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France Moving Forward on Legalized P2P
Romerican writes "Over a month ago, Slashdotters joked about France's efforts to legalize P2P. Originally dismissed as a trivial coup by a small group, the French government continues to entertain the topic. News.com is reporting the French Minister of Culture will advocate P2P as a flat-fee service." From the article: "The draft law, which originally aimed to tackle online piracy, is backed by consumer groups in France but heavily opposed by such companies as Vivendi Universal, which owns Universal Music, the world's biggest record company, and a stake in film and TV company NBC Universal. French cinema and music trading associations together with rock stars such as Johnny Hallyday have spoken out against the law, arguing it would kill their work. "
perhaps I am naive...
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
Free p2p sounds great and all, but what's to stop the fee collecting agency from discriminating against artists in the disbursement of the funds?
I think with all the contraversy about p2p -- I think want should be done is that the US government spend a couple million/billion and work with people in providing a free online libary and a free place where people can show off their work if they want. It would be considered P2P because that would be nessesary for that much storage and the government wouldnt have to buy tons and tons of servers because its p2p. Thoughts? I know it has flaws but I just thought of it. -Jonny
The length of a
I believe it has been stastistically shown (take that with as much salt as you like) that if everyone pays a flat fee, and Nielsen-box equivalents are used, the Entertainment Industry would actually make more money by allowing unlimited downloads via any medium than they get through current means.
In other words, well done the French.
We are French. Fuck you, Americans, I don't care!
So Hasselhoff was unavailable, then?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Originally dismissed as a trivial coup by a small group, the French government continues to entertain the topic.
I figured that I would make one thread to contain all the bad jokes.
I, for one, welcome our new pro-p2p occupying force. (Until the next group takes over, then I'll welcome them.)
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
It'd be tragic if truly free music ended up contributing to the cartels through p2p fee collection.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Of course everyone at slashdot will. Most slashdotters feel that if they don't agree to the law then they don't have to follow it, now they don't have to feel guilty! go France! Is stealing physical property going to be legalized next?
Did anyone else read this as "Daft law"? They will never come up with an equitable dispersal of the funds, so why even bother?
Best Trivia answer ever... Name the largest aquatic man eater... Contestant: Tsunami
I get my music and movies for free right now. Why would anyone support this?
I pretty shocked by this but thinking about it seems like the right thing to do but there are still problems to be solved.
There is no way that media companies are ever going to manage to stop P2P or piracy in general. Computers make it too easy to distribute content which has made the content worth a lot less than it was. They might as well accept that people want this and give it to them.
The problem I see with it though is we will end up with a lot of medium quality material because no one will want to invest the effort and money to create good material because the remuneration won't be all that great. After all how do you measure the popularity of something and divide up the money collected from P2P?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
"Everything we're hearing from the government is that it won't happen," said Geraldine Moloney, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association in Europe.
Being French, I don't see "legalize p2p" anywhere near...
In our northern province of Ontario, Canada. A few years back they decided that it was ok for women to go topless, as long as it wasnt sexual. Men can take off their shirts, so know women can too. Now of course the right-wingers were freaking out. We'd hear that these women would be walking through downtown with no shirts on.. and that the kids would be exposed to it. Not too mention the idea that all these women are going to be raped, not too mention the locusts. Now, none of this has come to pass. This is also the same rhetoric spwed over gay--marriage. Who cares?? Somehow they get all upset when they get married. Somehow they think that their rights are being violated. Not to mention the locuts, and that churches would be forced to marry these folks..Have I mentioned the Locusts ? We also have a system in place that allows the governement to collect a tax on blank cds.. (works out to maybe a nickel a cd maybe?). What that is supposed to do is go into the Canadian Musicians, that work hard to earn that. The idea is that they can go after copyrights here, because they are making some money there. There is another argumnet too be made about how little money the artists are making. The noises that the music industry is making because that is all they know. No matter how much you try to guide their hands they react out of the fear of the unknown. Maybe they need better terms in the contract over how the industry pays out these 'monthly' fees. Thats the big 'white elephant in the room' as it were. How do you determine the scale? Its a great idea, but thats what scares them. The idea of deciding who gets what is a big new thing. Of course the artist are afraid because tey think that they will get any of the money that will come from that. Anyone remember Courtney Love and her lawsuit?: She was filing after they got all that money from napster and others "in the name of the artists"? Nobody ever got dime. Did anyone see the locusts yet ?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
What happens when a normal company's business model no longer works due to new technology or social/economical changes? You adapt or go under. What happens when a massively powerful organization's business model starts to fail like the RIAA or MPAA (or whatever else their respective counterparts in other countries are called)? They sue the pants off as many people as it takes to stop the change. Well not only are they hindering the advancement of technology they are attacking their customer base. Remember what happened to Napster - they turned "legal" and started offering a pay-per service. That is called adaption, it is what makes companies stand out from the rest. Maybe this specific proposal going on in France is not the most ideal method to go about but it, but that is not why there is opposition to it. They are opposing it because it will remove power and influence and force these companies to adapt, or more hopefully go away. They are against the fundamental principals not the methods.
