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Congress Asks Universities To Curb Piracy
The Illegal Subset of the Integers writes "According to Ars Technica, Congress has sent letters to 19 universities identified by the RIAA and MPAA as havens for copyright infringement. In it, they not only seek to discover what these universities are doing to dissuade students from infringing activities, but give the implied threat. House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
One wonders, though, what the universities are supposed to do when international disrespect for imaginary property rights is so widespread that there are currently over two million hits on Google for a certain oft-posted illegal number, up from the three hundred thousand hits from sometime yesterday."
To curb the bullshit. (And they seem to be off to a good start during the past few months, except for this.)
I mean, as long as we're asking for stuff we're not going to get...
I just searched on DC++ for "Spider-Man 3" and the results gave me "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
/. and click the link to this article, and I got a page saying "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
Then I come to
They're out to get me. *huddles in a corner, grasping at his tinfoil hat*
I believe that a number of universities have taken this approach and left it at that. There are a number of things that are done in a university setting that would be considered illegal anywhere else. From what I understand, the general consensus is that this should fall under the same protection. After all, isn't college a collection of curious students trying to learn?
TFA isn't clear if the letters were sent by Congress as a whole (unlikely, that would take a joint resolution of both houses), by a particular Committee, or by a handful of members of Congress. The only member clearly involved is a member of the minority party who isn't even in the minority leadership on the Committee mentioned, who is also, apparently, the source of threats of action.
University students ask Congress to shorten copyright terms.
If Congress is forced to "act" by re-evaluating the entire copyright system, discovering the unfairness and complete futility of the DMCA, defining fair use, and shifting the balance of power back to the citizens (not "consumers"), then that could be a good thing...
...but I'm not holding my breath.
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
"Imaginary property rights"? The right to have the right to say how something you own is used is an imagenary right? Artists have assigned control over their art to representatives, as is their right. Clearly this is the issue, than.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Well, if the English Language were consistent, it would be Congress.
"No one's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.", Mark Twain
The students at University will often end up in Software Development, Law, Arts etc.. they know what they are doing. Students don't have the spare cash that employed people have.
there is nothing imaginery about the fact that if you work for years producing some digital content, you have the right to decide what to charge for it. The fact that a lot of people willfully ignore the law and take what isn't there's anyway does not make the property rights 'imaginery' any mroe than the preponderence of people breaking the speed limit makes the speed limit imaginery either.
I guess the submitter would prefer it if the whole concept of copyright and IP did not exist, but I wouldn't get your hopes up for any new movies, TV, music, softwre or games in that case.
I wish all the people moaning about the fact that 99% of entertainment content is commercially produced and requires payment would stop moaning and just produce some free content instead. Could it be that its way easier to complain about the content produced by other people than it is to actually contribute anything yourself?
On behalf of universities everywhere, I'd like to ask Congress to stop being the RIAA and MPAA's bitch.
Last time I was stopped at a light on the perimeter road of my local university a vessel approached me and demanded all the tea and spices in my hull. When I told them I didn't know what they were talking about, they shot a canonball at the side of my car.
It's about time Congress stepped up to protect the people from these pirates! I had to miss class that day (that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
More Twoson than Cupertino
what does congress expect universities to do short of outright CENSORING school computers? What they don't realize is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to stop students from using other computers that they have no way of controlling. Even if they did CENSOR the students online what can they do to stop encrypted/TOR/off network access? What about the tried and true downloaders who share wifi hot spots at cyber cafes etc. utterly hopeless for them me thinks.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
OK, I must be out of the loop. What is this talking about?
Dear Congressmen:
When you pass a bill lowering my tuition from $30,000 a year, and room and board from $9,000, I will stop downloading the same amount in copyrighted material. Until then, I'll ask you to please cram it up your ass.
Sincerely,
The student body of Ashland University
Ashland, Ohio
We're all going to die. i intend to deserve it.
Several high level members of the RIAA and MPAA were reported coming out of the offices of Lamar Smith and several other congress members, smiling and waving, along with an odd white frosting on their lips.
Internet Whack-a-Mole is a game that you can not win, not even if congress tries to help you. The problem is that when the **AA tries to play IWaM(TM) they don't have enough hammers, and never will. Colleges are one of those places where people who want to share music can and will share music. Refer back to the sneaker-net theory of file sharing:
One student and 25 of their best friends join a pool. The pool members make a list of the music they would like to have a copy of. Each of the pool members buys a music CD from the list and 25 blank CDs. After making the requisite 25 copies, they all get together for some beer and a CD swap party. If done with discretion, nobody at the RIAA will ever know. The quality of the music is high, there is no record of the transaction that the school or ISP can hand over to the RIAA, there is no way to detect this copyright infringement. BTW, 26 x 25 = a loss of 650 CD sales in one night, in one location.
If the RIAA continues on their path to destitution, this is how music will be shared in the future, the same as it was shared in the past. IWaM is stupid, stupid, STUPID.
If the RIAA member companies were to do something that would make their product (distribution of someone else's content) more desirable, or valuable then they would again see rising revenues. Their business is outdated, and dying. Congress can't save them. God himself (if he exists) couldn't even save that business model.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The HJC has no business being a mouthpiece of the MAFIAA.
The fact that such corruption is now being done so openly highlights how bankrupt our public institutions have become. This is going to end in civil war.
I personally think they should go for option (2). I mean, many universities are already going that route. For example, MIT course material is being made avaiable via Open CourseWare. Also, many academics are pushing for open access to all academic publications.
So, really, given that universities are supposed to be (and frequently are) institutions dedicated to dissemination of information, free speech, intellectual progress, and radical ideas... isn't it entirely consistent with the ethos (even their mandate) to not act as enforcers of copyright law? (Note: I'm not claiming that the universities have to actively encourage copyright infringement, merely suggesting that it is not their role in society to enforce those laws, even on their own campuses.)
From the blurb: ... there are currently over two million hits on Google for a certain oft-posted illegal number...
Tell me: how can a number be illegal? What if they had used a normal word as the key, would that word then suddenly be illegal?
-- Cheers!
While congress ensures that the rich don't stop getting richer anytime soon, we still have pressing social issues with which to deal.
The fact that copyright infringement, no matter how widespread, seems to regularly top news feeds lately is just further evidence we as a society are losing sight of our real threats: Further absolution of previously vaunted personal liberties, the lower class continuing their gradual attempts to topple society, and every special interest group out there with their pet right they're trying to get removed.
