Slashdot Mirror
Interview With Pirate Party Leader Rick Falkvinge
mmuch writes "In the wake of the recent copyright debate in Swedish mainstream media, the P2P Consortium has published an interview with Rick Falkvinge, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He comments on the mainstream politicians starting to understand the issues, the interplay between strict copyright enforcement and mass surveillance, and the chances for global copyright reform." Some choice Falkvinge quotes: "What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy — forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance — realized they were under a serious attack... for the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle. And it was... nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is 'thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief'... Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding... When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around."
and I'm free to cease producing works.
Children so stupid they think America invented the Internet, computer, motor car, light bulb, telephone etc ad infinitum....
You're really a depressed individual. If you're so incapable of seeing the good things in life, I suggest you simply off yourself now, and put yourself out of our misery.
And Americans mostly did invent the Internet, computer (well, us and the Brits), motor car (well, us and the Brits), the light bulb and the telephone. Find some other examples if you want to prove how stupid and uncreative Americans are.
You do raise some good points, however, you're making the same fundamental mistake that many people of other countries make. That's assuming that the vast majority of Americans think one way or another, and pegging all of us as fitting some arbitrary mold that serves their own prejudices. What I find hysterical (and hypocritical) about that is that America, of pretty much all nations, is a pretty fractious affair, with most of us disagreeing with somebody else about something.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
surveillance of a government by all of its citizens
this tech can be used the other way around you know
and for those who wish to inject the concept of governmental control over these devices (cell phones cameras, the internet, etc.), please don't forget that this is a thread about the pirate party, which was born of file traders doing something entrenched interests hate
in other words the control you imagine is phantom: these devices, the internet, it's out there, and it isn't being controlled
no, the west can't stop surveillance of government by its citizens. iran and china are trying to control from above. let us see just how successful they are with that. my guess is, not so much. but others will imagine that the kind of control being attempted in china and iran will begin in the west under the radar without a hiccup of notice. really?
people wring their hands about 1984 constantly. but the problem of orwell's vision is that it assumes the government has a monopoly on the technology
on the contrary, ever since rodney king in LA in 1991, the opposite has proven a more viable concept of our future
big brother is a defunct, antiquated expired model of our future
little brother is the real future
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You could exchange America with what ever you want, you can still do this rant. Blame Comunism, blame capitalism, blame stupidity, but in the end you are just shifting the blame from yourself.
Now try to change stuff instead, do something positive, join a recycle program, an SCI International Voluntary Service program. Just do stuff for yourself that makes you feel better, but in the same time helps others. I'm sure that will help you get over your angst.
You are 100% free to cease producing works.
If you're trying to argue that cultural production will stop if copyright is somehow weakened, however, it's not a very strong point. By way of example, I point to the total of human cultural output before, say, the invention of the printing press.
A reasonable middle position does exist. People probably should be able to make some money off of their creative endeavors. On the other hand, the current duration of copyright in the US is silly - 120 years after creation or 95 years after first publication? That's insane.
I don't see why you deserved to be modded flamebait?? Or did the modder really mean -1: Disagree?
Shh.
My one bit of advice to these folks would be to not make this overtly political. People are going to begin to lose respect for the people behind torrent sites if they start spewing pseudo-Marxist ideas as their defense. Look where it got RMS -- no one takes him seriously anymore and the project that put him on the map clearly considers him irrelevant (linux/gplv3).
People who download music and movies aren't doing it to assert their solidarity with the Sandinistas, they're doing it because they can, and frankly most of us don't have enough cash free to go buy the entire discography of say Miles Davis or Bob Dylan.
Stick to the 'we're not providing content, only torrents' line. I think they'll find a more sympathetic client base.
You're not required to respect me in the slightest, but I think you are jumping to conclusions. We've been discussing this full time for the past three or four years (with the Pirate Party being founded on Jan 1, 2006) -- it's a rare day I get a new question.
:) Which president said "If I knew I would make president, I would have studied harder"?
I've been exposed to pretty much every argument, angle, and corner out there in this debate. Obviously you don't have to respect me for that, but you'd do well to assume that I've seen the pros and cons of most dimensions of this structural shift.
Oh, and as always, if I had known in advance this interview would end up on Slashdot, I would have spent more time on it.
>computer (well, us and the Brits),
Konrad Zuse?
>motor car (well, us and the Brits)
Gottlieb Daimler?
>and the telephone
Philip Reis?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
The Germans (notably Karl Benz) have a greater claim to the invention of the motor car than either the British or the Americans, although both could legitimately claim to have invented the internal combustion engine.
Packet switching was invented first by the British, but the research never really went anywhere. The internet as we know it today is directly descended from independent research done by the Americans, so it's legitimate to say that it is an American invention.
Can't be bothered looking for sources, so take with a pinch of salt ;)
"you're making the same fundamental mistake that many people of other countries make. That's assuming that the vast majority of Americans think one way or another, and pegging all of us as fitting some arbitrary mold that serves their own prejudices"
There is truth in what you are saying, however, consider this fact :
You guys elected W.Bush TWICE.
It still needed a majority of Americans to think the same way to accomplish this.
Food for thought.
Not really. What we had was a situation where we were presented with a known evil (George Bush) and an unknown but potentially greater evil (John Kerry.) The decision wasn't entirely irrational, the election was hotly contested and was hardly a landslide, and in any event a majority is hardly "all" ... and it's that word to which I take exception. ALL Americans are not the same.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
... because he's really trying to articulate the possibilities for new business and political models that the Internet presents us with. The EFF, the Pirate Party, RMS, Cory Doctorow, hell, even Slashdot - they're all part of the same revolution that most of us who read /. are part of - and we need to take what Falkvinge says seriously.
Remember - big businesses, media empire, the government they've all got a natural, and completely understandable, vested interest in not letting the Internet become the medium for new business and political models - and only guys like Falkvinge are standing up to them.
We may not agree with everything they say but we all need to support them vocally and financially so there are at least some counterbalances to the opposing forces.
I've always believed that the incumbents in any situation should be challenged and attacked (non-violently) - the bigger the incumbent, the greater and more vociferous the challenge.
The EFF and the Pirate Party aren't big enough yet - so let's support them - I know I'm going to right now.
Hmmm, and I thought cars were invented by zee Germans.
Digital computers were achieved by Germans and Americans sorta simultaneously in the heat of WWII, but the American ones obviously lived longer (which makes me wonder: did the Soviets invent their own computers during the cold war?).
The earliest incandescent light bulbs were done by brits, but weren't so efficient or practical. Edison took the fame for having the most refined solution and for good marketing, but Swan (British) had already commercialized some of his models.
Telephone invention is widely disputed
Another thing Americans love to boast as being their own invention is the airplane. This is, guess what, disputed! (personally, I side for Alberto Santo Dummont's).
Please understand I don't claim the US hasn't contributed to the current technology. They did, a lot, in refining details and improving production techniques. The initial "breaktrough", however, is not reserved to Americans in all instances as some people seem to think.
