin string. :-)
Those apes dancing around in the beginning of 2001 are the firt modders, with their l33t femur-bone mod.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
...are all distinct, sometimes-overlapping things. Some comparisons and analogies can be made, but not at the expense of confusing one for another.
Oh look, the next generation of culture, mind, society and consciousness altering activists has found a way to ignore the failures of all the previous culture, mind, society and consciousness altering activists.
Hippie, punk, hair metal, grunge, goth and now whoever these people are.
Modding is modding. It's doing what you want with what you've bought. It's not social commentary and it's not a blow against the man, "the media" or a challenge to the educational system.
What's already happened is that some companies have made their products mod-friendly as a marketing ploy. "Look! Our product is genuinely mod-friendly!" and if it is all the geeks trundle of and buy it.
OH NO! The movement's been co-opted by the system!
Counter-cultureal theories fall apart when you realize that there is no counter-culture, just the next big cultural thing. There is no selling out, just selling to a broad market rather than a nieche market.
I like to mod in Halo!
People who don't think government should be involved in any of that crap are also modders.
To claim the goal of all social activism is "They want to change the government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science." is a gross and naive oversimplification. Many social activists are actively ANTI-science (Fundamentalist Christians). Many social activists are actively ANTI-production (anti-globalization groups, ELF, etc).
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
She's always changing her clothes, her shoes, her mind...
I would really like to think that when I working on my personal itch about some tech. stuff what I am doing is in the same sprit as a social reformer. But its not. What they do is much greater than that. Calling this modding is not fair.
In other words, they're geeks.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
With my recent purchase of Battlefield 2 I recieved a full modding kit (which is also available online) including map editor and tutorials on how to use 3rd party programs. Thought to accomodate modding even goes into the development of the game: BF2 is scripted using Python, as many other games (the recent interview with the Civ4 dev team highlighted this: they used Python so the game could be extensively moddable.
Many games companies even put up with some blatant copyright infringment. I work on http://ta-mod.com/ which is a mod for the Battlefield Series of games, turning it into a Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun styled interface. Legally, EA could waltz in and shut us down for infringing their intellectual property on the C&C series, but they are fully aware of our activities and they seem to be quite enthusiastic about it.
The traditional industries can learn this lesson. If they bundled Rip/Mix/Burn programs with their music/movies just as PC Gamer developers do I would actually feel pushed to buy the content as the value added from something which you can add to infinitely over time is so much greater than a passive disk which you watch/listen to then put back. They would be adding value to their product, reaping a PR victory and not expending more than 20c per unit sold for a printed CD including the modding tools. If they don't include the tools, people will get them from somewhere else - it's a question of keeping their market.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Did that article just somehow say that modding is a sign of the world coming to an end? Seriously, whatever controlled substance those people at Oreilly are on is a thousand times worse than what those kids at my school do.
Are we talking about moderating a message board? Case mods? Mod chips? Quake mods? This story tells us nothing!
qntm.org
It's inherent in our nature to tinker with what is, which is how we got out of the caves. Whether it's modding governments through revolutions, putting a few more horsepower through that engine or moving our processors ahead a few MHz. Companies (or anyone) trying to stop it are fooling themselves as it is a true force of nature. Of course people are going to mod x-boxes, cell phones and things like people's habits through things like anti-smoking legislation. While making legal claims that say you are not allowed to mod may give a company a right to sue, there aren't enough lawyers in existence to make a small dent in what goes on. Even if there were enough lawyers, there aren't enough court rooms.
This is also a reason why attempts at computer security/anti-copy schemes are doomed to fail. They pay some poor schmoe to come up with these schemes and thousands out in the world treat it's arrival like the release of a new game. Who will win? As for telling people it's wrong, good luck. Most modders would rather ask forgiveness than permission and when they buy something take the attitude that you can't break into your own house. Make things onerous enough for them and they'll revolt. Technically, the American and French revolutions were illegal acts.
It's all very much like in Shogun when Toranaga tells Blackthorne that there is no mitigating circumstance when it comes to rebellion against a sovereign lord. Blackthorne replies, "unless you win". Which of course Toranaga realizes is the one mitigating circumstance.
Now get back there and unlock those cell phones and x-boxes. While your at it, mod those politicians to get them to tell these companies suck it up.
Start producing some independant canidates that hold those views, support them with your money and actually vote.
Just like being an armchair quarterback, being a armchair politician will accomplish nothing.