As for the argument of the artists losing money, etc. Well guess what, you're in the same boat. Adapt or learn a new skill. The internet is NOT going away any time soon and the entire purpose of the internet is to SHARE IDEAS. Guess what, your artwork is just an idea. If people want to share your idea with others then you should be glad, you are appreciated.
I don't mean to sound cruel as I am not NOT giving the bird to anyone who complains. I understand some people are losing money but it is not the fault of P2P. It is the people who are not paying for the product/service when they should be. If by some miracle P2P becomes extraordinarily unusable legally or technically, something else more grandios will emerge. Sharing stuff on the internet will never stop. Get used to it.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
Declaring certain protocols to be "illegal" is silly enough (just like the April Fool's joke of the "evil bit" and the CP80 project that requires labelling all p0rn traffic), but then they propose slapping a flat-fee on it, essentially saying, "We don't want you to do it, but we realize we can't stop you. So we'll at least try and make some money off you."
Ridiculous.
Understand the mechanics here: If engineered wrong this will simply translate into a tax on internet access for everyone under French jurisdiction, which would be paid to businesses big enough to claim they represent content creators and nothing paid to the actual content creators themselves.
For people who currently observe the law and do not download at all (or only download stuff the copyright owner has given away), this is a tax with no return.
It weakens the rights of authors and hands tax money to the publishers.
But follow me further, if you will: What happens if something like GPL'd software gets included in the definition of content that right now we think will only include songs and music? Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?
Compulsory licenses are a threat to the Free Culture movement. Copyright is not the problem, copyright violators are the problem.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
You don't frighten us, American pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "RIAA"! You and all your silly American Record Industry Executives!!! Ay don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ay fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries! Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!
Most slashdotters feel that if they don't agree to the law then they don't have to follow it, now they don't have to feel guilty!
Why should they feel guilty if it's legal? Do you want people to use the law as a guide for their behavior or not?
Is stealing physical property going to be legalized next?
Of course not, because there are huge fundamental differences between physical property and intangible "property", and reasonable people know that the analogy between downloading music and stealing CDs (or any other physical property) is as far-fetched as the analogy between gay marriage and interspecies marriage.
If it ever becomes possible to "steal" a copy of a physical object, leaving the original in place, then your analogy would hold up - but then we'd have to ask ourselves what's so bad about making a copy of a car if the owner still gets to keep the original.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
We joked about France being cowards telling us we shouldn't go to Irak.
Reasons given by France were:
1) no links to Al-Quaeda or 9/11
2) it will cause havoc in the middle east and the rest of the world
3) WMDs aren't present like they used to
Today we still haven't found WMDs, it's clear that Bush and Co lied about Saddam Hussein's ties to Al-Quaeda and it did cause havoc and cost billions.
France now fights for people's rights to use the music they payed for in ways they should be free to do so. They also legitimise the use of the p2p technology rather than attempt to make it illegal like some senators in the US.
Sadly friends it seems the US is falling behind both on a freedom level and a moral level.
So to all those people with their surrender jokes that aren't funny I say at least France isn't selling it's soul. It remains true to Freedom. More so in actions than in speech.
Most slashdotters feel that if they don't agree to the law then they don't have to follow it
Don't most people feel that way? Judging by the amount of traffic tickets given out and the amount of people that pass me on the highway, I'd imagine they do.
