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Senate Majority Leader Takes On File Sharing
An anonymous reader writes "Colleges are up in arms — and the entertainment industry is ecstatic — over Sen. Harry Reid's plan to crack down on file sharing by students. Floor votes could be imminent." A commenter on the post said, "Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine."
Someone bother to cut & paste the actual numbers in context, since I think that comment is way off base.
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
Let's be honest here, P2P will continue. Legally or illegally. The only difference is that if it becomes "illegal", only illegal content will be distributed via P2P and distributors of Linux and other legal distribution of software and content suffers. Currently, a lot of distributions benefit from being able to use their users' connection for distribution, taking pressure from their own lines. If P2P is "outlawed" (or not outright outlawed, but disallowed by universities and ISPs), people wanting to share illegal content will find a way around this filtering (because, well, whatever the ISP could do against you is peanuts against being sued by the mafiaa), while people who now spread Linux distributions will not risk breaking the law just to keep spreading their legally spreadable software.
What do you want to do to avoid it? Log the IP addresses of people using it? People will start onion routing their packets, using also existing onion routers so you can't tell that an IP you got is actually a culprit. Also people will start using "private" trackers and networks more than they already do. To avoid packet identification through mandatory logging at ISPs, packets will get wrapped in other headers (HTTP offers itself due to being the perfect "noise" to duck into).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You want some copyrighted lyrics? How about this, from The Who:
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
So now it's come to this--the Hollywood Perpetual Copyright Party vs. the Petroleum Industry Party. Except the Petroleum Industry Party also wants perpetual copyrights for Hollywood, both parties want to prop up the farm industry, and for all we know, the Hollywood Perpetual Copyright Party will end up helping out the oil industry as an added bonus (or a bone-us to the common people).
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
"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.
Not shocked in the least. This is merely another showing of the American political arrangement favors not the citizen, but the biggest donor.
Raise your hand if you thought your congressman would listen to you.
Who would you listen to: a very small donor at best, or the group who bankrolled your campaign(especially the "care about the people" PR)?
Why is this shocking news? Hell as a former die hard repub, I've lost pretty much all faith in the nation and it's future
His relationship with powerful lobbyists makes him (or any other Democrat congressman) no better than the ones in the other side. They are all puppets, hold in the hands of the same puppeteer. Naive are the ones that thing that party allegiance is guarantee of anything at all.
The politic system is rotten, third party can't win (even if they had more support, there are so many hurdles for an independent candidate to overcome), majors parties are in fact one, people are cattle and vote based on frivolous fads and superstitions instead of on important issues and past actions.
The "manifest destiny" ended up being a self defeating prophecy, U.S. people got so used to the idea that U.S. fate is to lead the world that forgot to care about their own house and get a decent leadership for themselves.
But I think the biggest points in the bill are the following. From the Article:
"Provide evidence" to the Education Department that they have "developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property."
How can any viable and self-respecting college network do anything like this without crippling their network and expending an obscene amount of money and man-hours. Congress constantly proves themselves to be less that tech-savvy, and this extremely tall order is just more proof. And, more importantly, the last thing I need is another tuition increase to pay for it.
And secondly:
The measure would also require the education secretary to annually identify the 25 colleges and universities that have in the previous year received the most notices of copyright violations using institutional technology networks.
I think the
But, I don't really think it matters all that much, something like this is going to go into law eventually, I'm afraid.
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." -Isaac Asimov
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softtop.asp?t xtCycle=2002&txtSort=amnt
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Sorry, not biting. Given the number of bills and amendments that do not pass, I think this narrowly escapes being described as FUD.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
Call me cynical, but if a politician shows sense, they won't get enough of the conservative vote to ever get elected. And if they show principle, well, they're probably so lacking in even common sense to ever get liberal vote. So why should we expect either in any measurable form?
That trolling asside, from TFA:
Roads also facilitate theft. Roads also have police to patrol and set up roadblocks if necessary, that sort of thing. But funds are appropriated for such services. If one is to mandate that measures be taken to prevent intellectual property theft, one should provide a plan for funding of such an endeavor. It's not a universities fault that students steal any more than it is a construction worker's fault of someone later uses a road to facilitate a crime because the road happens to go past a bank.
At least, that's the way I see it.
I'm from the UK the place with a far less insane record industry but I'm not certain how Universitys think this is unfair. I've just finished a 3 year course at University of Plymouth in order to connect to the network you had to go through a VPN which only allowed HTTP and FTP access. We had a extremely fast network I remember downloading Ubunutu at 1MB/s as well as Myst Online at 1.3MB/s. I could check my email, manage a domain I own and could view every website on the internet without issue including sites like http://www.stage6.com/ , http://www.youtube.com/ and at various times I saw other students looking at xxx sites. I did get HL2: Deathmatch and Myst Online working (intially the later required a blocked port) but bittyrant or limewire didn't work.
I can understand that bittyrant does help spread the load of linux distributions but I don't understand why other university's and colleges can't implement this as well. How does it hurt people? I don't know why people are fighting so hard. The university's policy did not stop me from learning nor did it stop me from playing (if I had lived in halls) it just stopped activities which either used high amounts of bandwidth or could land the univeristy in legal trouble.
Then again with iPods, portable usb drives and the messenger share folders most students could share music/video if they wanted to and I did see people moving to these methods in my final year.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
If you can't bring your party up to where people could vote for them with a clean conscience, you can at least bring the other party down and pretend that they're at the same level. Responses, if any, will be along the lines of "yeah, because Democrats are such angels, perfect in every way, and they always do what the people want" which is not what I said. I have long said that Dems and Repubs are about the same when it comes to pork spending, subservience to lobbyists, and general corruption (including legal but unethical stuff), but Repubs are essentially The Torture Party as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to impress me much to beat out The Torture Party.
If the Dems just run as the "We Think Habeus Corpus is Important" party, that's good enough for me, even with the usual complement of pork spending and knee-jerk overreaction that we always expect from congress. I wish Dems were better, but this equivocation where going after filesharers proves that the Dems are just as bad as the Republicans is a bit ridiculous. If torture, habeus corpus, and warrantless surveillance aren't part of the discussion about which party is better, at least right now, then we aren't really having a discussion.
(Emphasis mine)
Now is it just me, or does that quote imply that if it was the Republicans bringing in this possible law (or law amendment or whatever) then they wouldn't be influenced by Hollywood or [insert other large corporation/group with large amounts of money]? To put it politely, that idea is laughable!
Isn't that just the normal form of democracy in a capitalist nation?
Something I was reminded of recently (possibly stolen from Terry Pratchett): People are confused about Politicians. People think Politicians run the country in the way that the people think is best. Really, Politicians run the country in the way that they think is best for the people.
I think it has always been a touch of Hollywood Vs Petrol in politics, only now it's coming to the front more and not being so well hidden.
So the senator from Nevada actually wants universities, in essence, to report to Hollywood? Wouldn't their money be better spent on, say, sports programmes, or perhaps even education (if they still do that these days)?
A commenter on the post said, "Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine."
...you think that's bad? you should see some of the crap I've posted as comments here...
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
The article is replete with terms of "stealing" and "theft".
They are trying really hard to associate these terms with filesharing in a subversive way, just to make filesharing sound worse than it is. I think filesharing is a better term --> it's not called file-theft for a reason.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
"Hollywood is the main source of cash for Democrats" is just another legend in the rich and bizarre mythology of conservatism, and as such it is typically puerile and easily refuted.
Opensecrets reports that the top industries donating to the DNC, based on contributions from PACs, Levin money donors, and individuals who self-identify their employer, are:
1. Retired ($7,389,597)
2. Lawyers/Law Firms ($3,250,708)
3. Securities & Investment ($2,301,530)
4. Real Estate ($1,570,877)
5. Education ($1,429,546)
6. Misc Finance ($1,176,402)
7. Business Services ($1,108,889)
8. Health Professionals ($1,044,045)
9. TV/Movies/Music ($1,042,810)
Thus the "industry" making the largest contributions to the DNC are retired individuals, contributing over $7 million to a total of about $37 million. The entertainment industry, which is presumably what the myth-entranced poster meant by "Hollywood", comes in 9th place with just about one measly million.
For the DCCC, which is responsible for elections in the House, it breaks down like this:
1. Candidate Committees ($28,987,184)
2. Retired ($6,473,164)
3. Securities & Investment ($5,237,572)
4. Lawyers/Law Firms ($4,730,490)
5. Real Estate ($2,846,870)
6. TV/Movies/Music ($2,299,387)
So the top contributors to the general DCCC funds are, by far, the individual campaign committees (who of course must get their own contributors). "Hollywood" comes in sixth place with about $2 million out of a total of over $80 million.
For the DSCC, responsible for Senate campaigns, the picture is about exactly the same as for the DCCC:
1. Candidate Committees ($10,312,550)
2. Lawyers/Law Firms ($9,989,631)
3. Securities & Investment ($7,938,319)
4. Retired ($6,967,505)
5. Real Estate ($4,864,610)
6. Misc Finance ($2,585,026)
7. TV/Movies/Music ($2,286,687)
This time, "Hollywood" comes in 7th place, again with about $2 million out of over $80 million.
However we much we may dislike what Harry Reid is doing, the claim about "Hollywood" and the Democrats is load of peanut butter. We need to get these reality-challenged conservative canards out of our public discussion; they certainly have no business of the front page of Slashdot.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
The ISPs should switch off the internet for a day. That'll learn 'em.
Flat out wrong. Other corporate sources far outweigh Hollywood they just don't sound as good as saying left wing Hollywood rules the Democrats. Also the bulk of the contributions are from individuals not the studios and the rights organizations. I realize there's only one position on Slashdot, copyright holders are evil and file sharers are good, but at least try to appear more balanced. I believe in the freemarket which makes me just this side of Satan but it's a system that worked and supported the production of new content. Free exchange of copyrighted material will eventually dry up the well. It may seem cool to download the latest blockbuster free but revenues are falling and eventually if the trend doesn't reverse they will disappear. The only reason the theaters are still in business is $10 tickets and $5 popcorn. The number of tickets sold have been steadily dropping not as radically as the music industry but it'll eventually get as bad. If you don't care about Hollywood movies why are you downloading them? If you do care then downloading for free is threatening the future of film. Just the facts.
It's about time something was done about the masses of idiots pirating music, movies and games. I'm sick to death of self righteous thieves on slashdot thinking the world owes them a fucking living. you have NO RIGHT to take other peoples work for free. grow up and deal with it kids.
Ummm, isn't it the gaming industry suppose to be the biggest cash machine? Second since when has filesharing been just about music or movies? Third to address the "everyone's doing it, so you should too" argument. Well a lot of people and companies are violating the GPL. I think everyone should just give up and let them do it. It's inevitable and we shouldn't resist something we can't do anything about.
