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UK Government Confiscates Firefox CDs
Alsee writes "The idea that Free Software can be sold has some government officials perplexed. Times Online has the story. A UK Trading Standards officer contacted the Mozilla Foundation to report catching a business selling copies of Firefox. The organization confiscated the CDs with the intent to prosecute said business. When informed that such distribution was authorized, the officer first expressed disbelief that Free Software could be sold then said 'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation'."
I 3 Mozilla Foundation.
As Section 3.5 states: Do not confuse the MPL with the GPL, folks. Well, Mozilla falls under the MPL. I'm not sure any other software falls under this license. For that reason, anyone distributing software that falls under other licenses should be investigated. I'm not sure how people distributing Mozilla legally at a charge prohibits you from arresting people who are distributing copyrighted software which they made their own copies of.
My work here is dung.
"we are too stupid to make a distinction between Free software and commercial software. We can't read nor do we understand licence agreements."
In other words, they can't do their job in a proper way.
My GOD ! They're giving it away ! How can we control this !
... you're going to put us out of our jobs, I mean, who would we prosecute then??!?!"
Are the British REALLY into finding and prosecuting people who pirate software/music/videos?? I found it strange when I got a message from an Music Industry "Representative" based in London for some unauthorized content a user uploaded onto my US based server. Now they're confiscating Firefox CDs??? Is it a big way of making money over there? Try to find people pirating stuff and REPORT THEM! They're nuts.
As having been arrested for picking up litter - I can understand this problem. Police are mmotivated to enforce the status quo, actual facts are too bothersome.
AIK
Guess the guy in the UK has no idea that you can take linux, package it yourself, and sell it if ya want...and have been able to for years - because the license pretty much lets ya do it...
But like, it has no effect on anti-piracy laws, because, well, selling copies of Firefox on CD isn't piracy?
LoL
If they bothered to read the license Mozilla has attached to its products, they wouldn't be so surprised.
How godddamn retarded is that? They've missed the entire point of anti-piracy legislation...
Someone should take this guy to the bar and explain it to him over a 'free beer'.....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
This sounds like a job wherein I'd never have to use my brain. Is this some kind of civil service position? What are the requirements to get this job? Can I get a work permit if I show that I'm qualified to understand the difference between pirated and simply copied software? (You'd think they'd spend more time cracking down on the people selling on eBay.co.uk, right?)
Then again, I think I'd be quite bored.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
All the more reason why all this anti-piracy witchhunt should be banished... Governments need to realize that they need to do as the majority wants, not what a select group of rich companies want... My $0.02 worth.
Thise word..."Free Software"...I do not think it means what you think it means.
The laws of probability forbid it!
A while ago when broadband and CD burners weren't too popular, I tried selling burned Linux CDs on eBay for people with dialup. Within a day or two, they pulled my auctions and said "You can't sell burned CDs of any type on eBay."
The UK goverment should consider an import blockade on banana's.
Does this mean the DTI is going to try and confiscate all boxed copies of Linux for sale in the UK?
Jonathan Beckett http://www.pluggedout.com
Looks like someone on high has been told to allocate resources to copyright infringment. You can see how the idea that people can sell things which are free would confuse PC Plod.
Here's hoping they get equally confused with the idea you can buy something, but not be able to do what you want with your property and in consequence arrest the chairman of EMI.
Also, see Gervase's blog entry, and it is also on digg.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
The blurb is highly misleading. No CDs were confiscated. Rather, the officer did the right thing: upon uncountering the "suspicious" distributor, he first contacted the copyright owner (the Mozilla Foundation) to ask what gives. In particular, no confiscated CDs had to be returned.
As another poster above points out, the Trading Standards Office should have been able to figure this out by reading the license, but you cannot fault them for going to the people who licensed the software initialy.
"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."
Here is the crux, Miss, what is/is not permitted regarding software is entirely a function of the license that is agreed to by the involved parties. There is no blanket set of rules - what one party's license prohibits, another party's license may encourage or require. The 'general advice' you should give to businesses is that they need to read and understand the licenses associated with whatever software that they are involved with (something you apparently had difficulty doing yourself)
Anyone notice how "A Trading Standards Officer" has mutated into "UK Government...."
Because stories are more interesting when it's "Entire Government Proved to be Incompetent" and less interesting when the story is "Some Guy/Gal screws up".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
1. Brain size less than the radius of a CD.
2. Strict adherence to every rule you've ever been told.
3. Ability to correlate carpooling with the end of the automotive industry.
4. Ability to leap to tall conclusions in a single bound.
5. Complete eagerness to swallow everything spewed forth by the BSA.
"When I consider the rules for grammar, I think
'Any fool can make a rule
and every fool will follow'."
By some famous poet, I forget his name right now.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Where's my skull and crossbones flag ?
Yet another example of the inadequacy of the english language. The capability to properly differentiate the several contextual meanings of the word "Free", and other such "context-based" words has always been, and always will be a problem.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
It also means that government bodies are well facilitated with knowledge or tools to obtain it. But what do we see?
Ignorance as if we are talking about some third world country! We live in interesting times, don't we?
Nowhere in the article does it say they conficated CD's. They were contacting him BEFORE they took action. While he says they should return any conficated disks, it doesn't say they actually had confiscated any.
So what are they saying? Mozilla shouldn't be allowed to do this?
I wouldn't say that spending five minutes to visit a company web-site to find out whether they permit copying is impractical.
Z.
They had encountered businesses which were selling copies of Firefox, and wanted to confirm that this was in violation of our licence agreements before taking action against them.
At least she tried to confirm this before running out to arrest people. She may not understand WHY she has to confirm a violation of the licensing agreement... but the fact that she followed the procedure indicates that we aren't all about to be raided for having "pirated" copies of Firefox on our computers.
There is certainly no shortage of dense people in the world. But that's why we have procedures... we say "do this! this way!" And they do... even if it makes them incredulous. Bravo standards-bearers! Bravo.
when the executive branch does not understand, and thus cannot enforce, what the legal branch created. This could probably mean that the laws don't make sense? Just maybe?