Whoa there, someone forgot his medications again.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
French laws issue related to P2P are related at http://www.ratatum.com/ Check in particular http://www.ratiatum.com/news2755_DADVSI_remaniemen t_du_texte_vers_moins_de_sanctions.html
(in French, sorry)
Basically:
* Just before Chrismas, the government has attempted to vote a law allowing more sanction against P2P
* Some parlement members (both left&right) has decided to modify the law in a direction allowing P2P if a flat fee is paid by the user ("license globale")
* This modification has been voted
* The leader from both political party UMP (government) and PS (opposition) are against this modification of the law
* The goverment want to modify against the law, to remove what has been added in december and to ask the parlement to revote, but with less sanctions as before : 38 Euro in case of infrigement (~ 45$)
* Both side are trying to petition the public. In particular the media company are pushing the artist to says that "Allowing P2P will kill artistic creation"
Now, the debate around this law is very alive in French media, which is a good thing IMHO, because it will be very difficult to make a very restrictive laws.
The new law will contains also provisiond enforcing "fair use" (or "private copy" in French), i.e. to allow to bypass DRM to allow interop (between iTune and some MP3 players for example).
French rock singer, one of the best-selling french artists with Aznavour with around 200 million albums sold worldwide during his (nearly 50 years long now) career. As of 2005, he's cranked out 1000 songs, 400 tours (for ~25 millions spectators), 18 platinum albums and 1 diamond album. He also participated in 29 films and around 80 books have been written on him.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
I guess its time to start using French proxies so the **AA thugs can leave me alone!
So for the love of music and all things musical, go out and buy a massively DRM encumbered CD today! Better yet, buy two...for the alternative is unthinkable!
The advantage of buying two is that it provides a practical way for two people to listen to the music, at the same time! You could even give the second copy to a friend, so that they may listen to their copy whenever they like: but under no circumstances are you to listen to their copy! Your best bet is to bring your own copy with you, and listen to that. This serves two goals. First, it will drown out the sound of your friend's CD, to which you do not have access and which he is not permitted to use as a public exhibition. Second, it will allow you to hear the music to which you otherwise would not have access.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Where can I buy your product online?
(I thought business was about trying to get customers. If that requires a new business model - then what are you waiting for? Think of the head start you can get)
it's in my head
"Yeah, right. As long as P2P is around nobody can sing a song, compose lyrics, record a song, perform at your local coffee shop, write a screenplay, make a movie, or do anything else creative at all. You're all dead in your tracks."
I'm aware you were being sarcastic, but think of it this way. Say that once we put the musicians in their place, we made a law outlawing the sale of software, or legalizing software piracy, or something similar. Software development would continue to exist (e.g. the OSS movement would continue on), but a lot of people who make their living writing software would be mighty pissed.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
If they are telling us that freedom of distribution would kill their work, they are probably right. But every new invention kills someone works. For example, in the past there were water carriers in the cities. Piped water killed their work. Nobody now need to pay somebody for binging busket of water into his home.
Fate of music distribution industry would be same.
As for rock stars, they are probably right too. These stars do not produce good music, they are created by advertising and support of recording industry. So, if recording industry is gone, most modern stars would be gone too. Other bands with more talent would take their place.
but then we'd have to ask ourselves what's so bad about making a copy of a car if the owner still gets to keep the original.
So from your line of thinking, I could could 'borrow' a draft of 'car x' from a company and start producing that car myself? What would be the point of ever creating a new idea when you can just steal others?
Don't most people feel that way? Judging by the amount of traffic tickets given out and the amount of people that pass me on the highway, I'd imagine they do.
Ofcourse, I don't know of anyone who doesn't. But we all have to live in cooperation even if we don't agree. Allthough I'm not saying everyone should blindly accept laws.
This would be a flat fee added to your ISP bill, not paid to the P2P service. I'd pay for it to legally download all the P2P music I want.
Not saying it's legal but it is not stealing, it is (c) infringment. There is, in fact, a difference.
Now, back to the case in France, the summary even mentions the "flat fee" aspect of P2P as a service, so in this case, no it is not stealing or (c) infringement. Just because teh media companies do not like the laws does not mean that what is happening is illegal.