Also in a double whammy Al Gore style revelation, he also invented BitTorrent.
Funny, Wall Street Journal reports Dems have raised 100 Million more then Republicans: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB11851538260 9874577.html?mod=blog/ . That tells me your numbers are not giving us all the information on donations. Isn't that like failing to tell folks the amount of money Speak Of the House's husband is making of the Iraq War while blaming Bush?
Dammy
... am glad the Democrats have completely fixed all of the USA's other problems so that they have the spare time to go after illegal copyright infringment.
I mean obviously copyright laws are much, much more important that say rising fuel costs, a war in Iraq, or fixing healthcare / education.
There is a war going on for your mind.
they have to be corrupt.
What a stupid, childish attitude. If you think that those who disagree with you politically are by-and-large stupid, evil, greedy and/or corrupt, it is a sure sign that you are simply too stupid to understand them.
I see. So you'd be happier with articles that had terms that made illegal filesharing sound better than it really is then? Somehow I don't think the illegal filesharing is OK crowd is any better than the illegal filesharing is bad crowd. Both of you want the public to accept your version of reality and don't give a damn about the facts in order to do so.
"I think filesharing is a better term --> it's not called file-theft for a reason."
It's called "fluffy, cutie pie". There, now it's OK to download, like anyone really needed a change of words to tell them otherwise.
"Hollywood is the main source of cash for Democrats" is just another legend in the rich and bizarre mythology of conservatism, and as such it is typically puerile and easily refuted.
LOL. Somebody bothered not only to think about it, but research the subject for himself? That's the problem with the world today -- too many of you free-thinkers running around disagreeing with everyone and spouting off facts. You must be a real lonely guy without a group to belong to.
Seriously, though, good for you. Reminds me of the the liberal media meme. Didn't occur to anyone that the most of the major networks are owned and operated by a bunch of rich white guys with too much money that vote Republican. Or that the news divisions heads and most of the anchors fall into the same group.
As for Hollywood, it's a vocal crowd consisting of people with easy access to free publicity living in a state that traditionally leans left of center. It's worth pointing, however, that the most vocal individuals do donate heavily to the Democratic party. Easy target at any rate. A hundred years ago it wasn't Hollywood, but those darned New Yorkers. I guess when you live in middle America, it's inevitable that you feel surrounded.
prepare all our DOS and civil disobedience techniques.
Colleges require information to flow as freely as possible, so they depend on a fair amount of corner-cutting. No one really waits to get approval or check the copyright position before downloading something from the Wiki, for instance. If they were forced to, a college could not function.
So we need to spam the most righteous Bible Colleges with spurious DMCA takedown notices, and claim obscure copyright privileges over any communication we have with them.
Perhaps we could find encrypted streams passing between government buildings, and 'fake whistle-blow' to the RIAA that films are being passed on these links. Send copyrighted data to prominent supporters of the bill without the copyright message, and then get their systems turned over....
The possibilities are endless!!
Take a stroll back in history, "works for hire" was added without the known assistance of any elected official, other then their votes on the unrelated unread bill it was attached to. Since this one is "known", it is more likely to be a notice to institutions of higher learning that they want them to cooperate with the RIAA's current efforts, see recent Slashdot articles for details.
The Federal Government is responsible for huge chunks of funding for these institutions, just how many of their presidents or trustees do you think won't kowtow to them for fear of adjustments to this flow of cash? It would not suprise me in the least if this isn't the reason that so many institutions of higher learning are somewhat ignoring their student's rights in this regard.
You may think this is "premature" but really that is how we should be watching our government, try to catch, stop or influence their actions before they act. It really wouldn't hurt and might help change some federal officials attitudes if the people of this country flooded their elected officials with their opinions of this matter and maybe included some of the real information like is posted and linked at sites like NewYorkCountryLawyer's, especially his open letter to those institutions of higher learning. That is of course if Ray don't mind.
Side note to the Slashdot editors: How about inviting Harry Reid here, offer him the handle SenatorRIAA. (Think this through and try to keep your morning coffee off your monitors:)
While that's strictly true (i.e. it's not the main source), it's certainly one of their main contributors, and far more so than the Republicans. You should do some comparisons between Republican vs. Democrat to understand the Hollywood/Democratic link. (All figures from the websites you linked to).
For example, the contribution of the TV/Movies/Music industry to the Democratic Party is considerably higher than the Republican Party ($6,045,582 vs. $2,434,205), and while the RNC and the DNC are very similar in contributions ($949,844 for the former vs. $1,042,810 for the latter), the NRCC doesn't even register TV/Movies/Music as being a big contributor. The NRSC comes in with a measly $627,684.
Main contributor, no, but certainly one of them, and certainly more pro-Democrat than Republican.
The whole thing reminds me of Bill Hicks' comment: "I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
theft: The act of stealing property.
to steal: (transitive) To illegally, or without the owner's permission, take possession of something by surreptitiously taking or carrying it away.
Learn to use a dictionary. Wiktionary on steal.
That
- is
the common sense definition, however much you'd like to twist the facts.How exactly do you expect people to produce new content if the target market all steals it. Oh my gosh. How could people ever survive without copyright. Verily, the market would completely collapse!
There was capitalism before the Berne Convention, you know.
Also, many people here are not fundamentally against copyright, but against the perverted version Disney made of it.
Get your facts straight.
forget what party gutted habeus corpus, thinks torture is OK,
Didn't the Democrats put 200,000 Japanese citizens in concentration camps during World War II?
Run MK-ULTRA, and numerous CIA / FBI abuses during the Cold War?
Allow J Edgar Hoover's FBI to amass data on US Citizens for almost 40 years?
Run illegal wiretaps throughout every Presidency since Truman?
The whole notion of Democrats having of moral superiority when it comes to civil rights has no historical basis in fact.
Our best hope would have been to have conservatives acting like conservatives, gutting the government rather than expanding it.
This is my sig.
you seem to be under some delusion that we have bittorrent before we had copyright. When you had to copy a book by hand, people didn't copy it for 500 people across the face of the globe while they slept. I thought that was stunningly obvious, and yet still we see this argument repeated on slashdot with a sense of triumphalism.
You have to be really delusional to think that copying content without paying for it is sustainable in the middle or long run. Content producers have to eat.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
"You imply that if the current system were gone, there would be nothing to replace it. I disagree. Something will replace it (for humans have always told stories). In fact, I think that whatever replaces it will actually be much better. "
Let's put this "the gravy-train will go on" argument to a test. How about we start abusing OSS any way we can. From verbally assulting them, to violating their licenses. According to you even if the OSS well dried up something (contrary to human nature) will come along and fill the void, AND it will produce code better and consistenly than before, even when faced with a hostile audience.
"Technology now allows anyone with minimal finance to create their own movies or music."
Geeks and your damn faith in technology. The issue isn't technological, it's social.
"What will happen, when the current colossus tumbles, is that you will experience more and better movies and music than you ever dreamed possible."
Maybe, maybe not, but not in the continued presence of a hostile entitlement-driven never-ending audience.
"With the current gate keepers gone and the internet there to do the distribution, a much brighter and vibrant world awaits. We should do all we can to hasten the demise of the media industry."
You should write religious tracts for a living.
This is a waste of time. Just like when Hillary Clinton sponsored that bill for Puerto Rico to get money. It was a stupid bill, yet it is the only bill that she has **ever** sponsored alone in her public service.
Content will always find a way to be free/leaked. Sharing of music has been a problem since reel to reel tapes existed. My father had a bootleg collection of Xmas music that he brought out every fall. He's dead now - I have no idea were those tapes are or where that machine ended up.
In college 20 years ago, I recorded every album I could get my hands on onto high quality tape with the best encoding available at the time - abour 1,000 of them. I don't listen to cassettes anymore, don't even own a player.
Two years ago, a large group at work (20 poeple, but not me) passed around a 300GB USB drive, twice. The first time to load the music and the second to pull everything off. Of course, I wasn't involved - that's illegal. They ran out of space on the drive. Exactly how will anyone other than those people ever know about that - they only run open source software here.
If p2p networking is removed from the internet and in the open, certainly a group of college students will figure out how to physically share just like all those years go. Or, if they were smarter, just use freenet instead.
I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that those numbers are from the 2006 election cycle; I wanted to look at the donations from the most recent completed cycle, and the 2008 campaigns are still in the midst of raising money (there will be a lot more from now until November of next year). The WSJ article covers the Presidential campaigns for 2008, and we just can't know yet which industries will make the largest contributions by the time it's over.
And incidentally, they're not "my" numbers, they are from Open Secrets, as indicated by about five links in my previous post, so if I haven't got that across to you yet, here's another one.
Here's the thing: "Hollywood is [the Democrats'] biggest cash machine [and hence controls them]" is just like "Liberals control the media" and "There's no global warming" and "There are WMDs in Iraq" and "God said Shazam! and then Adam and Eve were standing there" are all assertions that conservatives assert to one another feverishly nodding their heads, based exclusively on the evidence of It Feels Good To Believe It. And yet, just a cursory look into publicly available evidence will typically show that these things are not true. Nevertheless, these legends permeate the mainstream media and our public debate, in this case the front page of Slashdot. For the sake of a sane future for our democracy, this has got to stop.
For the sake of getting this thread back on topic: despite what I'm saying, there's plenty to criticize what Harry Reid is doing about file sharing, but it doesn't help to base that criticism on assertions that are plainly false. That's precisely my point. For the pushback to be effective, we must cease and desist from mustering arguments that are this easily exposed as nonsense.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I can't vote against the people who interned the Japanese Americans, or pushed for MK-Ultra. I can vote against the ones who are supporting torture, imprisonment without trial, and warrantless surveillance now.
You might as well say I should vote Republican because of Abe Lincoln. Torture matters. Habeus corpus matters. What the hell is wrong with you? You're muddying the waters, not adding perspective. There is a difference.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THOUGHT
Hereby I declare my full sovereignty over the content my data storing
devices (including, but not limited to magnetic and optical media, flash
memory and, most importantly, my brain) and establish my unalienable right
to receive, record and process any information that I have been exposed to
as I see fit. This implies, in particular, the practical and legal
impossibility of making it illegal to record or memorize any information on
the grounds of intellectual property claims.
As of the moment of signing the declaration, national, international etc.
laws concerning the content of my data storages are null and void, as I
declare my data outside of any government's or international organization's
jurisdiction.
I am willing to protect my sovereignty over my internally and externally
stored memories by any means available to me, including strong encryption
and geographically spread backup copies.