The system of copyright we have today is already voluntary. Any producer who wishes to release something from copyright can do so. How many of you file sharers in this forum have produced creative works and released it from copyright? Do you walk the walk or are you just whining? Post your copyright free work URLs here. Right now please.
While you can decry his argument (which is admittedly underdeveloped in that interview) as being hypocritical, it is difficult to deny that he is discussing a contemporary change in the political, intellectual, and legal climate of the world, albeit with a primary focus on Sweden. The structure of your argument, claiming that he is both abusing and coveting anonymity rests upon the supposition that abuse is taking place. Regardless of whether or not you believe file sharing to constitute an abuse, the current argument has moved well beyond your simplistic view of file sharing being a necessary abuse. Oh, and hello /.
Since you didn't actually read the interview, or at least doesn't show any signs that you did, it would be strange if you gained any form for respect for the man from it.
You do however seem to exemplify the "no intellectual capital" quote. Rather than take up a single point from the interview, you invent some of your own, and then "argue" against them. I put "argue" in quotes because you don't actually argue against the points you invented, you just dismiss them. Sad really.
And Americans mostly did invent the Internet, computer (well, us and the Brits), motor car (well, us and the Brits), the light bulb and the telephone. Find some other examples if you want to prove how stupid and uncreative Americans are.
____
I guess you are talking of US patents only. The followin excerpts are all from Wikipedia:
Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost a decade, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s. On August 6, 1991, CERN, which straddles the border between France and Switzerland, publicized the new World Wide Web project. The Web was invented by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.
____
A German, Konrad Zuse, invented the first digital computer in may 1943.
____
1863--Philipp Reis, a German research scientist, has his device the "Telephon" tested by the British company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC).
____
Although Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769, this claim is disputed by some, who doubt Cugnot's three-wheeler ever ran, while others claim Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built the first steam powered car around 1672.[3][4] In either case François Isaac de Rivaz, a Swiss inventor, designed the first internal combustion engine which was fuelled by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to run on such an engine. The design was not very successful, as was the case with Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir who each produced vehicles powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.[5]
In November 1881 French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile. This was at the International Exhibition of Electricity in Paris.[6]
An automobile powered by an Otto gasoline engine was built in Mannheim, Germany by Karl Benz in 1885 and granted a patent in January of the following year under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie. which was founded in 1883.
____
The metal filament incandescent light bulb as we know it today was commercialised in the 1920s. It is sometimes confused with the carbon filament lamp introduced in the 19th Century.
The initial "breaktrough", however, is not reserved to Americans in all instances as some people seem to think.
I never said it was, invention is a worldwide phenomenon and always will be. But the GP seemed to think that Americans are idiots. I was contesting that perspective.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
More depressing still is your use of 'us and the Brits' - I know, 51st state and all that, but we Brits did do somethings ourselves and should not be referred to in such a sidekick sort of way.
;)
Oh, fuck you America, you fucking bunch of fat-arsed, over-consuming, celebrity obsessed, loose moraled, fornicating, right-wing, fascist, bigoted, interfering, dullard, fuck-wits - before I forget
It's called activism or acting, as apposed to whining.
I'd like to express my support for the Mr. Falkvinger. I look forward to the day when musicians will again be forced to perform live fairly frequently to make a living. I've had enough of this overproduced shit with pitch shifted vocals and talentless anti-creative jingle-like songwriting spawned by the music industry. The concept of copyright in music has no moral basis, other than the fact that technology was discovered to record and reproduce music. Well you know what? We've discovered technology to distribute this music -- how that is any less of a moral justification I don't know.
The days of bands releasing a shitty album every 5 years, touring for 6 months then retiring to their mansion in LA are over, and thank God. Will we see less people going into the business? Yes. And again, thank God -- art should be made by people with a passion for the art, not by people with simplistic dreams of fame who will do anything to get publicity.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
>>computer (well, us and the Brits),
>Konrad Zuse?
John Vincent Atanasoff?
>>and the telephone
>Philip Reis?
From your own cited article:
"Said Judge Lowell, in rendering his famous decision: 'A century of Reis would never have produced a speaking telephone by mere improvement of construction. It was left for Bell to discover that the failure was due not to workmanship but to the principle which was adopted as the basis of what had to be done. "
(Bell, of course, was not an American in any case, having been born in Scotland and emigrated to Canada, so it's not clear why you want to knock him down)
{sigh} I was trying to say "it's not all about us" and give some credit where credit is due, but I guess you limeys are too damn thickheaded to take a compliment when you get one. Fine. Next time I'll say "Us and the Germans" or maybe "Us and the French" or maybe "Us and the Iranians". Sheesh. Would you have felt better if I'd said, "The Brits and us?"
... I thought everyone knew that, and for all you Canucks in the viewing audience that's a goddamn JOKE and I just don't want to hear it.
Besides, Canada is the 51st State
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Actually it didn't happen that way in the first election, seeing as how Bush won that first election without getting the popular vote. You see, we're not exactly a true democracy. We have an Electoral College system which grants every state a number of votes in proportion to their population, making it possible to win by having a distribution of voters, but not a majority of voters.
Also taking into account the low voter turnout that the States have, it could be that only a minority of Americans supported him, but it's their own damn fault for not voting.
I think you pasted the wrong troll rant. This is a copyright article, so you use the one about owning a family friendly record store. Use the anti-America one for YRO and politics.
Alan Turing actually had a *LOT* of help from a bunch of Polish mathematicians.
MP3 Search Engine
Ever had an argument with a religious person? As the saying goes, if this is to be a battle of wits I'm not fighting an unarmed man. But we all know how pervasive indefensible ideas are and that intellectual and moral superiority do not mean the race is to the swift. In the 10 or 15 years I have been saying intellectual property is a bankrupt idea I have had many arguments and listened to many points of view. Twisted moral outpourings about artists rights by people who have never and could not exhibit creativity if their life depended upon it. Cowardly legal arguments by appeal to authority. Specious economic arguments from armchair CEOs (ever notice how everyone thinks they know something about the pseudo-scientific quackery known as economics?). People will go enormous lengths to confirm their own beliefs, erect a veil of denial that avoids cognitive dissonance with the bad ideas they have already absorbed.
But there is one argument that never fails to elicit at least a shadow of doubt in the most hardened advocate of intellectual property and I believe this "Pirate Party" not only understand it but know it is a nuclear option in this debate. It is the the apparent paradox that intellectual property is simultaneously anti-capitalistic and anti-socialistic, it cuts across orthodox political divides because it goes against our most fundamental human nature. Intellectual property damages culture and social structure, so it offends conservatives and progressives alike. Patent wars are strangling industry and holding back essential progress now. We need to revise or abolish the entire system. As said in the interview the proponents of IP really do not have any other argument that stands up, only "We want our money", "We are the self appointed gatekeepers of knowledge and culture and you will pay us or...or.... we'll shout about it even louder!!" As far as I can see the old notion that IP promotes the arts and sciences has been knocked down, it is no longer relevant in the 21st century where the means of production are commodities and there is abundance of resources. There are 6 billion of us. Our ideas, whatever our status, are no longer special, unique or valuable. That we share culture and knowledge is what makes us human, so IP, what history will show to be a short lived facet of the industrial revolution, goes against 5000 years of human culture and our needs for the future. It only remains to perpetuate growth in de-industrialised nations.