America is not just a two party system. We need to educate the voters that voting isn't a contest to try and pick who is going to win, It's about who you WANT to win.
We need a canidate that acknolwledges that our economic system can't be purely capitalist nor socialist. We need a moderate mix of the two with the decisions based on the needs of the majority.
We already have some socialist systems in place such as Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, Public roads and parks. Lets not try and dismantle those at any given opportunity.
But for myself, what I see as the major problem in American Politics today is that the funding comes mostly from corporations and business people. Politicians don't represent the voters; they represent those who supply them with the money they needed to run for office and the promise of a cushy high paying corporate position when they are voted out.
This of course has led us to the corpratism situation we have today where the lobbyists are going as far as writting bills that they then hand to the politicans to submitt (the energy bill for example).
Our government has been bought from the people and is now solidly in the hands of corporations.
Look, the republicans have done a good job of hanging themselves and violating everything they stood for as a party. It's pretty apparent now that the next elections will see alot of them lose thier seats. But, what good does that do? Corporate money is hedged between the two major parties anyway!!
The whole concept of a government was to represent its citizens. Just like tribal hunting parties, if one hunter scores a kill the whole party had food. It existed for the benifit of the group. Leave it to human nature to subvert that concept and exploit it for the benifit of a few.
It remains to be seen if the unorganized masses can change the system run by organized corporate intrests. We only tend to THINK about it around election time, they WORK on it EVERY DAY!!
but I did not mod the deputy
"Most absurd analogy ever."
Look at me, I made my computer look like R2D2, I'm a social activist!
I'm am going to try and relate my previous post to the 'modding' concept.
Think of our government and even our country as a game. There are rules to the game. Players will do anything within that rule set to maximise thier 'score' some will even venture outside of those rules while attempting to manage risk.
The current 'rules' led us to where we are today. If one wishes to 'mod' our government and society the rules have to change first.
I like this one game called Battlefield 2. Maybe you have heard of it? Anyway, the rules of the game is anything goes, right? It is a game about war, makes sense.
Well, it just so happens that players are 'stat padding' to increase thier rank. This is done by shooting thier team mates only to injure them and then immediatly healing them for points. The 'rules' (what you are able to do) are codified into the game. This makes honest players upset and rightfully so. However, this 'stat padding' will not end until the rules of the game are changed.
Government makes our rules. So, in order to change the rules we have to elect politicians that run on a reform platform which states how they think the rules should be changed.
The problem of course is that these rule changes will weaken them. Therefore the catalyst for change will only come from a dramatic internal event (another depression??) in which the voters decide that the current path is no longer feasable and MUST be abandoned.
For that, we must thank George W. Bush for *accelerating* us towards change.
Modders want to change something that they own and paid for... and accept the responsibility if they fry their gadget or mess something up.
Activists want to change not only things that other people own, but also change people against their will, and don't want to accept responsibility if they screw up (i.e. when do activists for public housing take responsiblity for the disasterous urban housing projects debacles of the 1960s that led to the creation of new "Ghettos"??? When do anti-nuclear activists take responsibility for global warming because they have eliminated a potential form of non-greenhouse emitting energy?? When do anti-drug activists take responsibility for the half-million and rising Americans in prison, and the thousands killed in the drug war in Columbia??? When do human rights activists who want the U.S. to cut trade with "human rights abusing countries" take responsibility for pissing off half the world???)
Imagine if a "modder" decided to "improve" someone elses dialasis machine, and that someone else died in the process, and then the "modder" blamed the manufacterer of the dialasis machine... and that is a perfect example of an "activist".
The world could do with a few less activists, and a few more people minding their own damn buisness!
...are also conscious or semi-conscious of upcoming anxiety and suffering.
Whether or not they speak of it, they face the risk of:
*A race to the bottom economically, and even a world where a majority of
people see no hope of employment.
*Increases in unpredictable mass violence, with even a good chance that a
nuclear device will hit one of the world's cities in the next decade.
*Serious ecological crises, particularly regarding climate change and water
shortages.
*The moral descent of humanity, as a result of these pressures, into
brutality like that seen in Haiti or the Sudan.
...
*Water shortages, wind storms and black plague.
All of this and more in the new Sims - Oregon Trail expansion pack!
GET SOME!
No, his sense of "historically new" isn't long enough to be meaningless. If you take that stance, then the Bible and the Koran are old enough to be meaningless, but they arent. Closer to home: Guess what, money has been around for a long time- Still here, still relevant.