Thank you congress, for accomplishing nothing beyond the placation of your idiot single-issue voter bases and largest campaign contributors.
Good to see that I'm not the only one who sees things as they really are.
What?
I attend one of these universities. I don't think I should name which one, but I like their anti-piracy policy.
The university does not monitor student activity. If the RIAA or MPAA determines that a student's activities are possibly illegal, they must formally request the information from my university. Following this, the university will begin an internal investigation to ensure that wrong-doing was going on. If it was, only then will anything be turned over.
It's not the job of a university to police its students. The job of the university is to educate.
--Thomas J. Owens
As a student of the one of the mentioned universities, I have already taken it upon myself to write to my chancellor in response to this story.
I charge other students of mentioned universities to do their duty and protect their university and fellow students in the same manner. Universities should not be punished for anonymizing or protecting the privacy of students as long as due diligence is taken to try and stop copyright infringment.
Do your part and write to those in charge, and tell them that they should defend their university and their students from arbitrary threats from the music cartels.
Dear Congress, MPAA, RIAA, Go fuck yourself. Sincerely, University of x.
I'm so tired of watching congress protect the corporations from the people. It's supposed to be the other way around!
They want to hold the universities responsible for what the students download or search out? That's absurd. Next they are going to send a C&D to the ISP that provides the connection we use to obtain a widely known key that on this site alone has been posted over 1 trillion times. I validate that by saying 73.5% of all online statistics are made up as they are typed.
This would cost an awful lot of money, simply because of scale, and the diverse needs of the community. There are 15000+ students at my (not on the list) school, with at least 7000 of those on campus residents. About 80% of the off-grounds people have laptops, and maybe 15% bring them to class daily. That means that during the day you have in excess of 2000 laptops connecting throughout the day, in addition to the 6000 computers in people's dorms, and the 1000ish in libraries and computer labs, and you hit 9-10 thousand computers on your network on an average day. You can't monitor or sort that traffic cheaply.
Given that no University (especially not a top-25 one like mine) wants to be seen as anti-digital-freedom to prospective students, no college can really afford to go to a locked-down system of "block everything but ports 80, 8080, and AIM", because, well, they can't afford to politically, and there are dozens of departments that need to use Technology X on Port Y.
Essentially, colleges have to chose between massively inconveniencing legitimate uses and spending truckloads of money badly needed elsewhere at colleges.
It's wonderful to know that what with nuclear proliferation, thousands of Americans dead in Iraq (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis), a President that insists on a millitary "carte blanche" despite his downwardly spiraled track record, international tension at its highest levels since the Cold War, and the highest fuel prices the world has ever seen (with no alternative in sight), it's wonderful to know that the US government has time for the really IMPORTANT issues.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
My best hope is that they simply shut down all access to the commercial music that today's kid enjoy so much, so the kids will have to learn to survive on college made jam, and the labels will receive no revenue whatsoever.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Haven for piracy?
Did that mean they didn't volunteer to hand over private data of their students to the RIAA when asked?
If that is the definition of a haven for piracy, then I want to attend those schools.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If students didn't want to have congress work against their privacy rights, they should have voted for someone else when the election they were likely too young to take part in was held!
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
And thats that. And apparently RIAA rules united states, not "the people".
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Read radical news here
To mirror Texan sentiments from their Revolution against Mexico, "Come and take it"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_take_it)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
"Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'"
What the schools should say:
'Here's what we're doing to curb piracy: we respond to subpoenas signed by a judge to their full extent. We remove infringing content that has been identified by its owner in full compliance with the DMCA.
Oh, you wanted us to do your job for you? Don't think so.
I'm in favor of anything that makes students work harder to get a measurable and meaningful reward, e.g. music & videos. Any barriers schools put up will only encourage students to learn more computer science in order to evade the barriers.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Unspoken is the fact that up to a generation ago, universities did just that. Universities have recently seen an opportunity to monetize their innovation and defray growing costs. There still has not been sufficient public debate about the law and ethics surrounding publicly-financed institutions patenting, licensing and in some cases directly capitalizing IP developed with public funds, often explicitly funded by DAPRA, NIH, etc.
illegitimii non ingravare
Make college cost $10K a year again and maybe students will be able to afford $700 software.
Only 4 of the 11 Big Ten schools were singled out. I feel honored to include my own Purdue University among the few.
Go Boilers!
add this to the list of ways the RIAA/MPAA try to stop P2P but actually end up pissing off its own customers. You know, if they spent half the time and resources they do in their witch hunts on a education/PR campaign they would have much better results. Instead of using FUD, educated the people on what they are doing and what it constitutes. Downloading a CD from thePirateBay is stealing, but copying a CD you bought is not. Draw some lines, let them be known, and maintain your image while still fighting your fight. Probably to late for that now though... oh well...
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
If you DID spent all those years creating content, there is a high probability that such content would be overshadowed, shelved, or not seen simply because the studios will blind any competitors with their money and advertising. This issue is not about anyone's right to their own property, but the idea that everyone's rights to a even playing field is upset by a company that uses the money you give them to monopolize the stage. That is why artists should be upset as well as their chances of even a modicum of success are diminished.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but Universities/Schools are now spreading MPAA/RIAA/IP/Copyright propaganda all over the place. They have special courses/subjects dedicated to spewing this propaganda (and you don't get the marks on the paper unless you play along!). As a result, graduate students (even from school) are getting into the real world believing that making a backup copy of your own legitimate store-bought Windows CD is not just illegal, but also immoral. They're being taught that you can't transfer your music from a legit store-bought CD to your iPod, without paying for it a second time using iTunes.
Their propaganda certainly works, and I've had to reeducate quite a few people to relieve them of this brainwashing.
Most people aren't as smart and intelligent as Slashdot users. All too often I hear people justify the MPAA/RIAA with "it comes up at the start of movies and it says you can get a huge fine for breaking the law". This represents the majority of the population. Whatever is shown on their TV or movie screen, is truth and nothing but the truth.