As to the whole stealing thing: I once was like you, this is stealing. After a lovely argument I was swayed to the "it's not stealing" camp, problem is that tends to lump me in the "it's OK" group as well, which I firmly am not.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Under a system proposed by Harvard University Professor Terry Fisher:
l _downloads/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/01/free_lega
Yes, but sooner or later a company will need thiere software to have a certain feature, it currently does not. So they will pay someone to add it.
Freedom or George Bush
Kill off the entertainment industry and put your nose to the grindstone. I'm guessing it will play out as a net positive.
You're guessing, and I'm certain.
Music (and almost all other performing arts as well) was far better before your beloved
'entertainment "industry"'. And it was so for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
Since they could collect exact statistics on what was being downloaded most often, it wouldn't be too hard to set up a reasonable way to distribute funds based on popularity. What's the worry here anyway? That this agency would become another RIAA? As long as they can't censor what is being shared, this really isn't the same -- it's p2p, meaning the sharing of music is between artists and fans (or fans and fans), no stranglehold over distribution means most of the organization's power is eliminated. Sure, they will be fatcats with egos the size of saturn getting rich off other people's talent, but such leeches will always exist. They existed long before recording technology ever existed. The mistake in the 20th century was putting them in charge of anything important.
YESTERDAY i spent all my mod points... you should have totally posted this not A/C man. good shit here. same goes for the 2 other replies below this one.
Ah, I see you don't know French bureaucracy. ...), you can bet that it'll need thousands of employee to handle this mess.
Our so nice system would mean that for any artist to see any money, he would have to wait 3 years. Money would not be given according to popularity, no scientific data. It would be given at what most normal human would see as random, but some state employe could go at great length to explain you why it's not random and in fact a perfectly working system. And replying that your 2 years old daughter just got a check for a 1999 song would be answered by a "don't you stop spreading lies, you public service fascist right wing murderer !".
Oh, and since they will be on strike every two days for whatever reason (they want to get paid more, they want to have retirement at 29, it's nice weather let's take a walk
Never underestimate the inefficiency of our tax paid bureaucracy, it amazes you evey day.
"Yes, but sooner or later a company will need thiere software to have a certain feature, it currently does not. So they will pay someone to add it."
Yup. The software market would change drastically. If companies needed a feature that they couldn't get by pirating some third-party work, they'd hire a contractor.
A future in which programmers are treated the same way as we want to treat musicians would be great if you're a contract programmer or you're already in the habit of giving your stuff away for free, but a bummer for you if you're used to the "write once, sell many times" model. Likewise, a similar future for composers, lyricists and musicians would be fine for you if you wrote your own stuff and largely made money playing in coffeehouses. Otherwise, it would suck.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
> You can still make your art and lock it away in a vault... but don't expect us to pay you for it if you don't agree to respect our freedoms.
But it's not about _your_ freedoms, it's about the freedom of people to create whatever content they like, and charge for it to make a living. The same right that allows people like RMS to give away software under licenses. If you don't want to pay for my product XYZ, if I'm a crotchety old dinosaur of a bygone era, then so be it. I'll go out of business of my own accord. I certainly don't need a pirate's bizarre justification that it's acceptable to take money from my pocket.
There's a thing about volunteer projects that only go so far. People get burnt out, people move on, day to day responsibilities take on greater importance. It happens every day. I know other folks like to romanticise the idea of art, like people from ages past worked on art because they were all filled with firey passions, but it just isn't so. Michalangelo didn't paint just because he loved to do so, the sistene chapel was a commissioned work. That sort of thing.
> You're guessing, and I'm certain.
Music (and almost all other performing arts as well) was far better before your beloved
'entertainment "industry"'. And it was so for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
You're darn right. There's nothing I enjoy more humming my Sonata No.5 c Minor on the drive to work. And when I get home I regale my family with old folk songs about the old country. I think most people would agree with me. Ignore how shitty current entertainment is, we're just downloading by the *millions* so we can remind ourselves just what utter garbage it actually is. Right?
"Of course not, because there are huge fundamental differences between physical property and intangible "property", and reasonable people know that the analogy between downloading music and stealing CDs (or any other physical property) is as far-fetched as the analogy between gay marriage and interspecies marriage.
/.ers just don't get it.
"
The only difference between stealing a CD and downloading the CD illegally is about 50 cents worth of packaging. No one gives a shit about the actual physical CD. So the difference is negligible.
Vote for Pedro
"Irak" is also the German spelling
..and probably in lots of other languages.