The concept of the corporation is a moving target. It was more recently than the 1600's that the corporations acquired the properties of a "legally ficticious person.
You also have misformed his conclusion, which can be better expressed that corporations are a significant negative draw on humanity, and enough of a negative draw will doom humanity.
Well, you know ...
The US courts are coming increasingly to be filled by "original intent" judges, where that's a label for what is actually an outrageous mod to the functions intended by the original manufacturer. It's a "clear skies initiative" sort of thing. For prime example: It was the original intent of the manufacturer to preserve all rights not enumerated to the people; but the "original intent" judges believe that all rights except those enumerated (see: privacy) are preserved for the government. It was the original intent of the manufacturer to give the federal goverment the power to regulate "commerce" between the states, at a time when that word meant all interactions, not just what we call "commercial" ones; the "original intent" judges believe that the more recent, narrower meaning of "commerce" is the one that should apply.
It's as if the product called a subroutine or function labelled "original intent," and these clever modders have hacked in a replacement function that subverts the whole device to act as they wish it too, keeping the old function name to avoid tripping safeguards elsewhere in the product.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I have to admit, on first skimming of the topic, I saw the words "modding" and "government" and thought that the world be a better place if I could arbitrarily edit every state of the union address to have "P.S. I love Wien0z" at the end, according to the rules of internet forum modding/jackassery.
wtf
It seems that he wants to say that copyright laws are smacking directly in the face of the humans ever impressive need to modify things.
For something that seemed that it was about social and political reform, it was more somebody complaining about the newer copyright laws. The ones that prevent people from getting at content in maners other than how the distributors intend. Which is something that has always been a key part to copyright... those with distribution rights have always had a say in *how* something is distributed.
Sure they have new copyright protection schemes... which is unfortunate because of compatibility issues. But our need to distribute what isn't ours (and yes, a healthy dose of corperate greed) has led to it. Most people don't want more minimal copyright protection or even no copyright all together so they can modify and create something new, they want it because they are just as greedy as the corperations that are trying to protect their product, they are greedy because they want it for free.
The sad thing is that its hard to draw a line between those that want to modify for personal use, those that want to modify for creative endevors and those that want to rip people off. The latter is a vast majority of those that are violating and blatantly ignoring copyrights. Their our outlets for modifying copyrighted material if you are willing to pay licensing fees. Its only fair because you can potentially make money off of others work (and possibly cut into their market as well).
So what exactly is this modding that he seems to claim is ever growing in the digital age? I am guessing the real mods he is talking about and wanting is the "having our cake and eating it to" mod, where we continue to make revenue for whatever sort of work we choose to do for a living, but when it comes to some object, either real or virtual that we want, we should be able to take it if its for the greater good.
Society has always been changing, rights and rules are always in flux. America was founded by people who couldn't suffeciently modify their current system so they moved to where they could create a new one (and in time, modified the system that was unchanging). I think that there is more thing that is certain other than death and taxes, and that is people ultimately want what *they* want, and will try to make changes so they can get it. It can be money, world peace, sex, power, a better society, what ever it may be, they will spend considerable time and effort trying to get it, usually hoping against the other two certanties from getting in the way.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
that should really read meddling and the law.
Oh - I wanted to make the rules. So take over like a dictator or go vote - your choice.
Democracy's worst enemy is laws that vioalte other laws, they should all have
exparation dates. Except your rights of course - they can only be changed by the dictators.
Whether it's cars, cameras, furniture, bicycles, musical instruments, or tools, "modding" has always been going on. What has changed is that mass produced plastic products with embedded processors, and in some cases technological anti-modding features, have made it harder to adapt products to new uses; when devices were mechanical, made out of metal and wood, and used commonly available screws and components, it was easier to tinker with them. It's good to see that the old spirit isn't quite dead, but I expect corporate America to keep trying to kill it.
Interactions among management personnel. Material kept secret for competitive advantage.
To the best of my knowledge, there can still be insider trading once fraud has been eliminated.
When will Americans try electing government that isn't all about cronyism, corporatism, and pissing on the masses?
...the law won.
Everyone should check out the hedonistic imperative.
In a world where we could improve everyone's lives dramatically, isn't it an immoral choice (and an odious one) not to do so?
That world is coming, sooner than you think.
...a cup of Hot Coffee to go along with the article?