Besides, why does Congress think that colleges should be the ones enforcing and policing someone else's laws/problems? That is the task of the police and the copyright holders, not the job of TAX PAYERS who contribute towards the running costs of schools and colleges (which waste their time solving the MPAA/RIAA's problems).
in one corner, grumpy old men who simply don't understand the full ramifications of the internet, issuing law after law after law
in another corner, technically astute, highly motivated, media loving, and most of all, poor teenagers
it doesn't matter what some corporation thinks is right and wrong. it doesn't matter what out of touch with reality laws a bought and sold congress passes. it doesn't matter how huge their financial war chest. it doesn't matter how large their army of lawyer whores. it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter
what matters is what is going to happen, and what is already happening. events now surrounding media and the law and internet seem to have an air of inevitability about them to me. time will simply take care of the details, but the ending in sight seems fixed and immutable: unenforceable and universally ignored and shortcircuited intellectual property laws. a colossal joke. for better? for worse? who knows. but inevitably so
riaa, mpaa, dmca, etc. used to infuriate me. now i am more sanguine about events. because i don't see how history can be changed, how the genie can go back in the bottle. some old grumpy men simply do not get what is happening, and never will. and the only solution is to let them die off. and so they will. and so time will take care of this problem
people who get into legal incriminations and moral hysterics about the inevitable unstoppable alterations the internet is making to media and the law just put me to sleep now: they simply don't matter anymore, and they are the only ones who don't realize that. let the dinosaurs die, and simply avoid the swings of the old dumb lizard's faltering weakening tail. let time take it's toll on those with minds too brittle and sight too dim to adapt to the new reality. the new reality: the full ramifications of media on the internet and what it fully means for society and companies and how media is produced and consumed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...Congress is dying.
Can it be any clearer to average Americans; Government will allow all your hands-on, technical, dirty, manual, but well-paying jobs go to other countries without hardly a gasp, but fight tooth-and-nail to protect an elite few who own, run, and work in the movie industry. An industry that cannot possibly own all mindshare as globalization continues, a pointless industry that actually produces nothing long-lasting, bankable, and advanced(like a pyramid or a profitable niche industry; just fake sets and technology), an industry that captures, monopolizes, and narrows popular culture draining away money and attention from local venues and real talent, an industry that simply cannot support all Americans.
...of which side Congress is likely to turn out to be regarding the CRB royalty decision, the Webcasters may be due for a severe disappointment.
... and it looks like I probably won't vote for him next time, either.
"If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act."
Funny, I thought government had the monopoly on force. Or do corporations (the MAFIAA) have more force than the government now?
The university administrations should say a polite "Thank you for your letter" and file it in the round filing cabinet.
> Tell me: how can a number be illegal?
:(
Under the DMCA "trafficking" provisions, they're claiming that the 09 F9 number you've seen if you read Slashdot is part of an illegal circumvention device. Never mind the fact that it's totally useless without some complex software I doubt most of us have a copy of (I sure don't). The one bit of good news is that the DMCA is a US law. The bad news is that the US has a bad habit of "exporting" bad laws and enforcing them against people like Dmitri Skylarov who aren't even US nationals when they get the chance.
> What if they had used a normal word as the key, would that word then suddenly be illegal?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the law has to make sense. I sincerely wish that were true, but we live in a world where courts have declared that tomatoes are vegetables, even though botanists insist they are technically fruits.
My non-lawyer, uninformed guess would be that they wouldn't sue you for using the word itself, but for letting people know that it happened to be the key to whatever, just like they've nailed people for posting links to sites if it was clear they knew there was illegal content there, even though the people in question weren't distributing anything illegal. The irony being that they most likely included the very same "illegal" links in their own legal filings and on the court records.
No sir, I'm sorry, but I think you'll find that the laws are written by highly imperfect beings and interpreted by judges who do their best to make due with a lot of self-contradictory rules and flawed legal principles.
In short, yes, they really can write laws and make rulings that make no sense whatsoever, that contradict incontrovertible facts, and which are self-contradictory. It doesn't make sense. It never has made sense. But, alas, it does happen
Hex, octal, binary, Base64, or Base32?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Nice. We have the worlds LARGEST market pirating entire theme parks, and we are worried about a little economic loss from cash-poor college students? Don't we bleed them enough with Fannie Mae loans?
Once upon a time, we were the world leaders in the free exchange of ideas. Many of our universities surpassed even institutions like Oxford, because we cherished the idea of free ideas. Today though, St George has become the dragon he slew. Today, all ideas are to be owned and monetized, and information is valuable enough to wage war over. Once, we killed each other over ports, trade, gold, and mines. Today, we have nothing left to fight over, so we must imagine property to kill and enslave each other for. Movies, music, literature hold no value without a reader or listener, their value is purely virtual. Do we really need to threaten our youngest with a future police state over things that do not exist, and never will?
Dear Congress,
As requested by the MPAA we are currently doing everything we can to ban the numbers 0, 9, 11, 2, 9, 74, 5, 8, 41, 56, 5, 63, 56, 88 and the letters f, d, e, b, and c from our campus. The math and english departments are giving us some resistance, but we should have them under control soon.
--The University
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Step 1: Create broken legislation
Step 2: Appeal to government funded institutions to provide free customer service
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!!!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
How about Congress start worrying about their own problems (balancing their budget, ending a futile war, etc) instead of getting involved in private business?
except that congress is not currently representing the people, congress is currently representing the money. so the people cannot revoke copyright laws. because the people currently have no representation in congress. mr. lobbyist and his fat check does. so the conflict cannot be solved in washington dc
sonny bono and his ilk will fatten and fatten the cow of intellectual property. meanwhile, the internet is only getting more upiquitous, faster, and technological means of file sharing only getting more anonymous and easier to use
history is full of these sorts of issues coming to the head with no proper recourse. so recourse still occurs, it just occurs underground
until such time that copyright laws are an open joke, and are completely ignored, by everyone. of course people will still try to enforce them, and of course a few unlucky souls will be sacrificed on the altar of those-who-do-not-get-it. but by and large, those at the top are completely out of touch with what is happening in the realm of copyright laws and the ramifications of the internet on them
the future for the usa is china, where ip laws are not enforced and are openly flaunted, and artists make their money via sponsorship and advertising, and there really is no media conglomerates
which, although i have a lot of problems with the authoritarian nature of china, is obviously a superior situation, on the subject of intellectual property. and china's status quo was arrived at not because the technocrats in beijing were enlightened on the subject, but because the people on the streets just laugh at the idea of intellectual property, as they should, as we should
we should not afraid of the riaa/ mpaa and their gobs of cash and legions of lawyer whores. we should laugh at them. a few us will get caught and squashed like a bug, but if you scurry around at night and are a little careful, you can go on living your life with the proper respect that bloated corporate-interest serving american copyright laws deserve: absolutely none
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That said, I think the Military Industrial Complex is a far more insidious and dangerous entity and poses a much stronger threat to Democracy in the United States. The problem is that they have infested many of the congressional districts and states so that no lawmaker will deny their spending (as it means jobs and constituent happyness for the politico).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
It is extremely telling that we do not hear anything like this from Congress on issues that actually matter, such as environmental pollution, sweatshops and child labor in third-world countries, the IMF and the World Bank attempting to privatise, among everything else, the water systems of those same countries, electronic voting, the war in Iraq, violation of the Geneva conventions, and the list goes on.