It's even sadder to realize that the bullspit around "copying is illegal" appearantly managed to take precendence over actual and factual law in the heads of the executive branch.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Reminds me of all these businesses making money off of selling free software on eBay/websites that I won't add to the pagerank of. It's pretty pathetic, but mostly legal. I think they should figure out a way to change licenses to disallow that type of thing. I know if I told my uncle that FireFox is an amazing program and everyone should have it, there's a good chance he'd go home and pay 15 bucks for it haha.
Where is the information you made that summary from? He wrote "we would like her to return any confiscated CDs" or words to that effect. I didn't find that that actually happened.
Folks, you really need to sharpen up a bit.
Will someone please tell me what the hell this is supposed to mean?!
If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation.
This is one of the most asinine things I've heard in a long time! Just because one piece of software says that it can be distributed even though it's free does not mean that suddenly anti-piracy legislation is unenforceable! In fact, anti-piracy legislation does not even come into play here because there was no piracy going on! Either that quote is being taken way out of context or they are actually trying to say that not being able to prosecute those who copy Firefox means that they won't be able to prosecute those who copy Windows, Photoshop, or other programs that clearly fall under anti-piracy legislation!
In fact, this kind of distribution and marketing has been going on since the Commodore 64 days! Free software would be distributed for about $2 per floppy disk at local computer meets to cover the cost of media and duplication. In fact, that's how a lot of PC shareware got distributed. I used to write some shareware apps that were free to distrubte, just not free to use. I sent disks all over the country to PC user groups with permission to copy and charge a nominal fee for their efforts. I was still getting registration fees a few years after I stopped supporting the software, so that method clearly worked and there was nothing illegal about it. But there certainly would have been laws broken if those user groups tried to do the same with Lotus 1-2-3 or dBase!
Please tell me that I've misunderstood something here!
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
where the paste eaters gained employment in the U.K.
The Brits are dumb, along with every other country that has elected officials making technical decisions. They are not alone in being victimized by irrational laws. For example, the state of Colorado, USA, does not permit the sale of cars or trucks on Sunday. What happens to me if I sign over my car to my GF and date the title on a Sunday?
"I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?" she asked.
Isn't that something! Maybe you didn't get the memo, but this is how everything works now. Songs play on a radio, but people still buy CDs, because who wants to go recording all the songs. Books are given away for free online, but people pay for the bound version. Artists give tracks away on their website, but people still buy their CDs.
It's called making money off distribution and convenience of medium, rather than off the production of the intellectual property in question. In fact, considering that most software (proprietary or not) has a one-time "production" cost which exists independent of the number of copies distributed. this makes a bit of sense.
The reason we don't mind if people sell copies of Firefox is because the Firefox developers, if they care about the "marketplace" of their product at all (which many developers I'm sure do not), they care only about one thing: more people using the software. If that means Joe in Indiana who only has dial-up and won't download Firefox would rather pay someone $5 for a CD, so be it.
The question asked above shows the general "negative" attitude of the state of our anti-piracy laws. In particular, it seems unfathomable to "let" another company make money off something you give away for free. We're already giving the software away, so how is this in any way a "harm" to us, the developers of the software? We don't "lose" money when another company sells our free product; instead, we simply gain marketshare. Isn't that good enough reason to allow it? Or, put better, wouldn't it be downright silly to disallow it?
I wish more people would sell Firefox. Like, say, Linux machines loaded with Firefox, at Circuit City or Best Buy, for $200 less than the Windows counterparts. Then we'd really be losing money on the OEM deals, us open source developers! We'd have to call the FBI upon all those piraters.
This article is somehow refreshing. Dealing with open source software usually means you see how dark and restrictive the proprietary/commercial world has become.
But the more interesting thing is honestly that OSS people essentially want everybody to be in the position of:
- Seeing Random Software CD for sale.
- Knowing whether the software is under copyright or not.
- Knowing whether the license allows the Random Seller to sell that CD
before entering into a transaction. Yeah, for common stuff ("Linux") you might have some idea, but what if it's "Flibberty Gibbit v.1.2.1"? What's that? Can you safely buy it? What about "Red Hat Enterprise Linux"? It's got "Linux" in the name, but you can't actually grab the CDs unless you build them yourself (yada yada yada), which means that even "Linux" isn't always safe.For everybody who reads Slashdot, that should be pretty self-explainatory: you know that it's open source, so it's okay (and you're probably not in the habit of buying software out of the back of a car). But think of someone's mother (probably not your own). Mine knows about OSS software because I used to work for an OSS software company and have her machine fully tricked out with Mozilla stuff, but her friends? They don't have a farking clue. They just know that they've had it drilled into their heads that software costs money, comes with your computer, and if someone's trying to sell you a CD with some software for a price that seems too low, it's probably pirated.
What this essentially indicates to me is that there's a whole separate marketing effort that needs to go on to make sure that society as a whole knows that there is such a thing as OSS software and some people will gladly give you some software, and some won't.
Oh, yeah, and the trading standards people are d00bs for not actually doing a google search on WTF OSS software is before contacting them. Foolios.
I was waiting for this to happen--when the legal hacks that are Free Software (they're beautiful hacks, too) run head-first into all of the silly laws that the proprietary software industry keeps enacting.
:)
"I'm sorry, we granted permission implicitly to do that..."
It's a beautiful thing.
Now if I could get my luser friends to stop paying for warez by using Free Software, I'd be happy. Maybe I could make them pay for Free Software?
The Trading Standards Officer's reply was incredulous: "I can't believe you are giving away food for free. This makes it virtually impossible for the police, from a practical point of view, to catch and prosecute shoplifters."
Paid Q&A/Research
No di..err, n/m
It's called reading the license agreement. If a product specifically states that copies of said product are free to be distributed, they're okay.
She just wants the answer to be easier. She wants to say "No," and be done with it.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I once had a homeless guy try to sell me a copy of The Onion for a dollar, and I replied "If you are going to charge me for a paper, at least pick one with a price tag" (The Onion is distributed for free around NYC). He smiled, and pointed to the $2.00 pricetag that I'd never even noticed before, and said he was giving me a discount.
Sure, he's probably not alowed to sell it like that, but I gave him the dollar anyway.
Government official: Must... apply... thought... to... job..... Must... think... *ugh* outside... of... the... box... *gah*.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
http://diggvsdot.com/
Bet he wasn't expected Free software to have this direct an effect.