I am also willing to help other people to protect their data, memories and
thoughts and would thankfully receive any help in such matters myself. I am
fully prepared to respect and support other people's full sovereignty over
their respective data, memories and thoughts.
I invite every individual to explicitly declare the independence of their
thoughts by digitally signing this declaration.
A /. discussion is no place for facts and reason.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You do realize these kind of arguments (and excuses) have been going on for eight years? Slashdot may not be a pirates haven but it sure is a "head, hard-as-a-rock" haven. Theft and illegal filesharing also have another aspect in common. They both destroy the social fabric. People who illegally download are "oathbreakers" in that they don't hold up their end of the terms that society agreed up. And, no the "copyright extension" argument doesn't apply because the majority of material that gets downloaded (there's examples of material that hasn't even been released) is within ALL terms (old and new).
Retired people are not an industry. Going by your numbers, it's the trial lawyers who are the #1 contributing industry. I'm not sure that's any better than it being Hollywood.
Sure, a lot of Democratic politicians pander to Hollywood. But you'll have a hard time finding a Republican politician that doesn't jump at the chance to pander to big business - and Hollywood is most definitely big business. And for all the bashing of "Hollywood liberals", the GOP suuuure likes actors that give them the time of day - Schwarzenegger (before he moved away from the right wing so he could get elected), Fred Thompson, and of course, Ronald Reagan.
You were getting close, but then you said:
Sorry, but the "Hollywood" cash contribution to Democrats is just too small to warrant the phrase "one of the main". It consistently comes in at something like 2.5%.
All right, this is indeed a true statement, and point well taken. While a couple of million bucks will not necessarily make or break the Democrats, it's certainly nothing for Harry Reid to sneeze at. And the fact that Democrats get a lot more from the entertainment industry than Republicans do is certainly at least part of the politics at play here.
There's also the fact that the entertainment industry has a lot of public influence unrelated to the size of their cash donations, for obvious reasons. If good relations with "Hollywood" will get positive publicity for Democrats that comes "for free", well hey, no wonder they like it.
But I suspect that this issue is not well understood if we overestimate the influence of "Hollywood" on the Democratic leadership; certainly if we let false assertions about the "biggest cash machine" go unanswered. I think there's also the fact that the entire political class in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, is firmly entrenched in the belief that file sharing is criminal and immoral, and damaging to the economy.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
... vote for Cmdr Taco to the senate! Or Sarah Silverman (which would be funnier).
As long as the rest of the world won't suffer the consequences (except on paper, maybe) the US can throw shit on itself and its citizens as much as it wants.
It seems the normal way of business here any more is to have some politically-charged headline, then all the commenters take their partisan sides and go at it.
As a libertarian, I've found both parties very willing to sell individual freedoms away. Aside from the war, which is so charged to prevent rational discourse, the Republicans were eager to sell out bankruptcy protections. The DMCA was passed by a unanimous vote in the Senate and signed by Clinton.
So for all you fanboys and fangirls, it's not related to political parties, at least not where I can see. I guess when your ATM is Hollywood, you're probably going to pander to Hollywood more and if your ATM is banks, the banks get the favors. But in general, to me the game looks rigged and the only interesting thing is the different BS excuses they use each time they take something away. Keeping people under an iron hand of debt collectors was called "promoting personal responsibility", as if eliminating risk from the creditors business plans was merely an afterthought. Reid's new idea sounds like it's out to "stop theft in publicly funded universities"
All the BS sounds good. And if it's your party, and your guy, usually you'll find some way to forgive him and/or rationalize it was the best thing to do. We have long memories for bad stuff the other guys do, but short ones for our own guys. That's a shame, really. Keeps people from ever learning anything.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Since the election year is near, campaigns should be started against the politicians that are basically pushing for laws that are not in the interest of the people. Stupid as it may sound as the likelihood is that another evil will gain a politic foothold, at least it will ensure that politicians will think twice before they will push for certain laws for it is not in their personal interest to be voted out.
that's a nice story about aristocracy, where there is a presumed ruling class. but if you look at your average member of congress/ senate, they are from all walks of life, mostly self-made people with usually middle class backgrounds. now there is plenty wrong with the us govt, and plenty of issues to criticize it about, such as cozying up to corporations. however, this retarded fable about cats and mice is not a valid allegory, in the least
classism is NOT the issue here. please, folks, criticize the us govt. but know your enemy: corporations, not aristocracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Last year when I was at college I had a room mate that downloaded 24/7. He got kicked off the Ethernet connection and just continued to use the wireless to download(he had a laptop). I know many people who would steal there room mates connection when something like that happened while there not home. Its impossible to guard against this and the university's policy said that it is your responsibility on what happened to that port. Many people would do it behind there room mates back or just ignore them when they told them to stop. My neighbor even requested a room mate change because of this but the university said it wasn't a significant reason and denied him. But still what happens if the RIAA/MPAA sues some poor kid who has never downloaded and who's room mate was just using the port? They have two options, get flooded with legal fees and maybe if there lucky successfully sue the RIAA/MPAA for legal fees or pay the fine for something they didn't do. If there going to crack down on this there going to have 2 have locks with Ethernet ports. They have no way of knowing whois computer was on that port. And if your going to ask just look up the MAC you can spoof a MAC if you are downloading to someone elses and poof it wasn't you stealing the port, who was it?
I thought the world already suffers the consequences, think of the swedish.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Most of the companies that made my favorite video games all folded, and many cited piracy as the main reason the PC gaming industry died. In said industry, it was fairly standard for people to work 60-80 hour weeks of unpaid overtime to crank out content so people like you could steal it, and then claim you didn't take anything from them.
Thanks. I really appreciate that.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
That is what happened to the bulk of the PC gaming market. And I'd rather not lose the theater experience. Someone please mod parent up.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
That's because people like the RIAA have propaganda battles going on to obfuscate the fact that P2P is just a natural face of the many-faceted internet. "File sharing" is what people do everytime they download a webpage.
If a politician votes against me... they have to be corrupt.
That's because the second part of the sentence is all too likely true, no matter what the first part says.
There is a probably unavoidable conflict of interest in politics that makes it hard to imagine someone making it to Washington with their soul intact and unpledged to their funding. It's probably not completely true that an honest politician is one who stays bought, but there's more than enough to it to make us regular joes uneasy.
Okay, I'm willing to accept that scarcity is a requirement for commerce, and that in this context, artificial scarcity is needed to keep the system alive. (link) That doesn't change the fact that the copyright system is out of control. Besides, most content producers could survive even without this artificial scarcity in place, by shifting to a business model centered around a resource that still is scarce.
Remember, there is no such thing as a natural right to a viable business model.
> That tells me your numbers are not giving us all the information on donations.
hahahaha, you're numbers don't match my numbers - so i'm going to completely ignore your entire point. No chance at all of convincing me that hollywood isn't the #1 contributor for the dems as long as i can find some nitpicking excuse to ignore your numbers. Like confusing different election cycles...
> Isn't that like failing to tell folks the amount of money Speak Of the House's husband is making of the Iraq War while blaming Bush?
another great one! no chance of convincing me the war in iraq is a bad idea if I can somehow long a democrat through family ties to someone benefiting from the war. Yep, i'm nearly 100% immune to reason - and PROUD OF IT.
Reid is getting plenty of money from "Hollywood", as is the rest of the Democratic Party. And this policy is clearly bought and paid for by the content industry.
But is Hollywood "Democrats' biggest cash machine"? No. It's not the biggest source of money to the Democratic Party. I'd like to see some evidence to back up that Republican talking point, before it's promoted on the Slashdot front page.
And are Democrats really the "Hollywood Party"? Schwarzenegger, governor of California, is a Republican - and all Hollywood. Fred Thompson, a favorite of Republicans to run for president next year, is a Republican, a popular TV actor, and all Hollywood. Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the Republican Party, was nothing but Hollywood, after his career as B actor, culminating in roles as California governor, then US president. And of course Hollywood, the ultimate corporate media cash machine, prefers the Republican Party, which represents precisely Hollywood's values: corporate media, rich people, marketing appearance over substance, popularity contests determining power, the lot.
Hollywood is America. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are America. Pretending only Democrats are Hollywood, while Republicans are their real blockbusters, is not really "the American Way". It's the Republican Way. But it's just a made up story, projected on screens across America and the world.
--
make install -not war
Bashing Democrats on /.?
The sad reality is that any of the 'Net laws (as with most laws) are generated by business, be it Hollywood or some other industry to protect market share.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
No problem, glad to be of service *ignores sarcasm*
Remember, there's no such thing as a natural right to a viable business model. Besides, from the point where I could afford it, I bought pretty much every game I played regularly. Why? Let's take a look at Half-Life 2.
I downloaded a copy to see if it would work on my system. Discovering that it did, I played most of it, then noticed that I could neither install mods nor play online.
I then went out and bought a copy. This neatly demonstrates that it is very much possible for a company to survive in a time where information is not a scarce resource, by switching at least partially to a business model centered around things that are still scarce, like service or platform access. (That's similar to what copy protection does; trying to institute an artificial scarcity. Except it has been repeatedly demonstrated that copy protection doesn't really work. )
I consider the money I paid for Half-Life 2 only partially for the actual game, and mostly for stuff like easily available free upgrades and the ability to reinstall whenever I, say, change my computer.
If companies expect to be able to survive on a business model whose natural phase is over (the Internet has irrevocably ended scarcity of information), then it's hardly my fault if they fail.
Petrol industry is capitol intensive, ie for that $50b in profit, it costed them $500b in effort.
ie, they might make a lot, but its less than the percent of intel.
Two, a gallon on oil contains 25000 man hours of power, thats more dense and cheap than anything and is
why you can enjoy cheap food and anything remotely better than 1875.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
money is a serious corrupting influence on the us government
however, republicans!=democrats, really. mainly because money isn't the only issue. gee, i dunno, i cast about for a difference. hmm, i'm going to way out on a limb here after thinking really really hard: ideology maybe? seems like a big stinking issue, ya think einstein?
how anyone could arrive at such a conclusion like republicans==democrats is beyond my understanding. it betrays a colossally dim understanding of the world you live in
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The solution is replace Goerge W. Bush with a tabby.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Lawyer/Law Firm contributions are made on behalf of clients. It's a way of shielding the client from public view.
The mice finally got fed up with all this crap and voted for tons of free Chinese Cat Food, and for good measure they voted for the dogs too. Pretty soon there were no more cats at all.
You argue that creating a copy means nothing was actually taken, but both in stealing a movie, and stealing a car involve the producer of said product to lose money.