Anyway, that said, IP being a self-evident absurdity and the arguments of its proponents being weak does not make it just go away. There is long hard fight ahead before people start to wise up and see that concepts like copyrights, patents and trademarks are the fictions of a bygone ruling class.
So good luck to them. I believe a world without intellectual property of any kind would be a much better place. This is an issue of our time, and the main parties would do well to be bold, turn their backs on the small but powerful vested interests of the media and embrace the issue, because if we had a Pirate Party in my country I would vote for them.
John Vincent Atanasoff?
Not even close. The ABC was a non-Turing calculator, not a full computer, and the Zuse Z3 pre-dated it anyway.
Konrad Zuse built the first Turing complete digital solid state computer. I say this as an Englishman, and you know how much we like to claim it as ours.
I'm sick of hypocrisy and two facedness.
So am I.
The world is full of problems. No doubt about it. But it's a mixed bag, too. Life expectancy has gone up everywhere but in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 50 years. You're too young to remember the Cold War, but for those of us who were around, it sucked. The likelihood of a catastrophic global nuclear conflagration has gone down over the last 50 years.
You're not alone in being sick of the status quo, but I find it humorous that you equate anyone who doesn't share your opinion as being a whiner or someone with a low IQ. For example, you wrote:
Perhaps if you studied the history of systematic racism and sexism in Europe and America, you might recognize why equality of opportunity still doesn't exist in those places. Civil rights are not where they should be, but they have been advancing in the western world. America, for all its faults, has been trying to move beyond racism and sexism. America also has a far more sophisticated understanding of religious tolerance than Europe. For all the talk of naive and barbaric Americans, why is it that Western Europe is having such a difficult time integrating Muslim immigrants?
As for your bizarre comment about "women that act like men," what is that supposed to mean? Are you saying that you and those who follow your beliefs should be the arbiters of what constitutes acceptable female behavior?
If you're sick of lame TV, here's a newsflash: You don't have to watch television. Believe it or not, some of those moronic Americans (such as myself) have elected to get their news and most of their entertainment not from the idiot box, but from other sources like news magazines (one of the best is even produced in Britain) and international websites. Nobody is forcing you to watch the crap on TV.
I'm sick of Americans who cry that people hate them or are jealous of them or who are anti them because someone dares to point out that the America they've been programmed to believe in from birth bears no relation to the one that exists in real life.
There is nothing daring about anonymously pointing out in an online forum that the American government has been fearmongering and failing in its relations with the rest of the world. Here's another newsflash: When Shrub was elected the first time, half the country voted against him. When he was elected the second time, a slightly smaller percentage, but still almost half the voting public voted against him. Domestic opposition to this most pathetic American government has been loud and angry. The last seven years have been terribly divisive times in America. With any luck, this time around we'll elect a much more capable president, and we'll start restoring our reputation around the world.
Here's a tip: The next time you go ranting about hypocrisy, examine your own hypocrisy first. Then try posting with an account. It's still just a pseudonym, but at least it's a small form of taking responsibility for your writing.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Yes, but that's clearly part of the problem. The fact that you could only choose between two people who you didn't want.. that's an oligarchy where you get to put numbers in boxes every few years, not a democracy.
My personal belief is that copyright is a good thing and should also apply to digital material (no difference, other than that it is easier to copy). Someone providing something for others to enjoy and use should have the right to claim compensation from the users.
/Bus
I also believe that the record companies have created this situation with their own greed.
I strongly believe that most people are fairly honest and would prefer to be paying customers for music and film.
The problem is the gap between what producers claim and what the users deem a fair price.
If the price for a music album on MP3 was set to say $6 (compared to $20-$30 for a CD) then I think that a lot more people would buy the album and also like the feeling of supporting the artist and being honest.
Of course there are people that never will pay, but does it really matter? In any system there are parasites. A system with decent pricing would have removed most of the problem if the record companies had realised it in time. Now it can be tooooo late. It would be nice to see them try though. The group (was it Radiohead?) that "sold" the album for your own price sort of indicated that a lot of people are honest when they can afford it.
BR
Oh gawd - now you're adding insult to insult - limey is such a derogatory term - you bastard! ;)
;)
Seriously though, I guess I get where you're coming from but please note that it is not acceptable to compliment the British - we hate being complimented because it sometimes makes us feel patriotic and that makes us feel pretty embarrassed and foolish (because we don't like to be associated with our pretty terrible crimes of the past and the twat-headed facists like the British National Party and the odd lot who sing at the Proms and wear Union Jack flags). It's much better to take the piss out of us and tell us how useless we are - we like that.
Just don't call us limeys.
PS - fuck off
Programmers and musicians have one thing in common, they mostly make their money from non-copyright sources. The vast majority of programmers (no, I don't have recent numbers to back it up) make their money doing in-house programming. The vast majority of musician make their money on live performance, even if the occasional album sale feels nice.
The interesting issue is what will lack. For musicians, the underground will hardly be affected, they make their money on live performance. The established names ditto, as well as merchandise. Even the "boy bands" and other label made concept will likely continue, with other sponsors (currently TV seems to love the process of creating pop bands).
For programmers, free software is already everywhere, about half of it produced by professionals according to the EU sponsored FLOSS report. Anything that can be created incrementally can be created by people paying for features the need.
For movies, outside the big languages (English, Spanish, Hindi) production is heavily subsidized, so generally not profitable.
Books will continue to be written (a writer has no choice but to write) but getting paid might be a problem (unless you are into propaganda). Again, for smaller languages government subsidies are already needed. In Denmark it takes the form of a library fee, authors of Danish language books gets a sum proportional to how many people borrow their books. Yes I know tax is stealing, but the majority in my country for some reason want to preserve our quaint language, even if it means higher taxes.
So what we lose out is international blockbuster movies (which is sad, while I likes Clerks which is the type of movie that would continue to be made, I loved Lord of the Rings), some types of "movie like games" that cannot be created incrementally, and maybe a system to pay authors in some countries. Music will be mostly unaffected.
RIAA astroturf is flying thick and fast today. A content free propaganda first post mod'ed up to +5 to try to neutralize the article and direct the debate. I wonder how that happened?
Be careful people; there's a lot of astroturf and probably sock puppets on /. these days. It's amazing how every time there's a story with a point of view that the software or media industries don't like you'll get numerous weasels popping up who "just happen" to repeat tired old propaganda we've all heard and dismissed many times before. Treat these lowlifes with the contempt they deserve.