True a gun isn't a great tool in an attack. However it is the only one you can give someone within 30 minutes of an attack and have confidence that their odds have increased.
This is even more true when the subject is a small women against a large man. Men, particularly stockers, typically have been in fights before, and thus have some experience about what to do. Hormones means that men are also bigger and stronger. These factors mean that the average women has no chance against the average man in a fight. Now you can train people, but any training you give a woman is easily countered if the man chooses to get the same amount of training.
The gun is not perfect, but it is a great equalizer. A women can kill someone with a gun just as easily as a man can. (maybe better, women seem to have a steadier hand at the range) It takes very little training with a gun to get to that point.
Would it be okay to someone live in your basement without paying rent as long as you didn't know he was there and he caused you no harm? No.
Not all philosophers[1] agree with this assertion.
It's just impractical to sell the computer to your neighbor in order to sell him exclusive access to a file (which is what you would be selling if it were a paperback).
Difference is that a paperback doesn't suddenly acquire more works bound into it, unlike an Apple ID which is bound to every work purchased with that ID.
If you don't like the license or the DRM [in products of MPAA members or Microsoft Corporation], don't agree to it or don't use it.
What viable alternative is there?
"I've seen several movies that I thought I could improve on. All of this is illegal, and that's dynamite." But it's not illegal.
Say what?
I'm surprised the author didn't raise fair use here.
Because in most cases of public non-commercial use, the expected gain of a fair use defense is less than the money that would be spent defending it in court of law.
The problem is that a license is superior, producers cannot help but adopt it.
The problem is that the people who buy popular software have no way of negotiating those license contracts. There both are and should be limits on what a party with vastly superior financial resources can demand in such a contract of adhesion.
[1] Philosophers deal in morals. Lawyers deal in law.
Programming is art.... ... modding is a cultural trend..... .... akin to social activism!.... .... which is another kind of modding .....
Give me a non computing tainted, fucking brake.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm gonna mod your face!
God made people strong and weak.
Samuel Colt made them equal.
Thats absolutely right. Since the dawn of time humans have been trading in a free competitive market economy, sharing ideas, changing (modding) their tools to better suit themselves and their needs, and overall pushing forward technology and innovation. The US of A, became powerful, just like Britain before it, by having a competitive free market economy where ideas are shared and move everyone forward. But now the US is leading the world in restrictive laws and monopolies on ideas - i.e. restricting others from using ideas. This trend is indeed bad for all of society. For society to improve, it must be able to freely share ideas and to change (mod) and their tools in the way the people see fit. These restrictive practices will become evident within a generation how negative an effect it can have on society and the USs technological lead.
Thats absolutely right. Since the dawn of time humans have been trading in a free competitive market economy, sharing ideas, changing (modding) their tools to better suit themselves and their needs, and overall pushing forward technology and innovation.
s sue_07/free_matter_economy/ s sue_08/free_matter_economy_2/
1 65105685
y .cfm?story_id=5014990
7 37218&tid=187&tid=155
c discussions_activeclubreflections&key=1046014645
The US of A, became powerful, just like Britain before it, by having a competitive free market economy where ideas are shared and move everyone forward. But now the US is leading the world in restrictive laws and monopolies on ideas - i.e. restricting others from using ideas.
This trend is indeed bad for all of society. For society to improve, it must be able to freely share ideas and to change (mod) and their tools in the way the people see fit.
These restrictive practices will become evident within a generation how negative an effect it can have on society and the USs technological lead.
And some links:
1.1 Free Matter Economy, Part 1:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/i
1.2 Free Matter Economy, Part 2:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/i
2.
A Groklaw article complete with discussion:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051025
3.
An Economist article:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystor
4.
Slashdot discussion on Economist article:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/23/1
5.
The GNU Organisation for the development of software, its official stance on the negative effect of IP on software development:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml
6.
A longish non-academic article, but starts getting to the point eventualy:
http://www.reason.com/0303/fe.dc.creation.shtml
7.
A pdf:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/pci23.pdf
( http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/pci23.htm )
8.
Discussion on the above pdf:
http://activeclub.homeip.net/forums/view.php?bn=a
The chinese are not quite as stupid as the USA govt.
The USA govt and big corporations are so deep in hock to the Chinese - there is no way the Chinese would point their missiles at their cash cow.
20% of your trade deficit is funded by the Chinese. They might point a gun at you (or more likely Taiwan) to encourage paying up in one way or another (how much for your soul?) but they won't actually shoot.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.