First, let's talk about the "stealing a movie" part. Steal is to take away something from other person. Since the person which you are copying retain the original copy, filesharing is NOT STEALING. It doesn't matter how many times politicians, the RIAA or /.ers repeat it. They are different concepts. It might be illegal, it might be wrong, be get your facts right for once.
Secondly, lets go for "the producer of said product to lose money". There are a lot of ways for producers to lose money. When someone steals a car from a consumer, the producer loses no money: he already sold the car. The consumer looses the good, NOT the producer. When you copy a copyrighted material, the consumer looses nothing -that's exactly why most people don't bother if someone copy anything from them. The producer looses his ability to make a potential sell. He is NOT losing money, only "potential money". Only potential because people will "buy" a lot of things when it is available for free they wouldn't otherwise buy. Not giving an Economics 101 class here.
Question is, there is a lot of things that make a producer loose money. When you introduce a substitute, they loose money. Should typewriters' makers sue the computer industry because they lost money? When I make a homemade computer, should Dell sue me because they've lost a sale? When someone releases a new version of Apache should MS sue them because they loose IIS potential sales? Should Netscape have sued MS when they started distributing IE?
You could probably guess what my opinion on copyright is. That opinion arrives from my belief that knowledge and its expressions belong in the public domain. But I am not entering into that here: file sharing, unauthorized copies, infringement of copyright is NOT THEFT. And the producers of "IP" do NOT LOOSE MONEY when someone copy "their property". Stop repeating that as a mantra.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
I wonder what other enforcement issues federal money for universities is tied to. For example, are universities audited in their enforcement of alcohol laws? Might be considered at least as important, considering that a lot more people get killed via alcohol abuse than by copyright infringement.
we shouldn't have computer programmers writing computer code. because, you see, the vast majority of computer programmers are CS majors or have software development backgrounds. and they end of writing code based on that background. do you see the insidious influence going on here yet? they run the software writing racket with complete disregard for end users. end users should write computer code, not computer programmers
dear great genius: anyone interested in law is going to tend to study legal systems, and therefore be a lawyer. apparently, you want a government where people who are not interested in law, writing the laws
how is that going to work eintein?
lawyers suck. i hate lawyers. but if i'm going to sue someone for breaking my leg, i tend to want to get someone who knows the damn law. likewise, i also understand that those who study the damn law are mostly likely to be the people who are interested in the damn law, and therefore are going to be the ones most likely to be interested in creating new damn laws. like running for senate/ congress. in other words, unlike yourself, i understand the concept of "necessary evil"
put it this way: if someone who is not a lawyer is a congressman/ senator, which there are plenty, by the way... if they are going to successfully pass new legislation, legislation that YOU like, for example, then they are going to have to have an understanding of the current legal system in order to do that. get it yet? in other words, drum roll please, they are going to have learn the law! as much as a lawyer does!
(smacks forehead)
oooh, let us continue pontificating in perfect ignorance about the vast conspiracy of lawyers out to control us all thourhg this insidious things called "laws"
some people are seriously ignorant
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From TFA:
"The Reid plan would require colleges to:
# "Provide evidence" to the Education Department that they have "developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.""
Linux is intellectual property.
It's not illegal to distribute linux over P2P, however TFA, and probably the good senator, does not make that distinction.
I'm so happy that our government is being so easily influenced to spend precious time on something with such a big influence on our national security, our society and the people of the United States of America.
Well done!!
/end sarcasm
"they are from all walks of life"
Yes, ranging from "pretty damned" rich to "OMFG I can buy a foreign country" rich.
And even if they came to Washington just "comfortably rich", they certain get to "very rich" very quickly. The trouble is, there is a certain kind of person who wants political office, and you don't get elected to senator from just being a farmer in Kansas. You have to go through the political machines for a few decades before the Republicans or Democrats will allow you to be the nominee.
The funny part is all the nutty right week religious guys, all the guys defending hollywood copyrights, all the guys who are an advocate of certain positions don't really give a crap about their public statements and support. They only care about getting elected. Those guys pushing religion? They've all got $1000 a night hookers, but in public, to get votes from suckers like you and me, they're pious and letting you know about "jesus christ my personal savior".
It's all BS, and as soon as you get it out of your head that these "ordinary folks", the sooner you can make good judgment about who to vote for.
TFA does say further down that possible prevention measures are still shaky and may not be able to distinguish legal file transfer from other types.
I still think the senator likely works entirely on buzzwords and "P2P bad!" "RIAA good!" is about as fine a distinction as we'll ever get from a politician because it's all about the "message" we send to young people rather than actually having any sort of sensible, rational code of law.
More laws purchased to punish and restrict our rights. Why not just hand out cuffs at birth and label us all as criminals at the start?
Its long past time to toss all of them out on their ass and revamp the system like it was intended to be by our founders. ( yes i know it wont happen until the 2nd revolution, but i can still wish )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
its simply fantastic to see all the democrats on /. scrambling to either offset this as a democratic move or to try to pull the republicans into it. what's wrong dems? afraid to be shown that your half of the political scam going on is your fault? afraid to see your party for what it really is?
i hope they get their way. i hope that every student caught breaking copyright law gets their student aid pulled from under them. what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
"But one political party is comprised of members today who support torture and voted to gut habeus corpus--which party was it?"
Both parties supported and support it all of these policies. They were and are widely known.
It's like certain political candidates decrying the war and the abuses during their campaign, but they knew about it the entire time it was going on. In a way, they're worse, because they'll do anything that is politically expedient. They have no guiding principles of their own.
So to me, both parties are equally guilty. You might single this administration out as particularly inept and anti civil rights, but I think party affiliation has less to do with it than the individuals involved.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
We are not far away from the next generation of P2P. It will be untraceable and unstoppable. No ISP required. It will work better for illegal sharing than legitimate sharing. Every time the congressional morons think they are eliminating P2P, they are simply interfering with the "visible" P2P world. Wait until they discover stealth P2P! I would say more about it and perhaps advocate its development and deployment, but the timing is not quite right. Steath P2P is a WMD (weapon of mass distribution) as far as the copyright industry is concerned. I'm not so sure about the ethics of doing this. But if Congress interferes with my rights to legitimate P2P transfers, the gloves come off.
once upon a time, there was a concept called selfishness. along came a reptile like ayn rand, dressed this concept up in the trappings of philosophy, and rechristened the concept libertarianism. well actually, she favored the term objectivism, and was antagonistic to libertarians as ignorant people: rand was quite antagonistic to libertarians:
so she thought of libertarians as ignorants, and she was right about that. but no matter,
her "objectivism" is still utter intellectual crap. libertarianism is nothing but a code word for selfishness, dressed up in political signals and philosphical portents. but if you dress up a cheap whore in a fine dress, she's still a cheap whore. so it is with libertarians and anyone who spouts that nonsense. her "objectivism" has been completely coopted by the ignorant libertarians even ayn rand detested. she deserves them as her cult followers nonetheless, because whatever she called her thinking, trying to separate herself in vain from the kind of retards her pap appealed to, her thinking was still lame
libertarianism appeals to certain classes of individuals:
1. libertarianism appeals to earnest but naive college students with too many philosophy books under their belt, but without any real life experience, who build castles in the sky in their minds about how the world should or would or could work if people just started behaving in ways people have never behaved in any culture or time period since the dawn of mankind
2. it also appeals to rural folk, who don't understand how they fit into the larger world, and firmly believe themselves to be islands completely owing nothing to anyone else. what they are of course is coccooned within a larger country and system upon which the relative peace and quiet of their worlds depend. but it is hard to see that from the hinterlands until madness marches across the countryside, which it does, unfortunately, in societies that have abandoned the simple common human responsibility we have to take care of each other
3. and it appeals to 40 something selfish assholes behind on their alimony payments, corrupt and personally bankrupt about any give and take in their lives. nothing more needs to be said of such people. we understand them, and we understand why libertarianism appeals to them on a deep level
i put it this way: human nature is both altruistic and selfish. any political philosophy you present to the world has to address both sides of this coin, or you have built a political philosophy which is a nonstarter in the real world, because it doesn't jive with the nature of the humans you are attempting to impose it on
we all understand why communism doesn't work: it depends upon altruism, and doesn't address human selfishness. in a communist system, selfishness still exists, in the human beings in the system, but unaddressed by the system imposed upon them, and so selfishness eats communism apart from the inside
if you will, if a whole co
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the point he made is that it *was* a viable business model assuming people aren't thieves. Even walmart does not have a viable business model if everyone becomes a shoplifter. This much is obvious.
By helping everyone become a thief, file sharing has turned a once thriving market into a graveyard, and the honest, legitimate consumer has missed out. Nice work pirates, you fucked up the industry you supposedly liked.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Everyone downloads illegaly until they start working and realize that they have to be laid off because their company is losing money due to piracy.
You're right, of course. The blame is shared by practically everyone in Congress, in addition to a White House that hasn't heard of the Constitution, and a hand-picked judiciary that doesn't care about the Constitution.
There is still at least one man on Capitol Hill who doesn't want to sell out your rights to a corporation. You Americans would do well to vote in Ron Paul next year; he'll veto any un-Constitution crap like DRM and content-filtering laws that come along.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
but if the business model you are in is making single player RPG games (for example), you suggest they shift to doing an MMO instead I guess? Nice work, you just wiped out the role playing game industry for everyone who doesn't enjoy level grinds.
The alternatively is people actually obey the law. What a concept eh?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
if perot won in 92, or nader won in 00, or kucinich or ron paul wins in 2008, all that happens is that their party replaces the republicans or the democrats, and things continue on, unchanged. just read about the whigs, it happened before
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
aristocracy and corporatocracy are completely different. to say any more on that obvious point is laughable. just go educate yourself, please
if you want to defeat your enemy, you have to know him. confusing your enemy with another kind of enemy just stymies your own efforts and renders you ineffective
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
PS: Sorry for changing your wording, but since you obviously use words differently than the rest of us, I thought it adequate to translate them into English before quoting them in my English post.
wow, your arrogance really helps your point of view, as I'm sure you realise.
that's called sarcasm.
So basically you wouldn't give a fuck if all the different forms of entertainment you enjoy right now got wiped out because of other people stealing the work?
What a fucked up attitude.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I have been boycotting all RIAA product for about 6 months now and I can tell you, I don't miss it. Indy label misc and film actually has to be good because it doesn't have a massive corporate beauracracy tweaking every aspect of how to sell crap to sheep. (I'm thinking Clearchannel here). Defund these corporate bullies. That is one thing they cannot fight no matter how many gov't stooges they have on the payroll!