There's a shocker! From the article:
Regardless of this one town official's attitude towards Free Software, the fact is that they checked their facts before they did anything. Not only that, but they were savvy enough to check this wasn't some random kook, unlike businesses as Internet-aware as Amazon, who have believed anybody who can register a plausible-sounding Hotmail account is a book author in the past.
The headline reads "UK Government Confiscates Firefox CDs". No CDs were confiscated, this was just a lazy official who thinks telling people "all copying is bad" is easier than explaining the difference between good copying and bad copying.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Because basically what is happening lately is the legal community is trying, for fun and profit, to use EULAs and licenses and things like UCITA, to make every transmission of information into a contract negotiation of unlimited dimensions.
Imagine a "negotation" between, for instance, a team of 30 Sony corporate attorneys in New York, versus a 12 year old in Arkansas who just wants to listen to Eminem. One where the outcome is never recorded but always presumed. And now you see how absurd the legal fiction of the EULA really is.
And here is our biggest gift ever. unintentionally, the government itself is admitting that it is "virtually impossible" to handle this situation.
Everybody throw a party.
This wild-west/mafia nonsense with "IP law" needs to stop, because it's hurting our economy and rendering us unable to compete effectively against countries with sane, normal laws.
The GPL has been a wonderfully subversive attempt to fight the system within the system, but ultimately even the FSF will tell you that "the proliferation of licenses" is a problem. No fucking duh it's a "problem;" it plainly illustrates how completely fucking ridiculous, egotistical and largely futile the whole concept of a "license" is.
The powers of copyright holders to make licenses need to be delineated; EULAs need to be explicitly outlawed. Types of copyright exercise should be explicitly codified (a "whitelist" of acceptable options): i.e. conventional, bsd, gpl, etc. Then things can begin to be sane. No more EULA fine print preventing "benchmarking" or "backups," or "disclaimers of fitness" for commercial products... and all such games. And don't even get me started on software patents, a concept so obviously corrupt and ridiculous that we are frankly a laughingstock for ever considering them, let alone occasionally honoring them...
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
That a person like this Trading Standards official in question is put in a position to make decisions and communicate with IT companies such as Mozilla. You would think that they'd at least hire people with some knowledge on the subject or have their people educated on the subject? Perhaps they should make reading Slashdot.org for a half hour daily mandatory for all employees?
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
When I first read the article I thought this was a new Python Skit. It sure seems like it. A few tweaks and it would probably be appropriate. Obviously the skit would take things to the logical conclusion of destroying civilization.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Why? So we can all fit in with the intelligentsia who hang out on Digg?
A few things. First off, we aren't told whether the outfit selling the Firefox disks was kosher or whether the disks had come to light as a result of the outfit getting into trouble for genuine offences, in which case Trading Standards would have been remiss not to have followed by all the leads. Second, the lady from Trading Standards had the decency to call and was prepared to listen. In my experience, many branches of government never do either.
Finally, it's rather narrow-minded saying that Trading Standards should have sorted it out themselves by reading the licence. Software licences are a complete maze and open source ones are a maze inside a maze. Even if you're up with the industry it's hard enough to figure them all out and keep track of them. What this probably suggests is that to anyone who isn't a geek open source licences are no different from proprietory ones. Both are incomprehensible, and most folks get a queasy, bad-news feeling at the sight of any kind of legal document.
At least Mr Markham was kinder to the lady from TS than a lot of Slashdot readers would have been. Perhaps some open source gurus could take time off from jetting around the world fulminating against DRM and conduct a few seminars for government agencies to explain exactly what open source licensing means.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The question is: how come the Trading Standards Office was looking at this? Did they do it through their own normal processes, or was it based on a complaint? If the latter, then somebody wasted tax payer's money. And why would they do such a thing?
...because I borrowed away my car, the police are unable to enforce laws on car theft? Or because I let people punch me in a boxing ring, we can't enforce laws on violent assault? It's hilariously absurd, are they decendants of Monthy Phyton? Or I could give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they meant to say "If the Mozilla foundation let people sell copies of their software, we're not going to be able to enforce the Mozilla Foundation's copyright. Which is sort of the point of the copyleft licenses. Also, I think all Linux distributors should look out for British police...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This is so abysmal, as it really shows how strong a hold the "anytime you copy anything, you're stealing" redefinition of fair use by entertainment industries has.
It's really quite unfortunate that here in the USA, the land of the free, presumably decent and intelligent citizens such as your self have to say things like "probably not allowed to do that". It's a real shame when the laws are becoming so complex and burdensome that many normal citizens are unsure of what is legal and what is not.
Simple: you soon have a new girlfriend named Bubba
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Sig=signature If someone has a sig you'll see it under their post If you want a sig, get a profile
Haven't we all thought this at a point? If you hear about FOSS and it's concept for the first time it's totally normal to ask "But then I have to give my software away that I build with these tools/for this OS?".
Grapsing all the details about GPL and Co. takes a little insight into the fine details of the rule. More often than not do people here on slashdot mix it up themselves.
Cut the guy's some slack. After all, they noticed it before the took any action. And it's good to see officials taking care. They should be thanked for looking into the matter imediately.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Couldn't you just use digital signatures to prove your identity? Sounds better then just saying "Well I received your email didn't I?"
...that nobody ever reads the EULA. Hell, maybe this is that long awaited precedent saying theyre not legally binding ;)
I only mod funny =D
It's good to know that we in the US have no monopoly on stupid bureaucrats.
first we get a computer that runs without running, now we get people selling free software, for money.
I can download the latest release of Slackware from Slackware.org for absolutely no cost (beyond normal ISP costs, etc) yet I can stroll into Microcenter and find a CD set of Slackware, (usually 1-2 versions behind) for anywhere from $10 to $20. This is the same principle. I'd be paying Microcenter (who in turn would pay Walnut Creek CDRom, the publisher) for the actual media, the label, the packaging (CD Case) and the nice little paper insert. It is a convienence charge, as well as an option for people who don't have the ability to burn their own CDs. Granted burning a CD isn't required for Firefox, but in general it's the same principle.
You could do the same with RedHat a while back. You purchase their 'box' for $80 or so, and you get the media, manuals, a subscription to the RedHat Network update site (think Windows Update) and most importantly to my manager at the time, customer support. I could personally get on their site and download the ISOs for free, and download all the RPM updates for free, yet I just had to download and install them manually. Its a convienence charge.