Redundancy and repetition are a strong sign that marketing parasites are involved. They don't care if they waste/steal people's time and attention as long as they achieve mind share at the expense of other points of view.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
If it was about not being able to download movies, your reaction would be correct. In reality, it's about (some, but "any at all" is a bad enough answer) private interests and the state being allowed by law to monitor all network traffic supposedly to be able to catch any copyright infringements. Once that's actually allowed, you can imagine what people can do with that kind of power.
A break-out group of seven politicians from the dominant party in the current administration wrote an op-ed piece last Monday which outlines some of the consequences in the near future (link's to the English version). If you won't believe the rag-tag newcomer party, would you believe the largest party in the administration - the people who already *have* power?
Believe me, of all the problems this might bring, having to spend money to see "Hollywood claptrap" is not what we're worried about.
...freed humanity of thousands of years of lords and kings and emperors and other assorted assholes. Without those rights, the property belongs to the ones with the biggest swords or guns.
Sorry, but show me a man who questions the concepts of property, and I'll show you a man who wants a piece of what I've worked hard for.
This is fucking music files, folks. Can't we search for a better business model without going batshit insane over the cliff at the Left side of the political spectrum? How about placing a NEW idea under then sun. eh?
Find some other examples if you want to prove how stupid and uncreative Americans are.
Or better still, don't believe anybody's bullshit associating nationality with particular types of knowledge or skills.
I've gotta say, I'm getting very sick of the Shill accusations. It's like you stupid, narrow-minded people can't wrap your head around the fact that there are people who disagree with you. Burn me if you will mods, but this whole astroturfer witch-hunt is extremely offensive to me.
To set the record straight, NO I AM NOT A SHILL! I hate the RIAA too! I encourage you, if you are offended by them, to boycott them completely! Show the fuckers what we do with companies who sue 10-year-olds, and who don't just try to erode our freedoms, but try to blast them apart one chunk at a time. However, don't confuse that (like the man being interviewed does) with copyright. Copyright is a great method for keeping our culture commercially viable. The RIAA only uses copyright to make money. It's not copyright that's proposing laws, that's threatening to sue you, it's the RIAA, and don't forget it, even in this age of madness.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
We replaced lords and kings with the super-rich. The major difference between then and now is perception.
Even in the past, there was the chance for "bettering" yourself-- getting yourself a knighthood, for instance. Most peasants really didn't have that chance, just as the current poor have no real chance to better themselves. Some do, certainly, but there are only a few slots available for betterment.
It's not just "fucking music files." This is about the concept of ownership of ideas. This is about the ownership of culture, the very framework of our society. (There is an intimate relationship between art, ideas, and culture.)
Anyway, we still have the assholes, and they still stand on the heads of those less fortunate than themselves. Now, property rights might not belong to those with the biggest swords or guns, but they *do* belong to those with the biggest bank account. It's less bloody, and probably a better proposition. But just because the serfs aren't beat bloody by their lords doesn't mean they aren't serfs just the same.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Dude, you're trying to roll the big boulder uphill like Sisyphus. 99% of humanity is now batshit insane with rigid ideology and rabid hate. You can't argue with people like this. They are blinded far beyond reason and critical thought.
Bashing The U.S.A. (one of the most diverse nations ever created) with generalizations is just the latest excuse people use to avoid having to actually think. It's all going to go to shit. The brief flirtation humanity had with freedom will end, and it'll all return to the king/serf model where the serfs don't have to think and the king is replaced by massive bureaucracy.
All you can do is keep your head down, work hard and invest, and retire as early as possible far away from it all when the whole thing does a big belly flop.
- Agree with the mindless stream of lawsuits
- Agree with DRM
- Agree with an overreaching and unbalanced copyright law
No, you simply feel that those who are opposed to you are wrong or are here speaking artificially.
Just like all the people who make their examples but only point to musicians, or cite the production costs of a DVD or CD as the only expense in the creation of something.
Of course the creator of a specific work will tend to want to keep copyright for as long as possible to extract as much money as possible out of it. I wasn't thinking about the insanity from the creator of the individual work.
From the perspective of the consumer of works, i.e., everyone else, it's insane.
He was "on the map" before linux and is of course irrelevant to linux code because it was done by other people without his involvement (and with his ridicule for a while which can be excused due to rivalry with the hurd). The v3 vs v2 debate is really about convincing people that there is a very good reason to change licences - the initial drafts had some problems that got attention here.
Apologies, "content producers are allowed to make copyright from their work" should have read "content producers should be allowed to make profit from their work". Artists should also remain free to choose whatever record companies they want (and they are), under whatever conditions they want and are willing to negotiate for the services of the record companies (which is technically a free market, even though there is a cartel, that is a separate issue to copyright).
I'd like to add that if copyright could be any specifiable length, authors that chose 1000 or more years would actually lead to their own works ending up 'locked up in vaults' (so to speak) years down the line because it would compete with comparatively more open content that would inevitably eventually flood the market (content is growing exponentially, content consumers have their pick). Most authors and content producers in general at least want to be remembered after their deaths and have their works read fairly widely someday - their work is their 'mark on society' - so there would be natural "competition" and pressure to choose more reasonable copyright duration.
What really offends in the music industry is the cartel and it's bullying behaviour - not copyright itself - people shouldn't confuse the two.
Unfortunately you rather prove the original posters point. I'll give you the internet and joint credit on the computer but...
- The car was invented by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot(French) in 1769. This was before America existed as a separate country so it is a little hard to see how an American could have invented it. His was steam powered but even the internal combustion engine was a Swiss invention by François Isaac de Rivaz who put it in a car in 1807.
- The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell who was a British (a Scot in fact) living in Canada in 1874 when he invented the phone. He registered the patent in the US and later also acquired US citizenship but that does NOT make it a US invention in my book.
- Edison did not invent the light bulb. He bought the patent for a carbon filament bulb from Woodward (a Canadian) and then copied the developments of Swann (a Brit) who was using tungsten filaments. He was successfully sued by Swann in the UK for violating his patent (for which Swann was given a majority share of Edison's UK company which is why early UK bulbs are all 'Swann-Edison') but in the US case there is considerable evidence to suggest that Edison significantly misrepresented the facts to the judge and that, coupled with the known bias of the US patent courts towards US claimants that exists even today, was enough for him to win the US case. There was an excellent book on this. I don't have it to hand to give you the reference but IIRC it was by a US author. The result is that claiming Edison invented the light bulb is akin to claiming that Gates invented the operating system.
What is interesting is that the US contribution to the inventions you think of as American appears to be the mass production and marketing. It is clear that both Edison and Ford were fantastic businessmen. They knew what people wanted and what they would pay and found a way to deliver wildly popular products. This, in itself, is a very worthy and useful contribution to society...but it does not mean that they actually came up with the original invention. A more modern equivalent would be Gates. Whatever you say about Windows he is a fantastic businessman. He knew what businesses wanted and delivered it.*BSD also uses copyright, but that's because both GNU/Linux and *BSD operate within the framework of copyright. They *both* use the current system to work around the current (ab)use of the system.