Here's a helpful link...
http://www.riaaradar.com/
it's classic psychology: they have trained dogs to learn that they cannot control their surroundings. they teach them that if they get an electric shock no matter what, even if they can jump over a barrier to escape the shocks, then the dogs just lay down and take the shocks
it's a sad psychological observation, and it works just as well on humans
the point is to effect control on your government, that's the beauty of a democracy. but if a democracy is populated by those who think helpessly, like slaves, like you, who see an "us" versus "them" way of looking at their own government, then democracy does not work
the surest way to fascism in the usa is through people thinking like you: you think you are helpless to effect meaningful change, and so you accept whatever goes on in washington dc as something too distant for you to control. i'm not saying you don't vote, but your reaosing describes the same sort of ignorant impulse to not vote
and when you withhold your vote, you only help those who you complain about. those who you hate are HAPPY that you do not vote. if their actions lead you to not vote, all the more reason to do the actions they do, according to them. do you understand that?
your psychology is that of a slave in a fascist state. and if enough people who think like you populate this country, then that is exactly what it will become. BECAUSE of people like you, not in spite of people like you
look: there will ALWAYS be assholes who try to manipulate the system. always. but simply because they exist, you will withhold your voice from your government. incredible. you must always fight the assholes who would subvert democracy. but if you simply stop fighting them, and give up your vote, and just spout the typical cynical pap you just soupted above, signaling that you give up caring, then guess what? the assholes you complain about win, and they win because of YOU
if this country is not democratic in anyway, it is more because of people like you, then the assholes who would subvert it. because evil assholes can be fought. apathy on the other hand, as demonstrated in your wqords above, is an obstinate unmoveable useless obstacle
people who think like you are the biggest reason democracy fails: "i'm helpless to change my government
no, you typical lowest common denominator cynic, you're not helpless, you count. unless you make YOURSELF not count. which is what YOU do, not what the evil assholes do in washington dc
you only think the way you do because you have been trained like a dog in a cage. you've learned helpelessness, you have no heart, you've ceased caring. and it's completely your own fault
but you may now continue blaming washington dc for all of your troubles, like i know you do, and then conclude with thoughts that demonstrate to yourself how you can't do anything to change your lot in life
you're a typical loser, and if democracy ever fails in the usa, it is because of thinking just like yours, not because of evil manipulative assholes. they can be defeated. you can't. your kind grows like an obstinate unmoveable fungus
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain, i am the all and powerful oz"
why fight parnaoid schizophrenia? just play along with it
see, friend, the reason i write the words i do is because i am merely a servant of the ruling classes, paid to come here to cast aspersions on the brave defenders of truth like yourself
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Where do you go when you're a civil libertarian who also believes in universal health care? Where do you go when you believe in both universal health care and tort reform as components of health care reform? Where do you go when you distrust and dislike most of the Muslim world but also don't believe in the Iraq War? Where do you go when you hate both political correctness AND bible-thumping fundamentalism? Where do you go when you hate trial lawyers AND oil execs? Where do you go when you want REAL reform in Washington (not just of the campaign stump variety, or the kind loaded with loopholes)? Where do you go when you believe in both the 1st AND 2nd amendments? Where do you go when you believe in both the death penalty AND abortion rights? Where do you go when you believe in abortion rights but not abortion itself?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
However we much we may dislike what Harry Reid is doing, the claim about "Hollywood" and the Democrats is load of peanut butter. We need to get these reality-challenged conservative canards out of our public discussion; they certainly have no business of the front page of Slashdot.
Um, I don't think any one here actually had a clue what the funding sources where before you listed them. After seeing the results though, I'd say the statement stands though. Ok. It's not the main but in the middle of the top ten which I'd call a major funding source. One thing that I noticed is that each of the grouping above could be considered several different ways. If I were a Law Firm, Securities & Investment, or Retired that had interest in the TV/Movies/Music, I'd make sure my interests were lobbied across. The thing is the Law Firm, Securities & Investment, or Retired interest may or may not be inline with the TV/Movies/Music. Law Firm's may want long legal battles that all sides pay for. Securities & Investment would want the TV/Movies/Music that they have money in to still be profitable. Retired folks may not object therefore giving the TV/Movies/Music little inside party opposition if someone wants to support the TV/Movies/Music platform.
(or at least thats what my last post of this type was marked as)
Hollywood backing them or not. Popular or not. Easy to get away with or not. None of these things mean that stealing/ip theft/copyright infringement should be legal or tolerated. Yes the market must grow and adapt, but it shouldn't be because of teenagers who refuse to pay for music no matter how cheap it is.
Sure, get mad at the RIAA for protecting is profits (its not an actual business or anything, right?), then get mad at Target/Walmart/etc for detaining shoplifters. Someone has to teach music "pirates" that there are consiquences, and if that means "extorting" money from them, so be it.
Didn't Michelle Malkin write a book about how the concentration camps were a good thing? By golly, yes she did. Title is "In Defense of Internment".
So one of the annointed few who is allowed to speak on behalf of the Republican party is running around the airwaves defending the japanese internment... Whereas the Democrats apologize for it whenever it's brought up.
It's examples like this which lead people to the conclusion that the Democratic party is the one with moral superiority.
It's one thing for abuse to occur, but it's quite another to defend abuse.
the point of democracy is to represent the will of the people. if you are the fringe, you are fringe, end of story. you have no business representing the will of the people. therefore, the american trend for political parties to trend to the middle (actually, an inevitable consequence of any two party system, nevermind the usa) SERVES THE PEOPLE WELL
you talk of the european systems as somehow innately superior. ever familiarize yourself with the byzantine political power sharing arrangments that make up coalition governments? you have greens shacking up with right wing nationalists to share power. that in your mind is superior? you speak of "true believers" and speak glowingly about the european system in the same breath!? ha! don't trust me: go ask a german about the role of "true believers" in their politics. pffffffft
fact is, from way out in the prairie, two mountain tops in the rockies look close together. but in the valley between the mountains, they are radically different. in other words, out on the fringe with your "true believers" (ie, deluded ignorant naive idealists), all 10 of you, certainly two parties to the right and left of the middle look the same. but to the american middle, the millions who actually count, who are actually electing a government that is supposed to represent them, the slight difference you see is a big difference to them
let's put it this way: say you have a politician who appeals to a small group 100%. totally aligned to their ideology. now you have another politician who waters down his ideology and appeals only 75% to a larger group of people. who wins the elction? play this trend out to it's inevitability: the politician who waters down his views to appeal only 51% to a huge group of people, beats the guy who appeals 66% to a smaller group of people. get my point?
NO politician will EVER appeal to you except very weakly. if they appeal to you very strongly, THEY WOULDN'T WIN. because you, yourself, occupy a small ideological niche. everyone does, in fact. everyone has some idea or another that is out of mainstream, and that they won't find represented in their politicians
so if you don't vote except for people who appeal to you strongly, or not at all, you're just ignorant
and no, this fact of life about weakly appealing to everyone is not a bad thing, THIS IS A GOOD THING. the strength of democracy is that the fringe does NOT get in power. the weakly appealing watered down seemingly standing for nothing politician wins and this is GOOD. it makes a stable government because the mass of people, on the average, fell like their voice is being represented, which is the whole point of democracy in the first place
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
everyone has a unique set of ideological beliefs. no government can represent the will of any one person 100%. but a government CAN represent the ideological average of the population. since this is always changing, and is difficult to pin down, having multiple political parties competing over the ideological center is the best system mankind has so far invented for making the government express the will of the people it is supposed to represent most exactly
someday, maybe we'll have a better system. i can think of changing how we vote (like the borda system) as one sure way to do that, but until enough people like me realize it's about how the math of the voting system works, not political or ideological systems in the end, we're not going to improve, and we're doing as good as we can hope in the current voting math regime
in other words, if there is any tyranny in the current us govt (or all democracies in the world, actually), it isn't ideological, it's mathematical. heh
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
is all about laws!
do you get it?
(smacks forehead)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=254503&cid=199 68459
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Or maybe the big payouts are in lucrative consulting jobs after a politician retires or loses an election. You know, something to pass along to the kids.
File sharing is not the primary reason that theater ticket sales are down.
It seems to me that the real reason is that so many people have a "good enough" theater in their own home, and can just wait for movies to come out on DVD.
They've got their DVD player hooked up to the stereo, have a "big enough" screen and all of the comforts of home without all of the hassle and expense of going to the movie theater.
It is dishonest to blame file sharing, it's pretty obvious that recent improvements in consumer-level media technology are the real "culprit" here.
File sharing is just a convenient strawman.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
as a lot of code is
human stupidity is a constant across all time, all space, and all legislating bodies, no matter what their composition. stupidity is an enemy which will not be defeated by addressing the concerns of too many lawyers in congress
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It is especially bad Democratic policy.
The Democratic Party's philosophy is -- or should be -- that the government should legislate and regulate for the public good. In this case, we're considering strengthening copyright legislation that is already sufficient to create a whole series of industries around "intellectual property".
The intended good here is that industry would like to have an easier time enforcing their legal IP rights. There's nothing wrong with that goal, but we have to look at the larger picture. The industry already has tools to enforce its rights, we're just making it cheaper for it to do so. The cost doesn't go away, it is shifted to the universities, and of course the government which will have to oversee the new regulations. So to a first approximation, the proposal is that the government rob Peter to pay Paul. Republicans of course think that's what Democratic policy is all about, redistributing wealth (and Democrats believe the same of Republicans). But that's not what Democratic policies should be about.
It's not (by Democratic principles) the business of government to look after business interests. It has no business taking public money to enrich a private party, or taking money from one private party simply to benefit another, more favored party. It is the business of government to look after the public interest. Sometimes a private party may find itself enriched by good policies; nearly every policy will tend benefit or cost some more than others. But the key question is what are the public benefits and costs? In this case there is no public benefit, and numerous public costs.
So we should ask this: will the cost of copyrighted material to the public drop as a result of this policy? This is a simple and useful question. If the answer is yes, then we are justified in implementing it. If the answer is no, we're just creating corporate welfare. I'd strike a compromise: if the average cost of music drops by, say, 10%, adjusted of course for overall inflation, and stays there for, say, five years, then the policy continues. If not, the policy either drops or the industry must pay the universities and government the cost of implementing it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So you tell me to pick one of the two parties, get inside, and change it to what I want? The problem is that we have only two parties in which to place all the people in this nation. We need more options, as no party seems to represent even most of a person's beliefs. People can't find a reflection of themselves in either R or D so they vote for the least offensive party.
That's fucked up. We need more choices.
Blar.
A law is only as good as the degree to which it is being enforced.
Nono, I think the parent to your post was correct. And I think you're correct. The market for entertainment we now enjoy is something that will drastically change (I doubt it'll get wiped out. Even the most headstrong lemming has to concede and change sometime). And such is life. We have no need for phrenologists anymore, so they changed and got a job as sushi-makers.