And they said zombies weren't real!
The logic he's using actually makes some sort of sense.
He comes upon two street vendors, and checks out what they're selling. Both are selling burned CDs with bubblejet printed labels in plain black jewel cases. One person is selling Windows XP Pro Corp for 10 dollars a copy. The other person is selling RedHat Linux for 10 dollars a copy. He knows that both are operating systems, and therefore they should cost way more than 10 dollars. Therefore, in his mind, both people are pirating software, and should be taken to jail.
How is a random Joe supposed to tell the difference between "legal" software selling, and "illegal" software selling? Unless he knows all about OSS, what software falls under it, and the terms of the GPL, he's going to want to arrest everyone selling homemade CDs on the street.
Can you blame him?
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Trading Standards departments do no work for the UK Government per-se, but for the Local Authority such as a County or Borough Council.
The problem here is NOT that they misunderstand free software licenses. It's that they don't understand COPYRIGHT. Companies with proprietary licenses have been selling this piracy thing so much that they've convinced everyone that copyright infringement always happens when software is copied. The fact is, copyright licenses can say almost ANYTHING. It's not the government's place to sell one specific (and incorrect) interpretation of what copyright is. uk.gov needs to completely rethink this.
Not a huge department I'd guess, maybe 4 or 5 people if that. I think it's outrageous that they are not all experts in software licensing issues. How dare they check back with the originator of the material to find out what the score is. On the whole it sounds like she dealt with this in a very professional and sensible manner.
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
...but I love the British. His dry comment that "Mozilla authorizing this distribution makes it quite impossible to enforce piracy laws" is straight out of Monty Python. "We can't very well just have people giving these things away--makes piracy obsolete then doesn't it? Then where would we piracy coppers be?"
Hilarious!
Next, they'll be arresting the makers of terrible films on the gruonds that this reduces piracy by demotivating people to watch films... "Can't have you making this tripe--we need high-quality pictures for the pirates to pirate, so we can put a stop to it by arresting them!"
This is also why many Police Officers might personally believe in decriminalizing marijuana in the US, but their unions all give heavily to preventing that from ever happening: Because if there wasn't a huge underground economy thriving around marijuana, there'd be no need for the marijuana enforcement squad, would there? This would mean fewer Police Officers, thus fewer union members paying dues from salaries.
Who did what now?
If the quote is made up, it's not a quote now is it? ;-)
"If you refuse to sh*t out your elbows we're going to have to learn to tell the difference".
Slashdot is not about, and as long as I've been here never has been about, having the news first. Every story is a link to somewhere else - frequently the NYT, the Guardian, the BBC, Groklaw, the New Scientist or some guy's blog. Usually we've heard the news somewhere else before it hits Slashdot. Hell, most of us don't even bother reading the article; we read the summary and go 'Oh yeah, that - I heard that on [Site X]'.
What keeps us coming here is the discussion. Plagued though it is with trolls, and clueless though the typical moderators are, /.'s system nevertheless manages to disappear the most egregious flamers and pick out the worthwhile posts. And in any long /. discussion there are going to be a dozen or so clueful posters, and one or two experts in the field, giving much more in-depth analysis of the issue than you'll get from mainstream journalism.
If I read a story about something interesting on, say, the BBC's technology pages, I know it'll probably hit /. in a few hours, or at worst a couple of days, and once it does there'll be Interesting Discussion.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
This is one of the most asinine things I've heard in a long time! Just because one piece of software says that it can be distributed even though it's free does not mean that suddenly anti-piracy legislation is unenforceable!
I don't disagree with you that it's asinine, but you have to understand it from their point of view.
The word is coming down from on high to start policing copyright infringement, because some politicians are getting paid by the RIAA (or the UK equivalent). So government kicks into action to try to police that sort of thing. They encounter somebody burning copies of software and selling those. This is an instant red flag to them. Then they come to find out that not only is it totally legit, but actually encouraged.
In their mind, this makes the main thing they're looking for suddenly not always illegal. They don't know the license on each and every piece of software or other copyrighted material. They are looking to do their job in the easiest way possible. They were thinking somebody selling burned CD's = illegal. They were operating on that assumption. Now they are told that they must actually verify what's on those CD's and the licensing terms.
The "virtually unenforcable" is the giveaway line here. It's still perfectly enforcable, this woman just found out that it's not easy to enforce. They could see two people selling burned CD's, and one of them is legal while the other is not. The actions, on the surface, are identical, now they actually have to do work to determine legality.
It's a simple failure of comprehension of the task that they have been asked to do. They thought it was simple, but it's not, and they're understandably in shock at that fact. Okay, you and me understand copyright, and we knew this from the beginning, but this person clearly didn't. That is the disturbing part, and shows that the message being put forth by the RIAA is taking greater hold. Violating copyright is indeed illegal, but what constitutes that violation is more complex than simply burning CD's and selling (or giving) them to other people. The message they're pushing is that it's always wrong, and that message is getting through.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
But that's irrelevant. Just because he doesn't know that one is legal doesn't mean that he can't enforce the law on what's illegal. If that person can produce documentation, such as the EULA, that clearly states that selling a piece of software is legal, then he is exonerated from prosecution for selling that software only.
If someone is selling legal copies of software A and selling illegal copies of software B, then he can still be prosecuted for selling software B. The statement that I'm talking about makes it seem as though any legal selling automatically nullifies prosecutorial action for selling software illegally at the same time, which is ludicrous.
This sounds a lot like the "I didn't know it was illegal" excuse except from the policeman's point of view -- "I didn't know it was legal." The citizens are expected to know what's legal and what's not. There is no reason to not expect the same from our law enforcement officers.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
In a world where both types of software exist, greater discernment is required on the part of the enforcers. I hope this is the beginning of the end of any automatic assumption that sharing software with your neighbour must be a crime.
Yes, something really needs to be done here to reduce the confusion!
We must expand on current Free vs free terminology for this:
- Free = Libre (free to spread)
- free = Gratis (free to aquire)
- Freee = Commercial (free to charge for)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"Don't be overly harsh."
I'll be as harsh as I damned well please. If your JOB is to enforce the law, and you don't even bother to TRY and understand it, you deserve everything you get.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
>
People put tap water in a bottle and sell it for 2 pounds. Does he not know that people sell things with a price markup?