Female Prison Rape in NY
.... why would this? Just because more people would use it? No, it would increase exposure to their work so they could command higher fees for concerts and other live appearances.
I'm sick to death of these stupid and greedy artists who are terrified they're going to not get a couple thousand a year. It's a couple thousand they might not get anyway - I might download one song from the cd, but I'd never have bought the cd even if I couldn't get that one song. I'd have just done without rather than waste over $20 on a cd for just one song. Are they really losing any money? Unlikely, but they claim they are. Either that, or they're just repeating what they're told to say.
That is all good and well, but that is not the way one should act. One should generally follow laws even when they are imperfect. One should also work with the government to change any laws that are imperfect, which is what it sounds like the French are actually doing. There are few cases where it is reasonable to outright ignore laws (and I don't think it necessary to list them here).
Insert self-referential sig here.
Way to go France!
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Better than it being shut off every time George Bush farts - downtime would be considerable in that case. At least we're trying. You folks appear to have given up to the RIAA.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Laughing is good for you - so continue. In the meantime your missing something or perhaps I am , but it seems to me that while the RIAA are suing unborn babies in America (the land of the free), we still have the right to P2P here in France.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Our electricity generation is away from carbon based economy since long. A lot of people are interrested in Hybrid, and I saw a lot of eletric only car back a FEW years ago (although sadly only a minority). So please, who is the more "addicted" to oil ?(to take your OWN president State of Union word). And I won't even start on the other point which more or less amount to "forget the mud we have on our feet and point out at the dirt on other people feet". The only things I have to say is that, by now, more or elss all feet of the western world stink.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
You said that "its failing because the competition is exactly the same product with zero costs and zero investment for the 'producer'."
Well, let you remember that time, some years ago when p2p was only a dream... Yeah! people also copied tapes! I really don't know if it that was legal under the US law, but here in Spain, politicians understood what was happening and ruled a new law so copyright infringment of culture products it's only illegal if you profit from it! So long from then, no one here can be sued because of downloading or copying anything if they are not selling it.
Hell, you should remember that copyright is something very relative, and it was invented to protect culture, protecting the producers is just a side effect. Culture existed before copyright and will continue existing in spite of the MPAA.
But, i think that the most important point here is that copyright was 'invented' because law had to protect writers from the printing press owners, so they pay money to writers... because producers didnt have any other method to DISTRIBUTE their work and anyway it was damn expensive. So, now that is so easy to share their work, we shouldn't miss the point: Sharing culture shouldn't be illegal!
Music and films are two "arts" that are there to make lots of money.
If musicians were real artists they wouldn't mind us sharing their works whereas the current-day money grabbing music artists are all out to get as much as they can and for what?
IMHO this kind of attitude towards art loses much of the art and artists value.
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
I guess breaking international law can be forgiven with such good end results.
Actually, not so much...
indeed, and how about the little guy? Ok I make games and not music, but maybe they will allow that too? I don't suppose I'd be losing millions of dollars, but I doubt the French government will track me down and send me a EUR 20 now and then, as my share of the trading of my copyrighted work.
The future for online games, music and movies is for people to pay for a hassle free downlaod, without silly restrictions, but without making illegal copying too easy. this French scheme is insane.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
For people who currently observe the law and do not download at all (or only download stuff the copyright owner has given away), this is a tax with no return.
What about the now-legal option of commencing to download free music? That's a pretty nice return! There are others too, like lower CD prices. The only losers would be people who want a net connection but have no interest in any cultural works whatsoever. The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few.
It weakens the rights of authors and hands tax money to the publishers.
Why? As an artist, you can self-publish on the 'net, and if the system is designed right you'll get payed in proportion to your popularity.
Actually, I have a pet theory about why publishers have been so opposed to these sorts of levy schemes. I think they're afraid that it would only be a short step to a mandated revenue split, saying something like "artists must get at least 50% of this money". Such splits exist in some countries' private copying and public lending rights schemes, so the precedent is clear. It would be a radical change from the less than 5% they get from CD sales at present!
But follow me further, if you will: What happens if something like GPL'd software gets included in the definition of content that right now we think will only include songs and music? Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?