No, we only hear this kind of forceful talk when the issue benefits corporations and business interests. We get our Congress going after universities, because some students download music for free. What kind of priorities are these? I would have to say that this is just one example, of many, that categorically proves who controls the government now. This government is not ours, and it does not have our interests anywhere near the top of its list. This is a government begging to be radically altered or overthrown.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
But stealing thousands of dollars of intellectual property by the college student? A cherished right for all Americans! But the college student is poor you whine. He can only afford to steal music onto his 1000$+ computer, so he can listen on his 100$+ iPod, before he goes to blow a few dozen dollars on beer? You can't take away the rights of "poor" college students to steal IP. Please.
Wow! You know you have a lot of power when you can tell congress to directly protect your interests. Think about it this way:
:(
Since when did Congress get into being the personal police enforcement unit of the RIAA?
If that isn't the equivalent of being RIAA's bitch, I don't know what is.
If only RIAA would use their power for good, instead of evil. Maybe they could have congress bid for world peace, or getting healthcare for everyone in the United States, or maybe even tackling corruption, inflation, or increasing minimum wage... oh wait!! That's what congress is SUPPOSED to be doing!! My bad
I am open source, and Linux baby!
Today's pirating student is tomorrow's paying customer. When I was a student I didn't have money, so
I never paid for music, computer games or any other software - I copied it.
Once I started working I had money and I started buying all these things that I learned to appreciate through copying.
siener's youtube channel
...to extend copyright every time Mickey Mouse is at risk of becoming public domain.
Blar.
Funny that you mention it. If you're a student stuck on a Windows machine (like I am, half of the time):
.mp3 format and put them on your iPod with iTunes.
1. Register for Ruckus.com
2. Download their (piece of complete shit) proprietary "Ruckus Player."
3. Search and download whatever music you want using the service.
4. Strip the DRM from your songs with FairUse4WM
5. Convert them to
6. Don't worry about things like this affecting you.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Most pirated copies do not equal lost sales!
Most pirated copies do not equal lost sales!
Most pirated copies do not equal lost sales!
Piracy is just free advertising!
Piracy is just free advertising!
Piracy is just free advertising!
Piracy is not the same as counterfitting!
Piracy is not the same as counterfitting!
Piracy is not the same as counterfitting!
I went to college not so long ago, back when MP3s were first becoming the rage (before Napster). We all downloaded and shared pirates MP3s and built up large MP3 collections.
Did any of those copied MP3s result in lost sales for the record companies? No, hardly any did. We were poor college students. If we couldn't have pirated copies for free, we would have simply gone without.
This is true of every form of content piracy I've ever witnessed. I know someone who modded a PS2 and loaded it up with hundreds of pirated games. Would he have bought most of those games if he couldn't have pirated them? Of course not -- he couldn't afford to. He would have simply not had the games.
Piracy does not have much real impact on sales, and most stats citing "industry losses due to piracy" are fabricated bullshit. All piracy does is allow people who can't afford the product still get access to it. And that's not a bad thing, as it's free advertising.
As an college degree-holding adult who can now afford things, I bought many CDs by bands I only knew about because I had pirated their early stuff back in college. Had I not done that, I wouldn't have bought their CDs years later, because I wouldn't have even known about them. Similarly, I can now afford to purchase software like Photoshop that I wouldn't know how to use (and wouldn't have any reason to buy) today if I hadn't pirated the software back in college so that I could learn how to use it. Just more evidence that piracy is the strongest form of free advertising, and companies should learn to leverage that instead of trying to stomp it out.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I recommend that you download the full set of specifications.
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curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Prerecorded_0.912_redline_to _0.911.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Recordable_0_92_redline_to_0 _91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_and_DVD_Prerecorded_0_91 2_redline_to_0_911.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_Recordable_0.921_2006072 5-diff.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Prerecorded_0.912_change_lis t.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Recordable_0.92_change_list. pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_and_DVD_Prerecorded_0_91 2_change_list.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_Recordable_0.921_change_ list.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specs091/AACS _Spec_Common_0.91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specs091/AACS _Spec_Prerecorded_0.91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specs091/AACS _Spec_Recordable_0.91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_BD_ Prerecorded_0.912.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_BD_ Recordable_0.92.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_HD_ DVD_and_DVD_Prerecorded_0_912.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_HD_
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Dear Congressman,
We appreciate your concern for our educational environment. We also appreciate your attempts to aid us by offering to legislate our educational programs. We will be sure to share the knowledge of your offer with our students, alumni, faculty, supporters, and local media members to bring forth more exposure of the proposed legislation and support for it. Hopefully, we can work together to find a solution where the Congress can fully shape the moral quality of our students.
Thank you,
youradouchebag
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That'll give the CS students and PhD's some more incentive to come up with real anonymous file sharing.
Where's the synthesis between Emule/Kad, BitTorrent and Tor, packaged in innocuous HTTP?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Out of all the universities in the US, only 19 receive the letter? I fail to believe that only 19 universities have had repetative cases with copyright infringement issues with regard to Hollywood's video and audio priorites.
Has Congress forgotten about the TEACH Act already? Seems that they have, since they are sending out letters demanding more action from universities. There is specific language in the act pertaining to university action against copyright infringement. If it has been forgotten, what a waste of taxpayers' dollars that was.
I would rather see Congress deal effectively with identity theft than be the enforcement wing for the RIAA/MPAA. Protect the people versus protecting coorporations.
Wasn't there such logic at one point that effectively said "for the good of the many"? Seems lopsided in this whole deal.