They both have very different aims, politically. GPL-licensed works are inherently more idealistic and political in nature. *BSD-licensed works are inherently closer to public domain works. (The major difference is copyright attribution.) Both turn the whole "copyright" ideal on its head.
However, the politics of the GPL are specifically anti-copyright. (Or pro-copyright, in the sense that *everyone* has the right to copy.) The GPL's strength and ingeniousness is in its use of the copyright system against itself.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
So if I spend months toiling away writing a book, you would think it's "insane" to not be allowed to read it for free? I don't get that, sorry. Sorry if I just straw-man'd your argument, it's not clear to me how you are arguing things should work. Let me put it another way, if I spend months putting blood, sweat and tears into my book, why shouldn't I be allowed to charge you whatever I want for it if you want to read it? You're free not to buy/read it. But are you entitled to be able to read it under your own conditions? I'm not entitled to be able to listen to Britney's latest airheaded songs for free, I'm not entitled to play the latest computer games for free, etc. (again, you didn't say things should be free, I'm not sure what you're suggesting really)
As an author, I would of course be competing for your money not only with 3000 other new books a day that you could choose to read instead, and not only with all the free stuff to read on the Internet, but all the other ways you could choose to spend your time/money (e.g. comics/movies/games etc.), so market forces would dictate that I can't really charge "whatever I want"; on the contrary, content is currently exploding exponentially - e.g. just looking at books, there are literally more good books being published now than anyone can even feasibly read even if all they did was read all day.
(Just for the record I am all in favour of file sharing *networks* - a network is just a network, you can send legitimate files over it too.)
Strange how a discussion about the link between liberty and artistic expression degenerates into a simplistic two-sided rant about money.
The world is much more complex than simply, "musicians should be paid." If that were true, they'd actually get *paid* for their artistic output, rather than the middle-man. The discussion of musicians and payment is a simple one of business models, which may or may not work in an emerging culture where freedom of speech allows easy copying and distribution.
The discussion as framed is more about the curtailing of liberty and freedom in subservience to the interests of big business, due to the strawman of copyright infringement. As this also serves the interest of government (the constant surveillance of citizens), it's easy enough for these cartels to get their way, at the expense of culture and individuals.
I personally believe that individuals are more important than business. I am also of the opinion that businesses are actually *hurting* the economy by insisting on their own dominance. But that is secondary. The real issue is liberty (and by extension, democracy), and whether or not we'll give that up.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You're right. But unfortunately, you've fallen into the same trap. Just because I support copyright, doesn't mean I support the RIAA. I hate both the pirate movement and the RIAA, their immoral actions, and their constant attempts to spoil copyright. The difference is that the RIAA to date has been more successful.
That's not to say they don't each have their uses. The RIAA is great for lowering barrier of entry into commercial artistry. The pirate movement is also great for encouraging free exchanges of ideas among public domain, or freely-licensed works. It's just when one invades another's territory, they start becoming very dangerous.
So that's my view. Call it simplistic if you will, but at least I'm not branding you "the enemy".
Oh, and the guy's a hypocrite because even though he says he's for freedom of expression and privacy, he performs actions (piracy) that will completely undermine those goals, via the inevitable copyright holder backlash.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is your future:
:)
Link to your future
Enjoy.
Many people seem to forget that the whole concept of intellectual property is entirely unnatural and the word 'property' in this context is a misnomer. Without some very strong reason no-one should have the right to stop me from copying something. There is no natural ownership to the intangible. We only extend 'rights' to intangibles if it benefits all of us. Quite often the applications of intellectual properties do not benefit 'the whole' on balance. Rather quite perversely they simply protect private interests. There is also a vast difference between theory and practice. In theory we have fair use. In practice the courts have severely limited its application. So frequently even in educational institutions, materials are denied to students because of fear of copyright (unless they cough up very big bucks). Many types of copyright of simply unnecessary for creativity. We had no copyright on buildings before December 1, 1990 but we do after that date. Did that damage creativity there? No of course not. But now they are copyrighted.
We also quite often forget that preventing people from speaking, or singing, or playing an instrument, or creating a DVD or using a photocopier in a way they deem proper takes away from their personal freedom and their economic freedom. Does anyone take into account the money saved on allowing people to use more copyrighted, trademarked and patented concepts with greater ease. Does the $15 I save because an album is 30 years old and 'could' be actually out of copyright count? Take that $15 and multiply is by 10 million. Now people have saved $150 million. You have to weigh their costs and benefits against the artists. And let us not forget that the artist and the corporation that has been putting out their music has been making money off the copyright for 30 years. They have made a fortune.
What about the right to use copyrighted material as part of a large of a larger whole? Eg a documentary film that wants to use short copyrighted clips. Often the cost of obtaining them makes their use uneconomic. Here commercial prorogation of something new is inhibited by 'Copyright' despite the fact that the reason d'etre of 'Copyright' was to encourage commercial prorogation of new ideas and art. Copyright owners who extol the value of copyright often 'forget' quite conveniently that IP may actually supress creativity. Often copyright is used simply to deny public use of material. So let me get this right. You need copyright law that allows the complete prevention of artistic material from circulating at all so you can encourage future creativity. Because mr/ms creative would only produce something for the public if they knew they could prevent any public dissemination. Right?!
I always get a laugh out of the heirs who already enjoy copyright revenues. So they didn't do jack sh*t but they are an heir so they should rake in cash for doing nothing. There was a New York Times article that had the audacity to argue for perpetual copyright. So you want to put on a Shakespeare play - better pay his descendants or some rich corporation. You want to read your bible in the church. Not before you hand over some cash. This idea is absurd but it's scary that the copyright crazies are advocating it. They claim they own ideas. We get this...no-one owns ideas! IP is not susceptible to ownership. We just put restrictions on IP for societal benefit not for the narcissistic desires of the original producer and certainly not their descendants.
Some of the restrictions of IP impinge on free speech. Sometimes you need to be able to film some event that has political implications without worrying about the 'person' rights. Eg Police brutality. Think this is an exaggeration? Just wait till you hear that free speech is cool but because some political speech intruded on commercial ri
Thank you for pointing this out. The outcome oligarchical national election never makes any difference. As Emma Goldman observed, "if voting really mattered, they would make it illegal.
I think I'm happy to give the Wright Brothers the aeroplane. They successfully managed controlled, powered flight, and developed so many other essential flight concepts that were needed. All subsequent candidates were really fairly minor improvements on this design.
You did strawman my argument, but probably not intentionally.
I don't think you should have to give away your book. But I also don't think that you (or your estate or whomever buys the rights from you) should have exclusive rights to it, or any "intellectual property" you produce for a period of 120 or 95 years. That's what I was calling insane.