> 'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation'.
Whaaa? That's a non-sequitur. Let's strip that down: "If X is for sale, then it's impossible to enforce piracy against X."
At this point, I have to ask, seriously: is he retarded?
Can you blame him?
Yes. Why? Because this assumption is wrong:
He knows that both are operating systems, and therefore they should cost way more than 10 dollars. Therefore, in his mind, both people are pirating software
Also, because rather than treat copyright infringement as a violent crime subject to immediate arrest, a proper investigation should be undertaken to make sure a law is being broken before an arrest is made. These aren't violent crimes, so there is no urgent need to get a guy selling CDs off the street. Take a few minutes/hours/days to do some research and make sure a law is actually being broken before you arrest somebody.
If they don't do this, then everybody who is falsely arrested should file suit against said enforcement agency until they get the point and start doing their job properly and in the best interests of the citizens.
Zonk, READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE. No CDs were taken, period.
'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation'
Right. First, practically speaking, you should be able to differentiate between the most popular pieces of software in the first place (ie . everything from MS, Adobe, throw in some other big names is not open source, and on the other hand there are a few big open source software pieces you should know, if you call yourself a trade minster : OOO.org, Firefox, Linux, and a few others...)
Its not that hard, it just requires a so called minister or whatever that guy is, being a just a bit literate about whats going on in the software world or for that matter whats going on in the real world outside his office...
Yes, there are thousands of open source as well as commercial projects and no one can know them all (for those cases may I humbly suggest a database to keep track of them. Can anyone volunteer selling the department of trade a copy of MySQL ? We'll post bail... ) but not knowing the concept behind FIREFOX ??? Idiot...
"It goes against the grain to have this sort of thing going on in Great Britain. We've partially dismantled free speech and the freedom of movement. We will need to review what can be done to combat this new threat."
'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation'
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
He's not random Joe.
Wha...? Are they selling just a CD with Firefox on it (with only Firefox, it's a waste of a perfectly good CD-R) or are they charging labor to install it and giving them the CD afterwards? It's not that big of a file to download, even with a slow dialup connection and there is no point having it without internet access. It's becoming more common nowdays and I've even seen it free in certain magazines. But nonetheless, if Firefox was not free, I'd probably still pay for it.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
ironicly, when you read this..
I just sit back and think. it's not my problem.
yes it would suck to be in law enforcement right now.
but then again.. that is their passion, so to each his own.
If you want to eliminate ELUA's, you need to get your local taxing authority educated on them.
If I paid for Microsoft Office and all I got was the right to use it, it's pretty worthless to the taxing authority in terms of property tax. But whoever owns the license is leasing property in their taxing jurisdiction. They own property tax based on the ELUA. So if Office sells for $500, a certain amount of personal property tax needs to be paid by Microsoft each year.
I used to work in a retail store that sold software. The rule was that we could not return opened software (the reason given..they might have copied it)...
The idea that someone might want them to copy the software seemed to confuse the people working there also...
man, it's fun watching the world melt down over the perfectly legal sale of Firefox.
maybe now someone somewhere will actually READ the licenses involved. or maybe have it read to them as the case may be.
In fact, for most of the history of computers all software was free software (so `free software' was just called `software'): freely distributable source code. When governments allowed software (which is just maths after all) to be copyrightable, this gave rise to the proprietary software industry. Then, the dfistinction had to be made.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Support? What support?
May I suggest e-free? (shudder)
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation
Drat they're catching on to my plan! *flees*
I smell a great way to mess with the British police. Sew big pockets into a coat and fill them with legitimate burned copies of FOSS; then go to public areas offering people cheap software. Is it legal to set up a folding table in public areas to sell software, perhaps a public market sort of thing?
It's a terrorist plot.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
i am wanted to print out a copy of a large RFC because i was working with it heavily. the local kinkos called back and asked if i worked for ISOC, because it had a copyright. i told them that no, although i didn't, the material was free to copy and i could point them at a statement issued by the ISOC to that effect.
no, that wasn't sufficient. i would need to get a signed statement from them explicitly granting that particular shop permission to make physical copies. if they didn't want to limit distribution, why did the document contain a copyright notice?
of course i just found another shop..but as mch vitriol as people have for rms here, dont you think that he is right in this regard? that as the infrastructure gears up to support this property-based model, with increasingly complex rules and ambiguous enforcement, that the exchange of information in general suffers?
its not difficult to imagine moving to a place where it costs money and implies signficant legal risk just to distribute some information. given the rapacity and collusion in the industry, this could easily become a per-instance issue, effectively making it impossible to distribute information freely, regardless of the desires of the author.
Typically, law enforcement types don't act against businesses without some form of complaint. If Mozilla did not complain then who did? Presumably somebody like the UK version of the Business Software Alliance. If, in the course of investigating said business for BSA type priracy, they also found Mozilla stuff, they might assume (wrongly) that the Mozilla stuff was also pirated.
There is more to this story. I wonder if we'll ever find out.
Thank you, I just remembered what my favorite Python sketch is!
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
The Humanity...
"There are only two things I know that are infinite, the universe and stupidity; and I am not so sure about the universe"
Albert Einstein
99% of the posts here concentrated on the fact the Police "doesn't get the license". If the license says "I can bend over and you just do your thing" is it good to leave things like that?
When individuals sell free software, the people who buy it give from their hard earned salaries to buy something that is free because of lack of information, and the money go directly to the scammers, all of it, as a result damaging the reputation of Mozilla Corp. and preventing the unencumbered spread of that free software.
The fact the license allows it doesn't mean it's doing any good. This *IS* a hole in the license that scammers abuse a *LOT*.
And when the police calls and says "these guys are abusing your product to perform legal robbery on random folks" and Mozilla replies "yea that's ok", you know something is totally wrong here.
1. Burn CDs with Firefox, Thunderbird, Oo (etc)
2. Market it as "MicroShaft Office Professional" at carboot sales - a fiver a time
3. PROFIT!!!
4. (Profit a second time by suing the pants off the TS bastards who confiscated my stock and dragged me through court...)
Muahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
World domination!
Come on guys, at least Trading Standards were prepared to actually do something for once.
/Mad
Now, if it had been a rogue Builder.......