We all know that college students have no money to buy music, so **AA doesn't get paid either way. Additionally, I like the idea of the leaders of tomorrow living in fear/hate of **AA. It may take longer than we want, but if you back college students with copyrights, then copyrights will be history in 100 years.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
I went to two of those 19 universities, one for my undergrad degree and one for grad school. And now I work on the campus of a third. It's not just a money issue -- yes, where I did my undergrad degree everyone was flat-ass broke, but in grad school most of the undergrads (not us Ramen-eating TA's) had plenty of daddy's money. It comes down to all the other issues that copyright law keeps going back and forth over. Kids -- and that means most of us into our late 20s and early 30s, even -- share stuff. If you're 18 years old and you've just heard this great new song, what's the first thing you do with it? You play it for your roommate, and her friend, and her boyfriend, and a week later 3/4 of your whole dorm building is singing it in the shower (er, not at once). And anyway, what 19-year-old doesn't think sticking it to the man is a good idea? Next thing you'll be saying college kids drink, too! *gasp, shock* In the meantime, Congress can keep their hands out of my alma mater(s). This is so far from being an appropriate congressional issue right now that it's laughable.
I created a music player that plays zip files of my music encrypted with the names of prominent Congresswhores, such as 'Lamar Smith'. Obviously, he's disseminating my decryption keys unlawfully. There are over five infringing keys just on his home page, as well as sneaky attempts at avoiding detection by placing the key in images, and posting half of it preceeded by 'Congressman'.
The DMCA is obviously on my side, and I will be sending takedown notices to quite a few websites. The civil suit of 150,000 bucks per infringment won't be bad either - I can use it to lobby Congress to outlaw lobbyists, or even get some canidates who represent people, rather than industry groups.
What is the worst case scenario here for the music industry? The model is dying.....so lets say they go belly up. Music will still find a way to the people and someone will make money doing it. Maybe not as much as before, but it will happen.
So what is our motivation to stop(other than it is illegal)? New music will still find its way to us and the price may actually reflect fair market value. So legal downloads without DRM are on the way. I say let the RIAA die.
If you want to get a fair market value for something, put it on eBay. Start a CD at $0.99 and see how much it goes for. That is what should be charged to buy it.
The universities should answer with "go fuck yourself", wrapped in suitably nice legalese, of course.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Weblo looks interesting to poke around. Thanks.
I would like to buy music in mp3 format on a DVD. The DVDs titles should be:
1. All of rock
2. All classic
3. Top 1000 for 2007
and a few more. i would be happy to pay premium or $20 for it.
And when HD players become more common, I would buy buy the "Top 10,000 songs for 2009" disk as well.
no need to involve congress or to sue anybody here.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
first? Culture of Corruption: Mainstream Media Ignores Conflict
See what happens when you kids get out of hand. Sites like Slashdot and Digg encourage lawlessness and now you are going to have the federal government becoming involved.
Congress is a product of a process controlled by the political parties. The political parties are in turn controlled by monied and powerful interests who let the parties know who they will back, and who they will not. The parties pick from candidates that can get backing, of course, otherwise they will be picking candidates who cannot advertise, campaign and travel freely - in other words, losing candidates. Once acceptable candidates are chosen, then they let the people vote on which one of these hand-picked people is to continue in the (very, very expensive) process. Once elected, carrying out any promises made during the political campaign is strictly optional.
In this way, congress (and the senate, and the presidency) end up being 100% made up of people selected by those same monied and powerful interests. "the people" do not control the type of person, or the obligations of that person. Once in power, the usual currency of politics - being supported to run again by the party, junkets, "fact-finding" trips, dinners, appointments to powerful committees, visits to the white house, campaign contributions, rubbing elbows with the powerful, pork for their district, commitments for speaking engagements, returning as a lobbyist, employment at a think tank, tips on everything from stocks to escorts - these, and more, are the "currency" of "elected" government service. It also doesn't hurt to remember Orwell's assertion that "the purpose of power - is power."
Aside from those people, there is a vast army of unelected, but very powerful individuals who manipulate our daily lives with absolutely no requirement to, or evidence of electing to, pay any attention to public input. Not that such input is lacking; they just don't listen. Examples abound; the FCC with its censorship and pandering to the rich for broadcast (broadcast speech belongs to the rich - period), the FDA with its holding back of therapies even to those who are about to die, the US park service which takes homes from people by force (eminent domain), the Supreme Court, with its topsy-turvy interpretation of the commerce clause, disingenuous support for ex post facto laws, craven ducking of the religion issue, and of course, just generally trampling the constitution left and right. And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
So when you talk about the government - any of it - as being "the people" - you're speaking of a situation that doesn't exist in the United States of America. Our federal and state governments are operating broadly outside the bounds of its constituting authority, within a cycle that is entirely controlled by special interests who have money and power. There are absolutely no signs that this situation is going to change. In the specific case of music and video, the people have already made it quite clear what they want, and they are being roundly ignored by government. Business is showing some movement because their hand is being forced, but legislatively speaking, it is only getting worse on all fronts - patents, copyrights and IP law in general. These laws are not made to benefit the people, and sure enough, they generally don't. As soon as you look to see how they benefit industry, however, the light will begin to dawn.
You may wonder why free speech is allowed with a government gone so catastrophically wrong. The answer is simple: It is far better for them to let you vent than it is have you smolder and suddenly show up on some politician's doorstep with what used to be your second amendment rights in hand. Between that and making sure you achieve a general level of complacency, while being distracted by the current round of boogymen (Terrorists! Pedophiles! Immigrants! Global Warming!), they can keep the population from getting out of hand, even as they trample constitutional rights, engage in broad repression of personal, victimless choices, and pursue military adventures on sovereign foreign soil for the benefit of industry.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I hope that you don't mind that I corrected your spelling in all the quotes below.
There is nothing imaginary about the fact that if you work for years producing some digital content, you have the right to decide what to charge for it.
Not true. Especially with music, there are statutes that force the copyright holder to license their work when paid certain royalties set by law. Also, that doesn't mean you "own" anything. I mean, if you own it, why do your rights expire? Why have they always expired? If I lease a TV, does my interest in it not expire with the lease? But if I own a TV, who can take it from me except a thief or creditor?
Also, what is "content" exactly? You work on something for years, only to be unable to describe your work in anything but the most general of terms? As for myself, I write things like articles, essays and arguments. I've written various parts of games, both code and storyline. I've written software. And none of it is mere "content", these are things I've crafted with care and attention, putting everything into turning out the most refined pieces of art I'm capable of.