If the industry changes because of people stealing the work, then the industry will change. People are unlikely to stop stealing the work. It has been the case since the advent of personal computers. Remember copying games on 5 1/4" floppy disks? Tape? Copying them from magazines? I did. And look at the industry now.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
So what you're saying is that we need to replace republicans and democrats with god like aliens? I'll drink to that.
No, actually, I don't really give a fuck. Sorry for not weeping tears about the death of an industry branch. Should I be sad about a semi-natural process?
:)
Also, it's not like games will magically vanish five years down the road - I'll still be able to play, say, my copy of Deus Ex (which I bought, by the way). But I don't have any particular emotional attachment to the software entertainment industry. That's a matter of perspective - I don't particularly care if species of animals survive either as long as their dying out doesn't damage the survival chances of my species. One could probably consider that a cold-hearted attitude, but that's okay. Even being a total arrogant(?) bitch, I'm still happy. And yes, I can sleep at night.
you care about nobody or nothing but yourself. you have made that very obvious. you are, it would seem, a typical leech.
At a very low level, nobody cares about anything but himself. Compassion and empathy are social artifacts created to protect the group from the individual. That's not a bad thing, it's how humans work. I'm just a little more aware of it than most. Do you really think humans are naturally "nice"?
the founding fathers ingrained slavery in the constitution. protecting the rights of the minority, ha!
the truth is, there is no such thing as the tyranny of the majority. the majority's desires aren't so exclusive and punishing to the minority as you and others would believe. it's the demagogues and their interests that hurt minority interests. and so the checks and balances you talk about are valuable for containing the damage the demagogues do if and when they get elected into positions of power
it's about containing the tyranny of demogogues. the majority are and always have been blameless on the issue of tyrannical abuses of the minority interests
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It is sickening to me that the interests of corporations are held above the will of the citizens. Oh wait, we aren't citizens, we are consumers.
I don't recall anyone saying that Hollywood's direct contributions were "the main source of cash for Democrats", although that's a clever strawman. The contention always has been that Hollywood is a big fundraiser for Democrats, and that's an important distinction.
If Jane Starlet hosts a $20,000-per-plate dinner for Candidate X, then she didn't actually contribute $2,000,000 to him - she just caused it to be donated. How many times do you hear about Republican actors holding these events? Compare and contrast with the nearly constant list of Democratic Party celebrity fundraisers.
Again, you knocked down an argument that I've never actually heard anyone put forth. If you have any numbers showing that Hollywood does not overwhelmingly favor Democrats over Republicans in fundraising (and not contributions), as I would be sincerely interested in hearing them.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Yeah, so I suppose that this is somehow going to end up being blamed on George Bush.
Sure, he's the dumb ass that thought you could wiretap the whole internet. Federal wiretapping has cost all of us lots of money and makes possible further dumb ass dreams like "protecting" music from Universities. The federal government is stupid from the top down. GWB is going to sign this bill with glee, as long as it does not give too much money to education, because it provides some flimsy justification for his other unAmerican policies.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The submitter suggests that "Hollywood" is the Democrats largest cash machine. Just a little bit of leg work shows otherwise. For instance, Senator Reid received the largest percetange (13.39%) of his 2004 campaign contributions ($8,907,846 total) from law firms ($1,192,588), followed by casinos ($546,113), and "Hollywood" (read TV/Movies/Music) came in 9th ($146,500). I didn't take the time to scour every Democrat in congress, but I suspect that few, if any, received most of their money from "Hollywood". Think for yourself for a change. You can get real, honest, and useful information by getting of your ass and finding it.
Make this issue the college age election issue. Register to vote at your college district and make all politicians aware of your feelings, organize other students on this issue and vote based on this issue. Local elected officials will need to address any group of citizens of numbers 10 or more. Local officials will cry to state and federal officials this will get Reid's attention he is a party leader. Do it this year, get the freshman to do it. Next year is congressional reelection do it again. If you succeed in rattling a few lower elected officials their political consultants will be all over you trying to save their members in Congress their jobs.
History says college students will not become politically active like this and the likely outcome... More slashdot posts, more parties, more bitching at politicians. The politicians KNOW you will not act they can take the money and use your college administrations against you and your tuition.
NO ACTION == NO FILE SHARING.
Do something, anything really.
They expect you to pay for stuff instead of stealing it.
Democrats are looking to spoil the fun. Glad you republicans (like the one who posted the original article) can't steal your music anymore.
if you still work with the system, then stop trashing it with your words
you say it's very very broken. ok. but then you vote and write letters. well that doesn't make any sense if you believe it's so broken. so if you still see hope, then you need to update your rhetoric, because what you say doesn't match what you do
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Since Reid has not been able to pass anything else on his agenda, I doubt if he has the competence to carry this one off. It does prove the point that all politicians of both parties are for sale, big surprise. As I have said before, if you are in a lower tax bracket than the congresscritters, you have NO representation in Washington!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Hollywood special interests? I haven't heard much about tax breaks for key grips and best boys lately. Hollywood had plenty of right wing nut jobs, too. I don't think Hollywood is the canonical Democratic Party special interest group.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
a duopoly forces the political parties to converge on the ideological middle. in other words, the ideological middle of american citizens is better served by two parties competing over them. there are still problems with a duopoly, but your analysis of duopoly is wrong: more parties just means more bedlam, more fracture. but don't trust my word for it: go ask a german what he thinks of the byzantine power politics of coalition governments that sees greens shacking up with right wing nationalists. in other words, ideology gets sublimated to cynical callow power maneuvering in europe. at least in the usa you know who to hate, ideologically. in europe, the lesson of the status quo of coalition governments is that ideology means nothing. that's not superior to the american system, just broken in a different way
but i do agree we need a borda voting system. the party system is a direct result of the mathematics of our voting system, and a borda system would result in something superior to the american duopoly and the tower of babel that is the european multiparty chaos:
no political parties at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Cash" supporter, they are one of the biggest supporters in general. look at all the free publicity they get. While there are a few token republicans in Hollywood, the vast majority are liberal Democrats, and they make that fact well known in their movies, in their interviews and in their fund raisers
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Slashdot is simply out of date. From the Chronicle of Higher Education's Today's News (for subscribers): Facing widespread outrage from college officials, a prominent senator withdrew legislative language on Monday that would have required some institutions to buy technological tools to curtail illegal file sharing on their campuses....
n/t
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Isn't the whole point of a library to provide access to media for students interested in various topics who wouldn't be able to afford purchasing their own copies?
Some school needs to get innovative and start up their own online media library which takes advantage of the super fast connections most campuses have and stream the media. They've tried partnering with commercial vendors but that doesn't seem to work as well as they'd hoped.
The music industry and movie industry and whomever else should be giving students access to as much music as they want.... they're only there for 4-5 years on average and after they graduate they are going to want to have the same type of access... but will have jobs and bank accounts to pay for it. Right now all they are doing is training them on how to use P2P and avoid getting caught.
Maybe they should limit internet access bandwidth to web and email ports but provide campusNet access to media servers with very fast connections. Make it really easy for students to access the legal stuff... then they'll only have to deal with the small minority who want to download *alternative* content. Even better, you could let students manage the content and create Channels. Let them create proposals for various formats and apply for budgets to buy the media for distribution to the rest of the campus. This would make the students appreciate the economics and would give them ownership which they will then defend against *pirates*.
Add to this and license Facebook servers and let students hook up their profiles with various channels, etc and build their cultural profile and talk about the latest whatever.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Are you disputing the fact that a system can become broken?
What you have said so far is that anyone who refuses to work with the system is helping it to break, and if you think the system is broken, there is no reason to try to work with it.
So what should someone who believes the system is broken do? I can't do nothing because that makes me a fascist, and I can't work within the system for to try and improve it because that makes me a hypocrite. The only options left, that I can see, are working outside the system by manipulating the vote, or a second revolution, which I am hesitant to initiate until all other options have been tried.
Is there another option I've missed? Or are you just argueing to argue now?
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
I'm just glad I don't have friends like you mate.
update your rhetoric, which i've already said. duh
if a sink is broken, you can't use it, you need to replace it. if a sink is clogged, you can unclog it, and continue to use it. if you work within the system you have to stop referring to it as broken. call it clogged. if you continue to call it broken, you are indeed alluding to the need for revolution, which if course isn't the answer. so update your rhetoric!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
is a simple, fundamental component of human nature
a kindergartener can understand why. hell, kindertgarteners demonstrate acts of altruism and selishness
i will not stoop to engaging in the sort of intellectual charity needed to explain the blindingly obvious to you. if you can't understand what a kindergartener understands about altruism, you're really blind or stupid or simply propagandized in some strange retarded way
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This proves Harry Reid is an idiot.
I'm ashamed to be in the same party as him!
Listen, both the Democrats and Republicans are bought and paid for by special interest groups. You are only kidding yourself if you think otherwise.
As a graduate of Edinburgh, the clear difference from the US is that transatlantic bandwidth is expensive. The university doesn't want you pulling terabytes from the state because it's damn expensive. I am under the impression that most US universities are so ingrained in the internet backbone that they have excess bandwidth and don't have to protect it.
:(
I found edinburgh didn't care too much about what you did so long as you stayed on JaNET, where they had 20Gb/s of bandwidth. You'd frequently find that your 100mbit ethernet connection or hard drive were the bottleneck on how fast you could share files. Of course most students were busy trying to run Napster or kazaa and leeching files across the atlantic
Call his office and protest. I did, even though I'n not from Nevada. While i was at it I reminded his staff that the only peer reviwed study on the subject that I'm aware of showed little to no corelation between illegal downloading and lost content sales (http://jackspratts.blogspot.com/2007/02/bthe-doct or-is-back-inb-in-news-again.html).
I also may have mentioned he was beginning to sound like a republican weenie.
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Carson City 600 East William Street, #302 Carson City, NV 89701 Phone: 775-882-7343 / Fax: 775-883-1980
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Reid Newsroom Sen. Reids Nevada Press Office 202-224-9521 (for inquires about Nevada issues or from Nevada media). Senate Democratic Communications Center 202-224-2939
Theft is theft, whether it concerns digital or physical assets, but what rationale could possibly come up with punishment worse than if the offender committed murder? This kind:
From S. Prt. 107-84 -- Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings 1953-54).- http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/commo
Hollywierd is in CA which is more Democrat than Republican; so of course more money is being donated to Democrats.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
It depends on what your definition of "is" is ;)
You listed the DNC -- opensecrets also aggregates all-time donor profiles here: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.asp?order=A
#1 on that list is the union representing government employees...