I am perplexed. Unless the copyright owner registers a complaint why on earth would the police do anything? My car has been broken into, radio stolen and even after I registered a complaint the cops wouldn't do anything! Someone downloads mozilla and burns it on rom for someone to buy for a few bob and the police show up????? YO COPS GET WITH THE PROGRAM AND GET REAL CROOKS!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
The average Trading Standards Officer is expected to have a working knowledge of a huge range of diverse issues from copyright, to advertising standards, to whether a toaster has a compliant plug on it. In practice, they're a downtrodden, government department with all the funding and resource management problems that go with it.
Rather than call into question the competence of the TSO, I'd rather blame copyright law for being unnecessarily complex.
Their site uses Microsoft--and worse yet, ColdFusion.
It is authorized. Period.
Any questions?
is that they are trying to enforce Piracy Protection for software that wants to be free! Let Them Pirate! It's FREE SOFTWARE!!!
get your dirty sig off me, you filthy APE!
The software licence says what the copyright holder/owner permits the user to do with said software. If it says that freely redistributable software may be freely redistributed, then there is no point to answer.
As has been pointed out (ad nauseam) above, not everyone has access to broadband, or a pal who has. Its often cheaper to pay a couple of quid to someone at a computer fair, a car boot sale or a computer mag to obtain a disk with a copy of the software you require rather than sitting through several hours of dodgy dialup download to get it "for free". Have you ever considered how long it takes to download a 5Mb file (Firefox) or a 6Mb file (Thunderbird) on a nominally 56Kbit modem link?
Anyone who has broadband can take advantage of the fact, those without may well find it more cost effective to buy a CD. Buyers have not been scammed. They paid for what they wanted and probably from an informed perspective. By your standards, anyone who has ever purchased a Linux distribution has been ripped off by s scammer. Nahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Think again.
There's nothing wrong, you just don't understand (rather like that TS officer...).
For a long time I thought it was *American* police who were stupid. This guy is making me question my most basic of beliefs.
Of course you are allowed to sell Free software. If you weren't, it wouldn't be Free. The thing that prevents overpricing is the fact that other people are allowed to sell the same thing as you, cheaper than you.
One of the things wrong with capitalism is the way that the sellers of goods are allowed to determine the selling price. This enables a player with sufficient reserves of money to enter a market and bankrupt their competitors, by selling a similar product cheaper than anyone else at a slight net loss. No-one can compete with this and they have to withdraw from the market. The major player then raises their price and begins recouping the losses they incurred with a vengeance.
In the Free Software marketplace, the barrier to entry is very low; all that you need to set up in business is a computer with a CD recorder and some Free software. You don't need masses of materials and you don't need an idea -- you don't even have to pay for someone else's idea. While someone could be selling Firefox CDs for £100 apiece, you could be selling equivalent CDs for £10 or even £5 apiece. You could even sell them for 20p each, though you would probably bankrupt yourself. The Market will work out a fair price which does not overburden vendors or purchasers.
Even if a piece of Free software is available from only one source for an extortionate cost, a group of people could still pool their resources, buy just one copy and then be permitted to distribute as many copies as they like, as cheap as they like.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I get this vision of a local British pub where people are regularly buying "free" beer for their mates.
Suddenly, a constable bursts in the door shouting "What's all this then?! You: did you pay for that beer you're drinking, mate? If not, we'll be taking a little trip back to the station."
n/t
Hey, I know a Joe from Indiana!
Small world.
God preserve us from idiots...
Nominally 56Kbit
I'm sure that if you "do the math" on typical dialup download rates you'll take longer than 15 minutes. Also, remember that what applies in the US doesn't hold for the rest of the world, internet connection costs are often arranged differently elsewhere.
As for your other point, you're confusing a situation where a person selling CDs containing Firefox was targetted by a Trading Standards officer "somewhere in England" with a typical Internet scam. The original article was about the understanding of copyright law/licences by an English Local Government Office, not with the activities of the rip-off clowns so prevalent in the US.
Looks like YOU missed the point completely.
Actually, it's a she. Better make that an alcopop. Preferably a big brand name alcopop that's popular on TV right now.
Nowhere in the article does it say they conficated CD's.
Yes, however, nowhere in the article does it say that they *didn't* confiscate CDs, and the author said that he asked the officer to "return any confiscated CDs."
So it's still possible (and implied) that there were CD consfiscated.
They were contacting him BEFORE they took action.
The action referred to is prosecution. Trading services officers are allowed by law to confiscate goods if they believe they are being traded unfairly. Once the goods are confiscated, they press charges.
She probably learnt all she knew from an RIAA/MPAA seminar.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
1) This is not the "UK Government" at work. Trading Standards is a function of local authorities, a borough, city or county council depending on where in England it took place. Just because one council's TS department is woefully uninformed doesn't mean they all are.
2) Although TS officers do have civil enforcement powers, they are not police. They are local government officers, and having worked in local government I can assure you that they will be on average as IT-literate as the population at large: i.e. not very.
I kinda hope that Charles looses his copyright battle on the ground of 'public interest', that way all you have to do is to show that something is or the public interest and the copyright owner can say goodbye to their monopoly.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The easiest way to sell free software CDs woulds probably be through the classified ads in the local paper or by putting up flyers. You could also sell it on private property (e.g.: the campus of a local college or uni). Offering support would probably greatly increase your chance of actually shifting many CDs though.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
if there's a list of "funniest /. posts ever" I hope yours is on it.
eom
My high school's bike lab did maintenance for Boulder's "green bike" program. The program took donated bikes, fixed them up, painted them green, put on a basket and some information about the program, and made them available for the public to use with the understanding that when you were done riding the bike (to the library, say) you left it for someone else to use.
We did a short documentary on the program. When we interviewed the guy in charge of maintenance we asked about theft issues. His response was "You can't steal a free bike." The same quip applies to free software. Projects like Mozilla and Linux want as many people to "steal" their software as possible.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
just a quick note to our atlantic cousins, and other non-uk readers. These officials are NOT cops, they are government officials in the same way as traffic wardens and council rent officers. They have no powers other than those related to specific sets of circumstances, for example a traffic warden cannot, as far as I know, arrest someone for murder. Like all public officials 'jobsworth's ', and rules followers often gravitate to these posts and they constantly seek to widen their areas of influence. Their habit of pronouncing on things they're ignorant about seems to be on the increase and is often given more prominence than it deserves. So responce to the article should be: nothing to see, move along....