The fact that a lot of people willfully ignore the law and take what isn't theirs anyway does not make the property rights 'imaginary' any more than the preponderance of people breaking the speed limit makes the speed limit imaginary either.
First, they're not "property" to begin with. Property rights do not expire. Rather, the public owns the rights to the work, and leases them to the author for a fixed term. This is why ALL copyrights return to the public domain. Or they will, once Congress quits retroactively extending the term. Because you do not own any sort of tangible property and the works are (theoretically) the product of the imagination, using the term "imaginary property" for IP is hardly a stretch.
Others are comparing this to, say, stock. But with stock, you own a piece of the very tangible assets of a real company. Even if it's a media company whose value is inflated by their imaginary property assets, chances are they have a real building, computers, etc. which you own a share of. Land rights, also, give you rights over a piece of very tangible property. While the right is intangible, what it grants you is not. Even water use rights ultimately give you something tangible—the water itself. There probably are other imaginary properties, of course, but the examples I'm seeing fail to account for the fact that the exclusive right to copy granted by copyrights covers an act, rather than any tangible good. You end up saying that you have the right to control what I can do with my computer on my property with my files. Whereas, in other cases, I would at least have to trespass upon something tangible which is under your exclusive control.
Also, preponderance doesn't mean what you think it means. It's a legal term, and it only applies to evidence, not to having more people on one side of an issue than another. I think you meant the "majority" of the people. But here's a question: if our laws do not represent a majority of the populace, who do they represent? And what does that say about our representatives who (supposedly) represent their constituents, who are (ostensibly) a majority of the populace? How is it, again, that the notion that our copyright laws are unfairly made meant as an endorsement of them?
I guess the submitter would prefer it if the whole concept of copyright and IP did not exist, but I wouldn't get your hopes up for any new movies, TV, music, software or games in that case.
You might think that, but we didn't have copyrights during the Renaissance and we managed just fine. Further, there are plenty of people developing software collectively right no
In order to prevent piracy, we have unhooked our tubes
thank you for your concern, State U
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
A Republican from Texas is threatening broke college students; go figure. Can't we just give this state (especially the folks living in Crawford) back to Mexico?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Nice to know that you alone can speak for all of Congress, and the President, who will have to sign it, and The Supreme Court, who may have to uphold it. You must have a really big mouth.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Right. It is going to collapse, there is no question about that. The revenue isn't there to support commercial media after the old folks that keep buying stuff die. The younger people know about downloading it for free.
The question is what will be left? There might be some attempt at ad-supported movies where commercials are either cut in (like network television) or incorporated into the story. You know, where the character stops what he is doing and launches into a monolog about how great some brand of condoms is. I don't see that having much of a future, though.
The future that I see is people with a true love of the art will continue to make their own movies and music. They will be able to publish this and you will be able to get it for free. Unfortunately, the number of people that can afford to dedicate their lives to polishing their craft (music, movies, or whatever) without compensation are relatively few. So you might have some rich folks that are highly polished and a lot of folks that think they are highly polished.
I'm sure Darwin Reedy (American Idol) thinks today that her performance was highly polished and that people will fall all over themselves to hear her sing. Since publishing will be free she will indeed be able to get her work out for the masses to enjoy without any restriction.
The big question for the next 100 years or so is going to be will anyone care? If you haven't heard Darwin sing, by all means you need to check her our. Possibly one of the better voices that we will be hearing from.
by 'joins a pool' you mean 'shares out his itunes library' or 'mp3 directory', etc.
it's that simple. and it already happens far more than internet music downloading (within universities).
Someone gets a new ipod or laptop or comes back from summer vacation, they meet a few people, and suddenly then they've got 20gig of new music.
why do you think the RIAA wants the universities to establish acceptable network use policies over and above any other ISP?
It's so the schools become obligated to police intra-university sharing.
College kids learned pretty quick. The vast majority don't blindly download anymore. A handful still do, and they share with everyone else, across a network the RIAA can't easily seed with noise or infiltrate and track.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Why should universities be under any more of an obligation to stop copyright infringement than any other ISP?
They should be under less obligation because education is one of those things people believe in and make exemptions for. We expect that music and film students will be provided with a library of materials to study, that their teachers may duplicate these works for the same purpose. We expect that teachers can make composite texts from samples of other materials when it suits the goals of furthering the arts. Furthering the state of the art is the reason copyright exists in the first place and it is also the goal of any university. Peer to peer sharing at a University can be looked at as an extension of the university's mission.
As Ars implied, the whole thing stinks. The leading questions about "discounts" pushes that industry wet dream of compulsory licensing - in effect nationalizing the existing publisher. Combined with steps that will hamper would be competitors makes this little more than legislative extortion. Shame on those who had a hand in this.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I would so love to hear just what these RIAA lobbyists are telling our congress critters about the dangers of piracy. Maybe they're saying that, if left to run amok, America's children will start dressing and acting like Johnny Dep?
I drank what? -- Socrates
copyright should be excluded from the conventional understanding of 'intellectual property'. If there is a 'property right' with regard to copyright, then the property right belongs to the public. That's right, all copyrighted material belongs to the public, it is public property. What copyright provides is a temporary monopoly on the creative work to the creator of the work as reward and incentive to create original work. Perhaps the confusion is understandable as the term of copyright keeps getting extended, but it's important to understand so we can recognize the bullshit way the term 'intellectual property' is used with regard to copyright.
Loose lips lose spit.
Poor teenagers? Don't tell the marketers. They have the absurd notion that teens typically have more disposable income than their day-job-holding parents. Wait! They're right!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
While the parent indicates that you can download an exact copy of the song/movie, in many/most cases this is not quite true. What you do get is an exact copy of the re-encoded form of the media, which is usually at least to some extent a "lossy" re-encoding. This means that for music - unless you're able to download a full CD ISO image (or a flac, etc)- you are getting an mp3 that isn't quite the quality of the original song-on-disc, but the difference isn't noticeable to everyone. Audiophiles are still likely to buy CD's, but many others settle for the lower-quality mp3's. I am one of those people that does notice a quality improvement when listening to an original disc, but at the same time I often prefer the convenience of having a DVD of mp3's in my car (in my case, legally ripped from originals) rather than a whackload of CD's waiting to be stolen.