It is a sad truth but one we're all aware of. Money talks. Our laws are no longer based on those "unalienable rights" listed in our beloved constitution. It is instead based on the 'Golden Rule' which states "He who has the gold makes the rules." Senator Reid is not the first to be bought by Hollywood and he won't be the last. There's too much money to be made through litigation for the RIAA so they're willing to invest quite a bit to pull whatever governmental strings they can find a price tag on.
I'll stop here lest this turn into a 3 page rant that no one reads.
-asleep
"Okay, I'm willing to accept that scarcity is a requirement for commerce, and that in this context, artificial scarcity is needed to keep the system alive. (link [wikipedia.org]) That doesn't change the fact that the copyright system is out of control. "
And how will mass piracy change that?
"Besides, most content producers could survive even without this artificial scarcity in place, by shifting to a business model centered around a resource that still is scarce."
Is your side always this self-destructive? Me personally as an artist wouldn't mind the maneuver. I still get to make a living free of the entitlement group's harassment. And your side gets taught a lesson that's been long overdue.
That is a very narrow slice of the money landscape. It speaks nothing of soft money, which is where most of the money flows. Also, it should be kept in mind that we're talking about a social club. Democratic politicians give the impression of wanting to be accepted, loved and validated by Hollywood Elite. Why else would they do such things as inviting Leonardo DiCaprio to testify before Congress on global warming? It's not all about money.
In the article they mention schools giving away free or cheap media downloads.
I go to Penn State. Well, this is good and all - our school used to give away free Napster downloads and now have moved to Ruckus. Well guess what? Every May, after finals, Napster disables your access to your downloads. You can't even stream anymore after the school year ends. And now that they've terminated their contract with Napster, the downloads do nothing at all. Not only that, but good luck getting those downloads to work in anything but Windows Media Player! My MP3s work on anything, including the reason most of it is digitized - to run on my XBox set-top box running XBMC.
So, at least Penn State isn't giving away free or discounted music downloads, they're giving free music rentals. Sorry, but getting a cable modem and using BitTorrent is, and probably always will be more convenient. Sorry, RIAA, you're still fucked.
"Yet somehow PC games have managed to survive all of the doom and gloom. It's been 20 years already with rampant piracy the whole way and they're still around."
Would this happen to be the same game industry that slashdot is always going "It's about the game play!"? Or do you have a different version of reality?
"That just goes to show that if you put out a good product and don't abuse your customers too much, people will still pay for your stuff even if it is readily available for free."
So much for the OP's gloom and doom then. To paraphrase: "jedidiah confirms it. Games aren't dead!"
"That is the "business model shift" that both the RIAA and the MPAA need to make. They need to stop acting like they are entitled to success. They have to act like they are willing to work for it. This goes equally for AMC that thinks it can get away with showing commercials for some lame ass sitcom before Harry Potter 5"
So in other words, mass piracy is a better method, than getting off our collective butts and doing our civic duty. Hopefully that'll make up for all the years of just sitting around our computers, stuffing our faces, and using slashdot as a verbal landfill.
"As I like to say: When it comes to ripping off artists, consumers really are amateurs compared to the labels."
Oh joy. Does it really matter if it's the "consumers" dick, or the "RIAA's" dick? Somehow as an artist, it ends up feeling the same.
First do something about all the illegal Mexicans. Then you can do something about illegal file sharing. Stop being bought and fix the damn broken country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Heil Harry........
You're being illogical. You cite to total funds to the Dems by chamber then draw a conclusion on Harry Ried. You're saying because only 4 percent of total donations was from Hollywood, then Ried only received 4 percent from Hollywood.
Senators do not receive the same amount from all "donors." What if all 2 million from Hollywood went to him? Or, more likely, the 2 million was targeted the Senators with control over the appropriate committees, with a little extra targeting the majority leadership to ensure proper floor support when it counts.
This does not account for side deals which benefit a member of Congress without qualifying as a direct bribe.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Why don't they write off piracy losses as an expense on their corporate income tax? If the IRS won't recognize piracy as an expense, why should anyone else?
A commenter on the post said, "Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine."
To which I would respond, "This is America. You must be new here."
Note: I would say the same thing about Republicans. It's not a partisan thing, but a politics thing.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
people on here have discussed this before. floppy disk copying is no comparison, clearly it required physical action on your part. sharing on bittorrent is another order of magnitude (and effect) entirely. don't insult everyone's intelligence with such horseshit.
How the fuck do you think it is not harmful to globally mass-distribute other people work at no cost. are you really that delusional?
now he killed intellectuals
otherwise, this statement mystifies me:
"those of us who were born with better brains than others should be allowed to exercise those brains without fear of reprisal by violent means"
i will attempt an interpretation and deduct that you are afraid of getting rich and being targetted for reprisal because of hatred of the rich. well, being rich is more than about just brains. i think that societies like france shortly before the french revolution was all about not hatred of the rich so much as it was about hatred for a system that ossified the rich and the poor into permanent class structures
this has nothing to do with a capitalist system, something more dynamic: a meritocracy based on hard work and good ideas being rewarded, in which even a poor person can become rich. this is not an aristocracy. are you confusing classism and capitalism in your mind?
or maybe i misinterpret you. i fail to understand the nature of the conflict you talk about when referring to using your brain and getting violent reprisal for that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, name me which Democratic Candidate has offered to:
a) Repeal USA PATRIOT
b) Repeal Dept of Homeland Security
The answer is, none of the above.
In fact, Democrats are introducing legislation to have even MORE searches and more Federal Power with the "Complete" implementation of the 9/11 recommendations.
Bottom line is, your faith in Democrats as guarantors of liberty is misplaced.
This is my sig.
and selfishness are really the same thing. everything can be described as selfish. for example, giving to a charity in order to feel good about yourself. everything can also be described as altruistic. for example, building a multinational corporation in order to donate to charity later. it all depends upon your persepctive: who is benefitting? yourself? well what is "yourself"? when you are motivated to act in an entity's benefit, is it you as in you the individual? as in your family? as in your neighborhood? as in your country?
the guy who is described as a selfless hero by dying for his country: his actions can be called selfish, because he didn't think of himself the individual as very important, but he thought of his identity as an american to have meaning. or how about the guy who died to save his son? his identity as a father perhaps meant more to him than his own life. so he was in fact selfish when dying for his son
therefore, the issue is not that something or someone is selfish or altrusitic so much as the issue is that someone, a libertarian or a communist, wants to come to you and rigidly enforce upon you how you should define your identity, your perspective about what to be selfish about. and so libertarianism fails, becuase it fails to address people who have no sense of identity beyond that of their neighborhood, or their country, or their religion, or their family. and communism fails, because it fails to address people who's sense of identity ends at the end of their nose
both communism and libertarianism fail because they fail to properly understand the psychology of human identity, that it is fluid, and that questions about altruism and selfishness are not narrowly defined in real life. unfortunately, communism insists on sublimating the self in order to serve society, and libertarianism insists on sublimating any sense of identity that is not strictly an individualistic one. both therefore fail by failing to understand that identity is way more fluid than that, it is not rigidly defined in such ways in real life
in a strange way then, libertarianism is actually anti-freedom: it is against the freedom to choose about how to define yourself, about what to be selfish about. in libertarianism, you can only be selfish about you, the individual. and so libertarianism fails to properly address those who work only for family or country, or neighborhood or religion or whatever. and so it fails to work in reality, because such people are not strange random wierdoes, such people are actually aspects of everyone's personality, including your own, in describing your motiviations about who or what to work for and be selfish about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
[rant]
The idea that politicians are fundamentally different from you or I is simply ridiculous. They do live in the same country, they abide by the same rules. They are elected democratically, and there is no filter that turns the proverbial mouse into the proverbial cat as soon as they enter any position of power. They don't instantly become corrupt just because they have some small amount of power. They (more likely than not) grew up in the same country as you, many with similar upbringings and some with similar beliefs to you. If you find that I'm wrong, and that there really aren't any people who share your views, or that they never get voted in, and you still aren't satisfied, then perhaps you aren't right for democracy, and should direct your political ambitions to the goal of running your own dictatorship.
Society would be safer, more constructive, and more efficient if people would highlight each other's similarities, rather than demonise each other based on their differences.
[/rant]
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Any attempt to combat piracy is treated harshly on /. Why do you support piracy?
So let me get this straight. The savior party that promised to end the war in Iraq, fix the clusterfuck that is healthcare, stop the overreaching civil-rights grab at the hands of the Republicans are now so *busy* doing all those things that they have time to worry about protecting the mafIAA?
All I've seen come out of the Hill recently has been meaningless resolutions, pointless infighting and a lot of hot air.
I'm all in favor of recalling every fucking one of them and putting a big dent in the problem by passing a term-limit bill on ALL elected and appointed government officials. I mean, fuck it. If they weren't so worried about having a career in politics, they would focus more on doing the right thing for the good of the people. And the bad ones would probably get out of the game forever.
The goddamned democrats these days are every bit as worthless as the republicans.
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
I for one welcome our new god-like alien overlords!
If politicians are going to get involved very heavily in how people make and spend money, we should expect money to try to exert influence in politics.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
One day, I suspect not to far off, people are going transmit music and other pirated warez via micro sd cards attached to trained pigeons. Of course we all know the RIAA will deploy trained hawks to try and counter this type of P2P(Pigeon 2 Perch) traffic.
like most difficult problems in life, the choice is between two infringements on your liberty: taxes, or the infirmary of your community
the bite taxes take out is easy to see and quantify and immediate in effect
a community that doesn't take care of itself is more difficult to quantify, sparse and slow in effect
you are part of a community, you derive your riches from it. taxes are an investment you make to guarantee the health of your community, so that you derive more riches from it. do you think the money in your paycheck is yours by inception from god? no, you worked for it, you provided something to your commuity, and they paid you money
now, in a vacuum, taxes are obviously evil. but in the context of the reality you live in, taxes are a SMALLER imposition on your life than a sick community is
and in life, it is about difficult choices, not simple propagandistic choices presented in a vacuum without any context
do you understand?
there are plenty of things that infringe on liberty in life: sleep, eating. why do i have to sleep? seems like a horrible imposition on my freedoms. of course its a silly statement, because we understand why that imposition on my freedom occurs
it is also equally silly to think you can live in a community without being taxed, and yet continue to think you can derive financial benefit from a community that you won't take care of
furthermore, you don't really understand money
money is an abstract expression of value to other people IN A COMMUNITY. it's value doesn't exist in a vacuum outside the context of the society in which you live. in other words it is IMPOSSIBLE to have money without taxation. whether overt or covert. you see that you own money, but you seem to think that money has value outside of the context of the community in which you live. it doesn't. if you understand that the $10 in your pocket is merely an abstract expression of your membership in a larger social community, you begin to understand that thinking about money and taxes in the way you do is a logical absurdity: it isn't yours completely, because it doesn't exist as anything of value outside of a community arrangement. you are part of a larger whole, whether you realize it or not. you are not an island. even if you built your own roads, grew your own crops, sutured your own wounds, generated your own electricity: you exist on a geogrpahical area that is part of a larger social entity you are a member of: it provided you an education, it provides for your security, etc. are you an alien from another planet?!
in other words, your perception of your relationship to the larger community you live in is seriously deluded about some fundamental concepts about how you came to be alive and how you continue to live
and such people like you do indeed need to be thrown in jail, because you are a vampire: you derive sustenance from your larger community, but you will not recognize or are unable to recognize how. you are a thief, indeed. out of ignorance or willfull selfishness, but you are a thief who needs punishment, who does need violence in order to teach you a lesson
you are seriously deranged on a rather fundamental aspect of your existence
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Attacking filesharing is nearly as bad as attacking drunken parties and springbreak. Trying to directly attack these things could help turn young people out to vote next election. All we really need is a core of people to stir the flames under those who are paying less attention to events.