They need to get together with the guys who built the quantum computer in the next thread over. That way they can do nothing and see a big decrease in illegal copying.
Anyway, I've noticed they've been doing quite a bit of advertising recently with their phone number on (mainly propoganda for the film industry), so I phoned them up and asked them what the purpose of their organisation was. They were pretty cagey, but I eventually got someoene to give me the mobile number of their PR guy.
I can't be bothered phoning it (as it costs me a lot ot phone mobiles), but if anyone is interested in finding more about the organisation, the guy is Eddie Leverton and his number is 07768057464. It might help if you pretend to be from the press or something, but I didn't.
"The idea that two people could engage in consensual sex because they love each other means we can no longer enforce laws against prostitution."
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
...officer is NOT the government BTW.
So your TAG line was grossly exaggerated, twat.
It seems to me that there are a great many people in this thread, a common identifier being the use of the phrase IANAL, who are debating whether or not this is permitted under the law, when the whole gist of the story is that it's a humourous anecdote demonstrating that it's been established as fact that this is permitted. So, um... why not find a more interesting area to discuss, this is kind of past the point of debate.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If I read a story about something interesting on, say, the BBC's technology pages, I know it'll probably hit /. in a few hours, or at worst a couple of days, and once it does there'll be Interesting Discussion.
And more often than not it will hit slashdot again a week later too.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
> Will someone please tell me what the hell this is supposed to mean?!
>> If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software,
>> it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view,
>> to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation.
Well very simple:
If Mozilla (and others) permit the sale of copied versions of its software, then this mean they have to find and read the licenses to make the differences between legals and illegal copies. Which mean they need to have employees who can read.
So 'from a practical point of view' teaching the monkeys (cf reference to banana merchant) to read software license is impossible.
I tried reading the comments on Digg. Childish, immature, offtopic, it was like reading slashdot at -1 with the all the insightful and informative comments missing. They made the average slashdotter look like a Mensa member. Too many one word posts and "digg it" for reading the comments to be worthwhile. I'm with the parent, I read slashdot for the interesting discussions.
english is way to easy
According to TFA, the entire story is completely wrong. No CDs were confiscated, no prosecution was intended--hell, it wasn't even about a single business! The authorities had found several businesses selling Firefox, and contacted the Foundation before doing anything about it.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
How about the case where Dell sues Paul Dell?
I mean, doesn't the UK have an RIAA? *gasp* Their law enforcement agencies are actually looking for apparent crimes being committed rather than sitting on their hands waiting for some whining complain...er, uh, potential plaintifs to come in and file a complaint? What do their poor lawyers do? How do they make ends meet?
Really, though, that statement does sound like it came out of one of their sitcoms...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
No, that's not true. And we don't normally call ourselves "the Great British"; though the adjective is nice of you to use to describe us (with a lower-case 'G', please ;-)), given that Brittany no longer has autonomy, there's no need to disambiguate between the inhabitents of our isles and those of a part of France - we use "British" as the adjective and sometimes the noun, and "Briton" (not "Breton", but etymologically related) as the noun, though the latter is sometimes used with overtones of racial reference.
Actually, the problem is that Apple Records's trademark covers the use of the term "apple" as a brand related to the creation and retail of music. The first was something that Apple Computers's computers became able to be involved with in the late '80s (hence the original case); the second case was related to the creation of the iTunes Music Store for the UK, which was thus trading in the UK using Apple Records's trademark in the retail of music. Quite simple, really.
... and in the UK, too.
James F.
Sounds like a case of Sour Grapes from the UK Establishment.
Tony Blair and his Cronies are best buddies with Chairman Bill and Steve from Microsoft. In fact, there have been notable large Public Sector contracts in the UK where Microsoft has given huge discounts to get the customer (funded by the UK tax payer) locked in.
It must be much to the chagrin of these PHBs and ignorant politicians to have to acknowledge that there exist cheaper, free-as-in-speech, open alternatives.
The "free-as-in-speech" and "open" parts are doubly painful to the Blair Administration, while they do everything possible to take away our democracy.
Stick Men
How do you get home from the library?
a.) offtopic- sometime i'm going to have to ask you to explain one of those statements, tom, but not now.
b.) ontopic- people DO pay for 1 atmosphere-level air... anyplace they can't get it naturally. That it is the same is part of its worth, not a detraction from its worth.
nothing else to add, just the observation that even regular air works as an analogy, because you're making something free but not always convenient (software) into something CONVENIENT but not always free for people (cd). A lot like the bottled water- some of which IS tap water.
Instead of being in a tap (online) it's from a bottle (cd.)
This does make the landscape a little more interesting.
s
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Am I the only one that caught this like 6 months ago?
http://www.oooff.com/
This shameless ripoff brought to you by linspire, the same people that made a company out of selling debian.
Evil Walrus >83=
Hey, why don't we jail people who sell bottled water too! I mean, you can collect that stuff from the rain or from a lake, for free. Selling it MUST be some kind of violation! And don't get me started on that evil public domain.
RTFGPL - Read the f*ck*ng General Public License !
10 [untranscribable and indescribable vocalizations and other noises]
20 Dude looks like a lay-dayyy!
30 Goto 10
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
From a law enforcement perspective, yes, it is a great difficulty.
Let's say I'm selling Firefox CD's and the cops arrest me, take my computer, take my CD's, publicize information that I'm a thief, yada yada yada. Now the Mozilla foundation rings up and says "hey, that's totally okay with us".. Suddenly not only am I vindicated, but I've got one hell of a good counter-lawsuit against the city.
It's a huge pain in the ass to verify that what somebody was doing was, in fact, illegal before actually arresting them for it. This is something that cops, very generally, don't do. They leave that to lawyers and prosecutors and such.
So in order to prevent wrongful arrest lawsuits against the city, lawyers and prosecutors tend to dumb the law down so that your average cops can understand it. They don't really need to know every single detail, just enough to tell them when to arrest somebody or not.
If you find somebody blatently selling burned CD's, how do you know if they're doing something legal or something illegal? If you have to actually look at the software they are selling and then contact the makers of that software (or find their statements online) before actually shutting the guy down, then yeah, that's a huge pain in the ass. You can't go by the license files the guy himself is giving you (he could be lying), and you can't go by what some random webpage says (it could also be a lie). You need a confirmed truth from the copyright holders mouth before they even take action in the first place.