The same thing applies to movies. For DVD's, the encoding actually has some loss as it is (MPEG-2), and re-encoding doesn't really help things. If you're willing to download an 8GB image and burn to a dual-layer disc you can reproduce the original, but given the cost of dual-layer media it's not really worth it. Again though, the purists - if they want to best copy available - will buy a disc.
For theatre cams, there is a more noticeable loss of audio/video quality, but this is going down as the quality of cameras improve and the number of rips-from-masters goes up as well.
It is only the initial rip that does lose quality though, unless you are re-encoding or re-mastering for some reason (maybe to convert to a format that's friendly on your local NTSC/PAL DVD player). So that means that the parent is still correct in that "copies of the copy" remain digitally identical.
I think that if the MPAA/RIAA *really* wanted to make an impact, the best way for them to go would be to embrace the digital media, and offer cheap but low quality copies. For a small price, you can get a lo-fi Mp3 that lets you know what a song sounds like, or a low-resolution lesser-framerate version of a movie. Of course, this means they will also have to try harder to not market worthless crap, but for good movies the el-cheapo versions would probably do quite well in sales while at the same time pushing people towards buying the higher quality CD/DVD/etc version.
I would define property as an item that can be demonstrated to have a concrete value. Intellectual property would then be a creative construct that has a provable value. Most creative endeavors result in failure, and have no value. However, when an artist creates a successful song, he has proven that there is a market demand for the song, and therefore it obviously has value. The artist has invested time and resources into the song to create value in it, so that artist should be able to recoup profits if he or she so chooses.
However, I would argue that market demand for creative works wanes quickly, and the artist in question should only have the right to profit off a creative work for a comparable (and fair) amount of time before it becomes public domain.
My solution would be to limit this "copyright" for the creative work to a period of around 10 years from the date of the first "sale" of the work in question. At the moment that you sell a creative work, you have proven that it has value, and the clock should begin ticking for it to become public domain.
While there will be a few creative products that will show exceptional merit and market presence, the majority of items will not. Using the song example, an artist is free to create a new recording of the song in question to profit from, as it would be a new work. However, that artist should not have the right to control the original work that the new recording is based off of beyond the "copyright" period.
In short, creative works should exist to benefit society as a whole. The person who succeeded in generating value around a creative work should be rewarded, but should not be the sole decider on how that work best benefits the public.
Such sentences should be separated by two spaces if ending with a period. If ending with a question mark, the proper spacing is a single space.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Communists also believe in broadcast and publication monopolies. This power is generally used to shore up their own position by fraud. The US broadcast and publishing industry is not much different.
Copyright in socialist by nature. In a free society it is a Faustian bargain that infringes on your right to do what you want with your property and your culture. This must constantly be justified by some "greater good" which is socialist by definition. That greater good, according to the US Constitution, is the promotion of the arts and spread of knowledge. When copyright violates that, it has failed it's social duty.
The protection publishers seek now threatens the funding and mission of Universities. Even if you believe in violating people's rights to promote their best interests as it was defined an age of paper publication, you have to admit that the issue is now one of public corruption. Big dumb publishers want to own the internet and perpetuate their place in society. It is a scandal for the government to aid them in that mission at the expense of public education and freedom of press.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
music will live as long as humans live
in its current pop driven corporate backed format? probably not. in other words, goodbye top 40 tracklist, goodbye everyone in the usa knowing about britney spears
i really don't know if we should weep for the end of the corporate-backed pop era
and there will still be pop... it will just more sparse. concerts will still earn money, tickets to them. so there will be more phish/ grateful dead type pop music. heh. i don't if THAT is a good thing!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
corporate money in politics. i also think they are powerless to do anything about it. so in a way, you are blaming iraqis for saddam hussein, or filipinos for ferdinand marcos: what cvan the common man do about corruption?
you have an "interesting" understanding of how responsibility works. as in, you're deluded
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
dead on. it's insane. it's corpoate greed eating OUR culture. an artist is considered due financial consideration for his work. due financial consideration according to some apparently means his greatgreatgreatgrandchildren deserve rolls royces. fucking bullshit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Given that several people are pointing fingers in this thread and other places, I thought a little bit of hard data was in order: campaign finance data for the movie and recording industries. More detailed information can be found here, here, here, and here.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
the people have a responsibility to do something about their government, of course. but you fail to understand the corrupting influence of money. in countries where it is small, it is still real, canada for instance tries to diligently minimize the impact of cash in public races, but still has political dramas involving money, like the kickbacks to quebec in the previous administration. it is a basic tenet of all politics, from the dawn of time that power corrupts those in power. that's one of the reason we have term limits. the only way to defeat the process is limit people's time in power. because no matter how clean or heroic the person, pwer will change them
against this backdrop of the basic realities of politics, you want people to feel 100% responsible for when their leaders go bad. like i said before, and i'll say again, you have a deluded understanding of how responsibility works. because you see all of this reposnibility on the people's backs... but none on the politicians themselves
sometimes, when people DO get fed up enough, they revolt. unless you're a brainless romantic, revolutions are seriously bad for any society
but at the same time, you are right, short of revolution, a serious long term concerted effort and loud voice by the people is required for change to take place. however, this does not mean the people are to blame, the politicians are, and always will be
if you don't comprehend this, then you are seriously deluded. how you could blame the actions of a corrupt leader on those who suffer under him is insane. he smiled and rode on their support, and then changed. he made a mess the people have to clean up. but that doesn't make the people responsible for someone else's corruption
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Since when are schools in the law enforcement business, or the crime prevention business?
That's the jurisdiction of the police. Enforcing federal laws (like copyright laws) and preventing violations of federal laws is the jurisdiction of federal police, like the FBI. Congress funds the FBI. If Congress wants this problem tackled, they should provide more money to the FBI to police the universities in question. And since most of the piracy in question happens via the Internet, and since the government is currently able to see most of what happens on the internet due to AT&T's willingness to allow them to use their fascilities to abuse the law, this ought to be a simple matter for them.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Collectively you are sickening. You and this thug are the biggest pirates.
Sincerely,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.
> Ownership of a thing is nothing more than a legally enforceable power to control what other people do with regard to something. Ownership of a copyright is no more "imaginary" than ownership of a stock, ownership of land, or ownership of a hand tool.