Already, the Internet, open source, blogs, and file sharing carry a strong echo of the flower power generation. Their movement may have died down but some of their root concepts have sprung forward in time to shake the foundations of old school business, politics, and press. Technology is no longer just for geeks - trying to squash these technologies is the perfect way to anger and motivate young people for whom these technologies have become an essential part of life. Could a political movement based on personal freedoms take hold again among the young?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
the amish, mennonites, etc. only exist within the larger framework of the united states. they don't exist on their own as discreet social units. they are merely part of a larger whole. as independent examples of any functionally valid social example, they fail
however, in your mind you wish to use them as discreet examples of a certain behavior. except that their behavior: say their disavowal of war, would be impossible if they did not exist within the coccoon of the united states
it would be lovely to think of the amish out of geopolitical context, as a discreet example of a whole society, wouldn't it? unfortunately for you though, they don't exist out of context. they only exist in the context of the united states
put your beloved amish in the hinterlands of the caucasus mountains, or the hindu kush, or kurdistan, or somalia, and i'd think you'd seem one of two things about the amish:
1. instant extinction
2. fine bloodletting in the pursuit of their continued existence
but left in idyllic lancaster county, and the amish are allowed to spout their pap about being pacifists, without actually being asked to test that notion. they exist within the coccoon of the united states, which pursues its various agendas around the world, ready and willing to embrace bloodletting in the pursuit of that (for which the amish seem all to happy to vote for as well)
it must be dandy to embrace a notion you are never actually asked to test. however, as proof of a way of thinking, i will ask a little more from you please. interesting that notion: context, isn't it?
therefore, your amish as concrete example of any functional societal ideal is pure bullshit. you need to discard the revelations about amish society that you think enlighten us about what works and what doesn't in society
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
wake me up when you want to actually say something, rather than playing pointless obfuscating shell games with the concepts before us. it takes more than building obsessive termite art out of subtle shades of meaning when trying to form a convincing argument. focus on the whole, stop inwardly narrowly slicing away at tiny exotic permutations in your terms. this applies to you and rand. it doesn't convince, because it is you who is failing to address the issue, not me who is failing to address your objections. i have already, twice, dismantled your objection, and you think that if you continue dancing on a head of a pin you've escaped my disproval of your point. it doesn't and you haven't
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Even better would be 100% pubically finsnced elections, but that would be even more of an impossibility to impliment.
-mcgrew
Is Harry Reid trying to take over the position of Orrin Hatch as "most technologically stupid Mormon Senator"?
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Just remember this when you go to the polls to vote.
Tipper Gore (Al's wife) got those "warning" labels plastered onto CDs. Now this. Tell me that they're not in Hollywood and the Music Industry's pocket, and I'll tell you you're lying. You can expect more of those from the Democrats in the future.
why don't you look the numbers up yourself? The FEC data is broken down by recipient so it's easy to tell who got the money.
So instead of asking "what if" you could go to open secrets, spend 30 seconds of your time, and find the answer.
A radio maverick jumps to internet only. The Future of Rock n Roll
I prefer voluntary. Thats it. End of story.
You can run on and on about me being a vampire and what not, and please do, but what I don't think you get is I don't care what you think, because you are wrong about me.
Go ahead and run your mouth all day. I'm gonna go out and hang out with my friends and family, church, and community. NYC can fall off the face of the planet for all I care.
YOU ARE REALLY NOT THAT IMPORTANT. THE INTERNET IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT. SLASHDOT IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT.
Get over it.
sig sig sig siggy sig
I'm not very familiar with US politics, but I would say the entertainment industry can have an influence far beyond its monetary contribution. Its persuasiveness is much greater than that of most politicians, so whoever gets their support is likely to win. For some reason, people assume their favorite actor/singer/comedian is a reference to follow when putting that piece of paper in the box. You'd have to see how they enchant all parties in Spain, so much that the government passes an aberrant, massive tax on any media suitable for recording digital content. That is, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, flash memory, etc...
To do list for Windows
I hate it to break it to you, but America has EXACTLY the government that it wants. Americans don't like the war in Iraq, but they don't like to lose either. Sure, every poll says that most people don't like the war, but, if you frame the question as, do you want America to quit Iraq and lose the war, most people say no. The politicians see that, and hence, the war continues.
Americans bitch about government spending, right up until it is their program that is going to be cut. Americans bitch about the size of the military, right up until it is their base being closed. Americans bitch that we are not this, or are not that, so, somewhere, in DC, is a politician reading those polls trying to figure out how to be this, or that, in such a way to make it look like he's not just reading the polls.
IT is we as a people that do not agree, and, historically, hate our government. We've always hated our government. But its our government to hate and we do need to have it. It's just an expensive pain in the ass. Even worse, we as an American people, much to the horror of the world, as much as we claim to hate partisan bickering, hate bipartisanship even more. Americans, as Patton noted, love a good fight. We liked it when Tip ONeil and Ronald Reagan went to the mat, when Gingrich squared off against Clinton, and we like it when Bush squares off against Pelosi and Reid. And, we don't like any of them. We never have.
Americans are a divided, bickering, greedy, and bitchy people, and always have been, and therefor, we have a divided, bickering, greedy and bitchy government, and always will have. For Christ sakes, it was barely 150 years ago when we fought one of the bloodiest civil wars in world history. In the 1960s, it looked like we were headed to another.
The only thing that unites America is that we like to get fucked up and fuck. And we can't even agree on the particulars of that!
This is my sig.
With all of the throwing around nebulous terrorism threats and militarizing the country, nice to know they still find time for those critical items that the masses demand.
I know file sharing is a real concern around the watercooler.
For the love of god when will people start voting for the candidates they aren't told will win. I love asking people what they thing of Ron Paul only to hear "He seems like a great guy but he can't win". This is Slashdot so I won't explain the irony of that statement.
Right off the start and things are off the mark. So says the title: "Senate Majority Leader takes on File Sharing". Gee, great. I'm a Linux user (Ubuntu). I get the entire system off the 'net. The license its all distributed under says that its ok for me to download. But nowhere in the title does it mention illegal file sharing. No, it only mentions "file sharing", some of which is legal. Its sad and troubling that the great unwashed are going to try and create laws concerning things which they have no competency, and worse, lobbyists and supporters are both pushing them in a direction which will likely be very (needlessly) destructive.
I wonder if this will be good or bad for Creative Commons music like that I get from Jamendo http://www.jamendo.com/ which is distributed via BitTorrent?
If colleges are being asked to prove that they are investing in technology to prevent illegal downloads, I think it is only fair that they also invest some in allowing legal downloads too. I think I could support this sort of legislation if it provided that sort of sweetener.
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I thought the Iraq war was your proudest moment? When George Bush showed true leadership and courage by kicking the weapons inspectors out and invading, to prove to the world there were WMDs hidden under Saddam's bed.
Why are you so unwilling to take full credit for it now? This wasn't a problem back in the 2002 election cycle, or even in 2004, why now?
Blame it on games like Grand Theft Auto for philosophically and morally glorifying theft. Though copying is *not* theft. Yes preach on preacher. You're so morally qualified to do so. What's that those games you make advocate again? Violence. Theft. Piracy. Degradation. Cheating. Same goes for the musicians who just make music helping themselves to musical tools and ideas. Same for writers. Same for programmers. Same for everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Needs somone to copy. Like doors and windows and going from point A to point B weren't invented before computer code. But "people like you" feel than copy these ideas at whim. That's called a hypocritical syntax error, buddy. Have some.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
How about the government instituting the business model of MAFIAA theft? Taxation. Taking over the numbers racket. Taking from person A to give to person B, whilst helping themself to a generous bureaucratic cut of the action. And guess what? People like you have no problem voting for and supporting exactly that real theft. But nobody advocates rape without representation. Why is that? Because violence is violence, no matter if a "majority" votes for it. Yup, libertarian philosophy is exposing facts left and right.
It's too bad if more and more people will no longer cede their right, or allow you to steal their right, to copy whatever the hell they feel like copying. And isn't a person alive who does not generously copy others all day long every day in innumerable ways.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
The problem is there's *way* too much money and power at the Federal level, because the Federal Government has taken on all manner of duties it's not entitled to by the Constitution, by way of the abhorrent gang rape of the Interstate Commerce Clause.
There's only one guy running for president that wants to change this. Dr. Ron Paul doesn't represent all of my ideas about government, but he's at least got the right idea about how to run it.
He "can't win" only if everybody doesn't vote for him. I know I'm fed up with ill-rewarded attempts to game the system. This time around, it's gonna be principle for me.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I suspect that as wireless internet becomes more ubiquitous, we will see a rise in the incidence of students who forgo the college network altogether, and pay for their own separate, less regulated access to the internet at large. It seems that using college networks for file sharing is becoming a high-visibility, risky thing to do even without stricter regulations, because of RIAA crackdowns. So for security and access, students will come to feel they have no choice but to look for alternate methods of accessing the internet.
licenses for public performances of "happy birthday to you" are for sale. Have you paid for public performances, or do you steal it?
Does your moral up bringing align with the 95 year publishing monopoly.
Is it morally ok to copy things before the end of the 95 year monopoly? What about the case of items where the original term of the copyright has passed, but the term was extended?
Does your morals dictate no end to the the copyright monopoly?
( Do you not purchase works which stole Bach's works from his relatives?)
Did Disney steal Pinocchio, Snow White and others?
Kneejerk reactions modded me down by not reading what I actually wrote, but that's all good. :)
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.