15, 20 years? Fine. A century? Not so good.
Also don't forget that we had the largest single protests in the history of this nation against the war the people had choice on (unless the soldiers refused to fight like international law says they should have, but that's beside the point).
Property is theft.
I know you are joking, but since we are talking about the Swedish Pirate Party PIRATE PARTY 2009!!!! or PIRATE PARTY 2010!!!! would be more appropriate. 2009 for the elections to the European parliament, 2010 the Swedish national one.
Yeah, it wasn't intentional, I only afterwards noticed the earlier post higher up in the thread was you.
... I try to be appreciative of what I do have, not angry about what's "denied" me.
For me, arguing over whether it should be 0 or 20 or 120 years etc., just seems like arguing over different *degrees* of entitlement. It's that 'entitlement' that feels off to me; no matter what the duration, it still boils down to a law mandating that after some period, everybody (just for existing) becomes entitled to the fruits of my/your efforts. That doesn't feel right. If I worked while some kid sat on his butt, I should get to be as stingy as I want. I sort of have this mental image of someone walking up to an author and saying 'OK, 20 years has passed, gimme your work now' (OK, not 'gimme' though in the sense of taking some physical copy, but just the idea of it).
I'm not sure why we should ever necessarily be entitled to anything we haven't earned unless it's been granted; that kind of thinking leads to all sorts of other nasties (e.g. corruption)
OTOH, you'll find plenty of GPL developers here. I've got some GPL software in my sig, and more on SourceForge. The GPL isn't technically "released from copyright", but it's as close as you're going to get to a simulation of a post-copyright world: it turns copyright against itself, giving back the freedoms that copyright takes away.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Actually, taking both the low voter turnout, the electoral system and the "winner takes it all" rule into account, one can conclude that one can become the president of the United States by having as little as around 12.5% popular support. How can this be? Well, first, you need to get the electoral votes from slightly more than 50% of the electors. In addition, those states whose electors vote for you must have gotten slightly more than 50% of the popular votes in those states. And finally, the US voter turnout is usually around 50%. 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.125 QED.
If you read more about the GPL, you'll find that RMS accounted for the possibility of copyright being reformed or removed and thinks that it is a virtue of the GPL that as copyright gets weaker, so does the GPL, because the GPL becomes less necessary the weaker copyright is.
Granted, not everyone shares that view, but it's not some new argument considering that it was among the things that went into consideration in how the GPL was drafted, long before any sort of meaningful copyright reform was even on the map.
Ironically, perhaps, the GPL exists to recreate the environment of respectful sharing that RMS once found at MIT, before everyone went copyright-crazy.
I see you point, but allow me to make a counter point.
It's the copyright holder that receives an entitlement to earn money on his works that's arbitrarily mandated by law. Absent a government with copyright laws and enforcement, the creator of a work can either keep it to himself, or publish and let what happens happen. And it's the latter state of affairs that obtained through the majority of human history. The modern case, where a creator owns the intangible part of his work, is a fairly recent development. We still have Shakespeare, and he managed to support himself during his lifetime based on his works.
I'd also argue that releasing work into the public domain after a period of time helps foster new works based on the old ones. Whatever you think of sampling in music, for example, it's commonplace to make new works out of pieces of old ones (and it's not a new development - plenty of classical works are based on traditional melodies which must have been composed by someone at some time). Similarly for literary works - how many tellings of various Arthur legends are there through the literature of Europe? If someone had held the rights on the Homeric epics, would they have had the cultural influence they did in Ancient Greece?
It's that 'entitlement' that feels off to me; no matter what the duration, it still boils down to a law mandating that after some period, everybody (just for existing) becomes entitled to the fruits of my/your efforts. That doesn't feel right.
Can you imagine the world today if Plato, or Aristotle, or Galileo thought like this? This is certainly a valid point of view, but it's both selfish and short sighted.
All that work that you've created, you did not create out of thin air. It was created using a base of knowledge to which an uncountable number of individuals before you created, and left behind for you to build upon.
The only thing those individuals ask (well they're dead, so lets just say 'Society' asks on their behalf) is that after a reasonable amount of time, you too release your work for the next generation to build upon and benefit from such that eventually it's the entirety of the human race which benefits.
It is this trade-off between the rights of the content producer to receive compensation for their contributions and the right of society to ultimately benefit from those contributions that Copyright attempts to capture into law, and the length of time a work is protected is actually very important. Set too short, and the balance swings too far towards society and creators suffer, set too long and the balance is too far towards the creators and as a result society suffers.
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
and I'm free to cease producing works.
If your only incentive is to make money, then I guess you've defined what is not art. It might look like art to the casual observer, but it has no substance, and is only an echo of the real thing. So lets find a business model that works please.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
He very nearly invoked Godwin's Law (As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one), except he didn't compare the copyright holders to Nazis, but Communists.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
It is understood by most people with a good command of English that "America invented X," while imprecise and therefore technically inaccurate, is understood to mean the same as "an American or Americans invented X."
We Canadians are going to form a nation with Cuba and Mexico and SURROUND you.
Mwahahahahahaha.
Then we're going to write you a stern letter about many things really.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You're probably right. There are probably puppets on /.
However, your diatribe sounded frighteningly orwellian. If we KNEW for a fact which posters were owned by corps, then you would have a point. But you don't know. Since you don't know, you are basically saying that everyone who doesn't agree with the slashdot meme MUST be an astroturfer who needs to be looked down upon. If a person thinks that IP should be treated as a tangible asset, they are an astroturfer, not someone with an opinion. Or if someone supports closed-source software for whatever reason, they must be ASTROTURFERS! For Micro$oft! Eeek.
Slashdot is about hearing different opinions on issues (for me, at least). I wouldn't come here if every +5 insightful post simply boiled down to, "Yeah, me too, I agree."
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
>>computer (well, us and the Brits),
>Konrad Zuse?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon
'The use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937) and more flexible programmability were vitally important steps, but defining one point along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is difficult (Shannon 1940).'
Shannon was an American whose work predated the non-electronic Z3 from Zuse. Neither of them built what I would consider a Computer though.
>>motor car (well, us and the Brits)"
>Gottlieb Daimler?
Sure, but if something can be considered a computer that isn't electronic was't the first automobile steam-powered? This starts to seem somewhat arbritary.
However, many Americans think Ford invented the automobile. Not sure why.
>>and the telephone
>Philip Reis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone
"The early history of the telephone is a confusing morass of claim and counterclaim, which was not clarified by the huge mass of lawsuits which hoped to resolve the patent claims of individuals. The Bell and Edison patents, however, were forensically victorious and commercially decisive."
Means nothing - t'was us Brits that invented America what invented all the rest of that stuff - P.S., we're still waiting for the Royalty check ...