This basically means that they'll have to know common open source packages, whether selling them is okay, etc, etc. It means a much more difficult training program, it means a much more complex set of guidelines to follow in determining whether or not they should take action against somebody. They have to distill all this information down into what are the possible crimes that can be committed so that the people actually enforcing can understand these things. And yeah, that's a huge pain in the ass.
Oh, and BTW, it's a GOOD thing that it's a huge pain in the ass, because it means that most of these bullshit IP laws will end up going unenforced. That's always nice.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
...the propeller-heads that coined the term "free as in beer, not as in speech" thought it was so cute and witty that it didn't matter of the average Joe still can't understand the concept.
The overloaded naming convention is one of the largest obstacles to this concept. And it seemed like (prior to finally "getting it") whenever I asked an expert to explain it, I was spoken down to as an inferior for not grasping such and obvious concept.
Maybe a better communicator can rename the entire movement and save some confusion.
Eh, in the words of the ZIL interpreter:
Not bloody likely.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
IAAL, and I can't help but laugh when someone on /. starts a post with "Now, IANAL, but ..." then proceeds to offer what is invariably flawed legal analysis on the matter at hand. I can't help but cry when I see the number of positive replies the aforementioned post gets. The occasional post like yours gives me hope, but I think those that would have sanity, common sense, and reasoned thinking reign victorious on /. are fighting a losing battle.
Who gives a shit? Especially when digg's moderation and comment system produces nothing but shit.
Are you another one of those people who are astroturfing for digg? Why do you post anonymously? And why are do you use the contrite and condescending term "folks"? Why don't you go and "sharpen up" digg's comment moderation system? Or go to kuroshin; they've been doing the "we're better than slashdot!" since before digg existed, so that should make them better since they did it first, right?
Nathan's blog
This is what happens when the criminal branch takes over the enforcement of what should be civil matters. With no basis whatsoever, and with no complaint from an aggrieved party, they jump in and assume a crime is happening - action must be taken! Shoot first, ask questions later.
Being a task force dedicated to enforcing a certain statute, their response is not balanced investigation, but heavy-handed action to justify their own existence.
You also have to wonder where the "problem" came from? Did someone from their task force wander into a store and see $10 CD's and think "My God! They're only charging $10 for something like a program Microsoft gives away for free, so it must be stolen software!". You would think computer literacy would be a minor requirement of their job...
Or did a competitor make an anonymous call to tie the seller up in red tape and legal fees for the forseeable future?
This is the insidious side of these laws and enforcement regimens - The keystone kops and their 'assumptions' can make doing business a risky task full of random expensive potholes. That's a quick way to kill commerce.
A complaints-based system would function much better. If MS feels they're being ripped off, they can file a complaint. If it's a case of a small company that can't afford their own investgators, then the first time they encounter a "pirate", they should be able to file a standard complaint to "please look for this type of software". Generally, I saw (i.e. when FCC standards were being implemented) that honest merchants were quite willing to turn in their cheating competitors.
I don't know where they thought they had "reasonable grounds", but a task force so inept and unknowledgable probably shouldn't be out and about without adult supervision. "It was only $10 so it must be stolen" is not reasonable grounds. If this is the first they've heard of the open software movement, they obviously aren't competent to judge what is reasonable.
And with a bit of luck, people that missed the discussion on slashdot the first time still get the change to read a similar discussion when the dupe is posted a few days later ;)
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Thanks man, that's the best sum-up of the Bible I've ever seen. Care to do Islam or Hindu?
What could be better than a jet powered motorcycle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8l6GTHLSWE
Got quite a chuckle out of this. I think you'll see a lot more of this sort of thing in the near future. Why do you think that, for example, the arr-eye-ay-ay and the emm-pee-ay-ay want to so burden software and hardware with DRM that it will ultimately make it difficult, if not down right impossible, for you to freely share even something that YOU yourself created? Because it undermines their LP-era system. If people demonstrate that it's possible to freely distribute software, music, or video without DRM or limitations and still be successful, it gives the lie to the "party line" that the Big Boys need to be protected or they will go belly-up.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation.
If you give away canned food to the homeless it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-theft legislation.
The proper response to her "virtually impossible" comment would be "Ummm, and as copyright holders that's our problem how again?". :)
Folks, you really need to sharpen up a bit.
Thanks, but us grownups mostly don't have hours every day to spend reading every post on not one but multiple news aggregation and discussion sites. When you start working someday you'll understand.
Isn't the point that with the permissible sale of Mozilla products and derivative works, to ensure that The Rules are being followed (in regard to only official Mozilla versions baring the Mozilla trademark etc.) the police would have to have a much more intimate knowledge of the software than they would in usual 'closed source' cases? For example, to be sure of knowing what is a derivative work, they would need to compare copies they find with each official release from Mozilla, and the same would apply for every other GPL/MPL/etc product under inspection. That's a lot of work compared to the traditional "these MS Office CDs weren't burnt by Microsoft; take them away" approach.
So no, I don't think the police are really having trouble understanding the licence[s] involved; they're just a lot more complicated to enforce than traditional licences. However, this is not to say that complaining about this is an acceptable response; they'll just have to develop new systems to deal with it. Law enforcement, government etc. must keep up with society rather than trying to hold it back due to their inadequacies.
Invisible to moderators.
and the people who miss the comments can read the repeats of those comments further down the page
Trading standards investigation and enforcement is done at a local level by local councils in the UK, so it is misleading to blame HM Government for it..
After all, there are plenty bigger things to blame them for..
"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."
If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, then no piracy is occurring, and no enforcing of UK anti-piracy legislation is necessary.
You know, there seems to be a lot of comments about 'those silly cops' or such, who don't understand the licensing. But before we all start pointing and laughing, I *really* wish someone would explain the license to the developers using it. I can't explain how much it exasperates me that I have to click 'I Accept the GPL' box to install so many GPL'd apps..
+5 Insightful, really!
All sex is paid for, one way or another.
Wow, selfcritisism on slashdot! It hurts! ;) Too true, though...
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Welcome to Open Source where piracy doesn't exist.