Well, assuming that the system is applied to software (which it probably wouldn't be)... what incentives would a firm have to keep their source code secret if their users didn't have to pay for binaries? Remember also that if they distributed the code in any country where the law enforced the GPL, they'd have to comply.
If for some strange reason this did turn into a problem, it would be easy to add a clause exluding already free/open source software from the blanket license.
Fixing copyright
No offense, if you like Johnny, but I'd assume French slashdotters to be a little more musically educated. His success just shows how "uncool" the French are.
Res publica non dominetur
I hate Johnny, so no offense taken.
On the other hand, I mostly listen to classical music, so I'm probably even "uncooler" than a Johnny fan by your standards.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Unfortunately, just counting downloads isn't a very good way to do this, since those numbers are relatively easy to manipulate in various ways. Far better would be to survey x thousand people whose computers have been carefully checked for malware. Or to use "trusted computing" hardware to report reliable statistics from people's media players (how's that for an ironic use of technology).
Fixing copyright
Actually, I saw an interview in which Phillip Noyce said that it's much harder to make a good film when there is more money involved. His main claim was that the huge amount of financial risk involved makes investors averse to anything artistically adventurous. Maybe also that the logistic complexity of shooting expensive scenes can distract from the stuff that makes a film great (although I'm not sure if I'm recalling that second point correctly).
The fact that cinema tickets are all essentially the same price also skews financial incentives towards "lowest common denomniator" markets. A carefully designed taxation-funded system that based remmuneration on how much people like a film after they saw it, could improve the situation for material that has a smaller but more appreciative audience.
Fixing copyright
Nonsense. Rosa Parks? OK, so comparing the US civil rights movement to kids downloading Britney isn't really valid, but "generally follow laws" isn't really the case.
Most people don't murder others because it's wrong, not because it's illegal. Some people smoke pot because they don't agree with the "danger" touted in campaigns. The illegal nature of it does nothing, except perhaps entice kids to do something rebelious.
I have to tell you that France is neither behind nor ahead on a moral level than any other country including the US, simply because it is VERY hard to define morals (as in whose morals).
Also Chirac is a big fat asshole. Only because he is much smarter than Bush doesn't mean he is a nice guy. Bush comes across as a clueless nice guy that I wouldn't mind as a buddy, but that should never be in a position of power, whereas Chirac is a very corrupt smart power player. Now choose.
I am from Germany and if I could decide who dominates the world I dunno which country to choose. Germany dominated much of Europe up till 1945. In the end it was good that that changed. France and the UK dominated (and still meddle around) in Africa and parts of Asia. The US dominates the Americas. Colombia if sinking into civil war, dragging the whole region behind and the slums in Brazil are pretty bad, but compared to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Ruanda (among other regions in Africa) they are still much better off. The only really bleak spot in the American hemnisphere are Haiti and the likes, but even though Haiti is one of the worst places to live in the world it is comparably much smaller than the DRC.
Iraq:
Made no sense other than fueling the "industrial-military complex" as Eisenhower called it. BUT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_Civil_War (Algeria is still considered colony by many people in the French administration and treated as such by French intelligence services), so the US is not the only one engaging in wars. It just happens to have a high profile. Look up Russia and Chechnya.
Clearly you couldn't be bothered to read my statement to the end. I specifically said that some circumstances existed when one *should* ignore laws. Furthermore, law and morality need not correlate perfectly despite what you happen to think about the matter. Oh well, eh Glesga?
Insert self-referential sig here.
So from your line of thinking, I could could 'borrow' a draft of 'car x' from a company and start producing that car myself?
Yup, as long as you don't commit fraud by claiming you designed it or they manufactured it.
What would be the point of ever creating a new idea when you can just steal others?
You tell me. What's the point of creating anything new when you can just use an existing one?
Do you think the only reason people started using Linux is because they were afraid of being caught pirating Windows? Of course not. Thousands of people have devoted their time to researching and producing software mainly because what's out there wasn't good enough for them.
As long as there is demand for new ideas, there will be a market for people to get paid for coming up with them. Even if it requires a business model we can't forsee yet--and in most cases, it doesn't--there will be a way for people to get paid for coming up with new ideas, because their talent is scarce and therefore valuable, even though the ideas themselves are not.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
WTF? Who is posting my wiki on Slashdot? In the comments for something absolutely not even related to music or Linux?? Please don't do this kind of crap..