"It's not copyright that's proposing laws, that's threatening to sue you, it's the RIAA, and don't forget it, even in this age of madness." Actually it's the individual companies that compose these cartels that are suing you and bribing your politicians into revoking your freedoms. Choose your battles, don't support companies that feel it's their right to abuse the system to extract every last penny out of you, the "consumer". Yeah yeah, it's all been said before, but maybe eventually people will wake up and stop the nonsense.
"Personally, I find it difficult to like someone whose arguments always seem to rely upon how nasty the enemy is,"
Pray tell, what are your feelings when the enemy truly is nasty?
Do you dislike churchill as a historical figure?
And before you misunderstand, no I'm not comparing anyone to churchill, I'm poking holes in your argument.
Humanity breeds creativity, success, innovation, art, theory, math, science, medicine, technology, history ....
...) understands their transient-power is expressed with war, genocide, god, pseudo-history ....
... the megalomaniac dogmatist/demagogue (almost any politician or cleric) will use the most illiterate and mentally/emotionally disturbed citizens to attack, destroy, and murder potential opposition. Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin, Alexander TG, Mao, Caesar ... their lieutenants were evil sick perverts that derived delusional pleasure from mass murder and destruction of prior human achievements and the death of their fool-followers.
... does write the history-spin, faux-morality, pseudo-justification (god, patriotism, value ...).
The megalomaniac dogmatist (mythic leader/politician, cleric, murderer, plutocrat
As proven by abridged and hubris-edited human history
The mythic dogmatist/demagogue provide nothing, but the victor
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Choosing between bad and possibly worse? That's sort of sad, but unfortunately true of most politics these days it seems.
You are posting as AC so I will assume you are one.
Allow me to point out a small detail for you. Those authors VOLUNTARILY add their literary works to that library, as opposed to some jerk who takes something that someone else created, and is SELLING so they can make a buck to feed their family, pay their mortgage, etc. etc. and decides for themselves that it should be given for free to anyone that person decides should have it
Grow the fuck up.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
"The brief flirtation humanity had with freedom will end,"
It ended before you were born. But like those who believe in their god while thinking everyone else worships false gods, a lot of people in the US believe in their media while thinking everyone else watches "propaganda". As Goethe said, none are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
You're perfectly right. Like I said in a previous post, it sounds like a witch-hunt. If you have a view that's a bit weird, you must be a witch^H^H^H^H^H shill, and you^H^H^H your karma must burn at the stake.
What's even worse is that it shows deep insecurity, that people don't seem confident that they can competently argue against an astroturfer. If the opinion is corporate bullshit, then you should be able to argue against it without having to prematurely halt the argument. If you can't argue against them, then perhaps you should be listening to them, rather than just burning burning them.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
That's what a society is. You give as well as receive.
I'm not sure why we should ever necessarily be entitled to anything we haven't earned
Consider a few bon mots: "No man is an island." "I stand on the shoulders of giants." "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." All artistic work is a part of a culture. The creators borrow/reinterpret works of others. Do you really want people to consume your work and not think about it, not comment on it, not recycle it? Can you create an art work from a vacuum?
Consider how this ends up. I would need your permission to quote your lines above before commenting on them. Or consider Disney, how they have taken control of parts of our shared culture and locked it up in copyright and trademark law. And now they want to take control of my computer, TV, and communications in order to safeguard their revenue stream. so they can be sure I do not enjoy the "fruits of their labour" without paying over and over for the privilege.
The fact that you could only choose between two people who you didn't want..
And that's the real problem. People thought they could only choose the two candidates presented to them, when, in fact they could choose anybody they wanted. It's not that they could only choose between the two, it's that they would only choose between the two. Democracy is fully functional in the US despite what anybody says. Rumors of its death are highly exaggerated.
What?
Well, you don't know when I was born, but yes, the end *started* a while ago. Look at the other two reactions I got. The blind and insane will think you crazy when you speak the truth. :)
Actually, the idea that most of humanity has a world view composed of little more than myth, lies and wholesale bullshit is hardly new, but people will gape at you with drooling expressions if you ever suggest it
And the information age hasn't helped on bit. If anything, it's made it worse. Now people can be totally ignorant about thing they never used to know existed!
It's not the ownership of ideas persee that holds the "peasants" back.
There are two ideas going here, not one. They are inter-related, but not to the extent you claim here.
The thing holding the "peasants" back is lack of economic and social opportunity. There can only be so many rich people, and most of those slots are filled. This has nothing to do with writing a book, or recording a song. It has to do with distribution of a set amount of aggregate economic wealth, and the fact that a *very* small minority of the people control the vast majority of the wealth.
Ownership of ideas is merely one small facet of this. Those with economic wealth wish to control distribution of culture, because people are willing to pay for culture. The tension between the minority wishing to control the majority creates the tension.
For example, in 2006, corporations were granted about 10 times as many patents as all the individuals combined. That is, 90% of all patents were granted to corporations, *not* to individuals. Corporations are keen on owning and controlling access to ideas. By extension, and by the actions of the RIAA and MPAA, they are also keen on controlling access to culture. (Both film and music are central to our culture.) (Disclaimer: yes, I am using hard statistics for patents to help back up an argument about culture. I believe both patents and copyrights are inextricably joined at this point, as is evidenced by the dual patenting and copyrighting of software. Further, I believe the ratio of corporate patents to individual patents demonstrates corporate dominance in the field of ideas.)
But really, those are two ideas that you have so conveniently combined into one. Intertwined ideas, yes, but two separate ideas nonetheless.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You honestly don't see a major difference between pointing a gun (or sword) at someone, and handing someone a wad of cash?
Uhm, sorry for the double response, but this has been bugging me, and I couldn't figure out why.
Then I realized, you think that everyone has an opportunity.
Do you know why the unemployment rate is so important? It's a sign of national economic health. It's not an indicator of how many lazy people there are-- it's an indicator of how many people are not being offered a wad of cash, no matter how small a wad it might be. It's a sign of how many people who wish to work, can't.
Now, there are also a *large* number of people who are handed a wad of cash in exchange for work, but that wad is too small to provide anything but bare-minimum subsistence, if that. This number isn't included in unemployment, and so is harder to track, but we do that with the number of people living below the poverty line. About 12% to 17% (depending on if you subscribe to US or UN definitions of "poverty line") currently live below the poverty line.
So my question is this: why are people so unemployed, or living below the poverty line? Do they like it like that? Are they not working hard? Have they just made bad choices in their life?
In any case, it doesn't matter. These people are either unemployed or not making a living wage. That means there either aren't enough jobs (for the unemployed) or the jobs that *are* available, don't pay a living wage. Since the unemployment rate varies due to economics, this rather proves *this isn't by choice.* These people did not *choose* to be unemployed, or to work for wages that can't really support them.
The fact is, the number of jobs that provide a living wage accounts for *no more than* 88% of the population. These are the jobs supported by the economy. And if you lived at the poverty line, I don't think you'd feel too comfortable knowing you were making a "living wage."