Your conflating the issue. One is the legally enforceable power to control what people do with some tangible good that you own in whole or in part. The other is the legally enforceable power to control what people do with some intangible good you have no actual possession or control over.
When I own stock, it's an ownership interest in a company with real, tangible assets. They have offices, chairs, computers, etc. and they use them to do whatever. Yes, some stocks are inflated by the value of intangible goods, but that's another issue entirely.
When I own land, there's this nice tangible land underneath me. I can walk on it, touch it, etc. Same goes with a hand tool, or any other personal good. There's an actual something to which my rights attach.
With imaginary property, one merely imagines that it is property. After all, your rights to it expire (unlike any form of *actual* property). Further, it's not any specific tangible good, but any which thing that happens to contain the wrong bit of data you claim to own. You have no possession or control over the actual intangibles. True, they may be embodied in a shiny disk or whatnot, but you sell that disk to someone else and that shiny disk may be the one thing they truly own after the exchange because they sure as hell don't get anything else. So you end up with a right to control someone else's shiny disks, their computers, etc. and what they do with them, even on their own property. The only thing you "own" is some bit of intangible expression that takes whatever form is most convenient once I rip it out of the shiny plastic disk and do whatever I want with it.
> No, it doesn't. Though, of course, many of the details of copyright law serve various industries of entrenched interests.
When disrespect for imaginary property is so high that I find now almost 2.5 million hits for the illegal number the AACS LA hates so much, don't we have to question just how far out of whack this copyright bargain has gotten? It's going up by leaps and bounds and people are becoming ever more contemptuous of these unfair laws.
In real democracies, the executive can only operate with the approval of the legislative. This is an important check that the Usian system lacks. In any real democracy, the legislative wing could express non-confidence in the executive and trigger an election.
how much do zimbabweans bear resonsibility for mugabe? how much responsibility does your average chinese have to bear responsibility for the technocrats in beijing? how much responsibility does your average burmese bear for the generals in rangoon?
i know these are not democracies, but before i respond to you, i want to plumb the depths of your twisted take on responsibility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Good artists (by which I mean those who art is commercially successful) are encouraged by their success to make more good art; their customers and they both benefit. Poor artists receive no such encouragement and hopefully will give up so that fewer people will be exposed to their incompetence. Take away copyright and some of this positive feedback is removed. The ratio of crap to good stuff will rise.
I don't want the people who make stuff I like to suffer, and I'm willing to pay a reasonable amount to ensure that they don't suffer, particularly if I get some more of the stuff I like in return. It seems to me that you don't care about the wellbeing of those who produce things you like.Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You do realize that healthcare and poverty are NOT issues that Congress is allowed to deal with, right? No where in Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution is Congress permitted to 'fight poverty' or 'setup healthcare'.
Libertas in infinitum
The problem is that the teenager is lazy and disrespectful of the rights of the music owner. He sees others around him getting away with it, so he figures he should too. Someone's paying about $10,000 a year for this jerk's education, he can't pay 1/100 of that amount for his own pleasure?
The distinction is not between grumpy old men and impoverished prodigies, it's between responsible adults and grasping babies.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
it is not a responsible adult who extends the notion of copyright to the grandchildren of an artist, or rather, for the benefit of entrenched business interests. that's not called responsibility honey. that's called corrupt. morally corrupt
there is no respecting it, according to any moral code. you lack the moral authority you believe you have
and yes, absolutely: teenagers are mostly irresponsible punks without any real life experience and a sense of entitlement. absolutely. but because teenagers are irresponsible punks does not make corrupt venal old men paragons of virtue. you dig?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I noticed Rochester Institute of Technology is on the list. They subscribed to a legal music download service called Ctrax for a period of time. It was one of those crappy DRM-laden WMA services. As of May 1, 2007, it's no longer being offered.
It's no wonder why it was discontinued... the thing was awful. You couldn't play your music unless you were connected to the internet and it could check the licenses.
The article mentioned that Congress wanted to know about legal alternatives attempted. At least RIT can say they tried... but really, what did they expect? DRMed music is not what students want.
Sadly, the solution can't be posted to Slashdot thanks to the 'junk' character filter (but I did find 7 occurences, three vertical, 3 horizontal, and one diagonal).
Mildly on-topic: I would like to mention that Expression Monopolies (what we call 'copyrights') are really quite paradoxical. How can one ever maintain a monopoly on an expression without silence? Once you express something (i.e., share it with another) how can you ever claim to have a monopoly? In the case of the former, one can't prove they have a monopoly if silence is required to keep it. And in the latter, one can't have a monopoly on an expression once they share that expression!
As a result of this impossible situation we've stepped in with an artificial solution, a social contract, a "gentlemens' agreement", a law. We agree to treat expression monopolies like they were actually monopolies. Further, we agree to use the violence of the State to protect these monopolies from infringement. I can't think of any defense for State-granted monopoly beyond what is specified in the Constitution: in order to have a larger public domain, a richer culture, faster innovation, and the benefits of said, we the people will grant artists and inventors monopolies on their expressions and inventions for limited-times. The first Congress, those legislators most-likely to understand the Framers' intent, believed that l4 years was long enough for copyright. Today's interpretation of "for limited times" is a mockery.
A word means what I mean it to be. No more and no less.
Well, as long as you want to be specific (and don't want to be an asshat yourself), it's not just Lamar.
"The bipartisan panel, of which anytime members of different parties agree on something ought to make you fearful, have given the colleges until "no later than May 31, 2007" to complete and return the survey to them.
The panel looking into campus piracy is comprised of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, top members of the House Judiciary Committee and Education and Labor Committee, including Rep. George Miller and Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the Democratic chairman and senior Republican on the education panel, Reps. Howard P. Berman (D-Calif.) and Howard Coble (R-N.C.), who lead their respective parties on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the Democrat who heads the full Judiciary panel."
So thank the Democraps too.
Americans are soooo funny, it really riddles me how you've become the industrial giant you are when your politicians are more interested in fighting music/movies so called piracy instead of saving the lives of your soldiers and kicking Bush out.
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The flaw is modern interpertation of the ICC. People try to look at "original intent" when they should be looking at the "original meaning" of the words written down.
When the Constitution was written, the prhase "to regulate" meant 'to make regular'. In other words, no trade wars between the States. Open trade between all the states was the original meaning and purpose.
The books "Consitutional Chaos" and "The Constitution in Exile" explain this.
Libertas in infinitum