As I said in my original post, our current system doesn't involve getting a sword upside the head, and so it is an improvement in that way. Also, the standard of living is greater for a larger number of people. But that doesn't mean those at the bottom (greater than the 12%-17% living below the poverty line) aren't any less serfs, subject to the whims of the very rich. Even upper-middle-class workers are subject to the whims of the very rich-- witness the uncertainty over outsourcing, for instance. (Which I'm all for. It opens up the world economy to the US, though it has the unfortunately side-effect of making the ultra-rich ultra-richer.)
So, not everyone has opportunity. Not everyone is offered a wad of cash. Further, many who *are* offered a wad of cash, are offered a wad of cash smaller than needed to decently live on.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
It was solid state, in the sense that it did not use vacuum tubes; just not in the modern no-moving-parts sense.
Oops, sorry, didn't meant to infringe on Abba's intellectal property. However, isn't it true that people used to say that you become an artist because you've got something inside that must get out, find and expression? Even if it means giving up the prospect of being wealthy? So what is all this about artists not wanting to produce music or whatever if they can't maximize their profits? To me it sounds like they aren't really artists.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for paying artists decently, but I think it is fair to expect that they are actually real artists, not just production line text and song engineers. And I do object to paying over the odds into the pockects of rich, predatory corporations, who aren't in it for the money. Give me a true artist and I'll be willing to pay the normal, full CD price for downloading an album, if I know the money goes to the musician, not some greedy corporation.
As for the Iron Curtain: It may have been a device for oppressing the population in USSR, but it was used in the west to scare the population into submitting to an absurd, extreme capitalism that we would never have accepted if it wasn't for the Iron Curtain. Now that is is gone, those in power need something else: the so-called war on terror. They were never interested in freedom, but I think we knew that - the question is, when do we stop them?
Free Speech as in "free to agree with anything you say"?
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Slashdot, where a call to suicide is +4 insightful!
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
The Atanasoff-Berry calculator was not programmable. Therefore it was about as much a computer as the punch-card programmable loom.
Oh very well. All yanks today are idiots. There, you happy now?
To start a revolution you need the support of the masses. 'Piratpartiet' got 0,63 % of the national votes last election (2006).
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
I believe many Americans are afraid to share (bittorrent or whatever) music, books, movies etc. Here in Sweden, nobody (at least not that I know of) is afraid of that. You'll never get cought. This is almost identical to actually removing copyright laws. However, Swedish writers are making very good money from their books, which sells extremely well (even in Sweden). The same goes for music artists or movie producers. Why, you might ask? Because a lot of people will still buy their books, songs, whatever.
In this world of ours, we have had libraries for centuries. This is essentially the same as removing copyright on books. It enables poor people (which we don't have many in Sweden, as opposed to the US where the differences in "financial freedom" is extreme) to read any amount of books they like, for free. You have had this opportunities in the US too, for centuries. Still, in Sweden, the US and everywhere in the world, people buy books.
People buy music. People buy movies. People go to concerts, and to the cinemas.
Allowing people to share any information (be it text [books], audio [music] or moving pictures [movies]) doesn't automatically make us go back to stone age. Quite the opposite. It will force artists into being even more creative in how they attract their audience.
I believe we can have a world completely without patents and copyrights. I'm absolutely certain that business will flourish as they always have. Copyright only makes it easy for (large) businesses to excercise oppression on citizens (RIAA, MPAA, BSA). It has, in real life, nothing to do with getting paid for what you do.
And quite frankly, I think it's pathetic that some frightened writers or song writers asks "how will I get paid?". I don't ask them how I will get paid. If I don't get paid, I change job. You can't make money out of your job? Change it. Surely a lot of intelligent artists will be able to make money off their work, without crying out in media "but how will I get paid??". That's really not my problem.
And, as I stated, they do get paid now, even though many people get their works for free (and have done, for centuries). Just remove the money sink aka "production companies", and the audience will pay the artist directly. They'll easily be rich (if that's what they want), if their work is appreciated.
I find that for every track I get for free from an artist, I tend to want to reward the artist fairly. This weekend just gone, I came across the CASH music site, linked to from Kristin Hersh's blog (http://www.throwingmusic.com/blog). I downloaded both the tracks she'd put up there, though "Hey, this is pretty good..." and decided to do the 3 dollar one-off donation that they ask for but don't force from you. Then as the tracks grew on me I thought "I could do with more of this..." so I went & bought her latest album from iTunes. The point being that for a lot of people, file-sharing is merely like a form of advertising, a free sample or loss-leader that gets the customer into the metaphorical showroom so they can buy more. Kristin's doing a great thing by releasing her work under a Creative Commons attributable, changeable share-alike license - people are free to remix it, mash it up, change the lyrics, cover it, do derivative artwork, sculpture or whatever, as long as they link back to their work & publish it under the same license. Her wish is that we regain the sort of musical communities we had back in the heyday of folk & blues, where a song remains after the artist has travelled elsewhere, & it takes on a local aspect, different chords, lyrics etc.
The reason there is so much antipathy towards Americans is their strange requirement to re-write history to show that they were at the heart of everything important that happened. This is very obvious in the history of technology development.
When a technology is developed, there is usually an initial intellectual idea. Then a few people start using the idea, and for a while there are people round the world trying it out. Finally, it becomes established and commercially viable. The person who had the idea is rarely associated with the (rich) person who makes a commercial success.
I think that the true inventor is the person with the original idea. (That would make Turing the inventor of the computer, and Sir George Cayley the inventor of the airplane). But the Americans pick and chose the first American in this mix or people and claim that they are the true inventor. So the Wrights are feted because they were trying aviation out (and were American), or Henry Ford because he made the automobile commercially viable (and was American).
Don't get me wrong. The Wrights did advance the cause of aviation (though not by much), and Henry Ford was responsible for a revolution in world commercial industrialisation (much more important!). But for some reason Americans seem to want to claim that they were totally responsible for everything!
I think it is to do with the isolationist mentality of the US. Britain was an island, but when it acquired an empire it became much more internationalist in its outlook. Unfortunately, I can see no indication that America is growing up the same way.
Exactly. That governments everywhere are ready to gut civil rights in order to sustain business models coming apart at the seams speaks very negatively to the state of common sense. A century ago, people began to buy freezers and wiped out an entire ice delivery business; this wasn't odd, it's just part of life in a free market.
There is something symptomatic in the appearance of an "issue" (one issue, or a set of issues in one area) parties like Pirate party or Green party. It seems that they won't be able to play a leading role in the society, only as a "constructive" (or not) opposition influencing the decisions of more traditional ruling parties. I think it would be more honest to call those parties what they are: lobby parties or party lobbies - lobbies that created their own parties.
I am sure this idea could be continued further to understand why should we or should not vote for such parties, support them, etc...
May be lobbies and parliaments should be separated, giving space in those elected bodies for representatives of the people, not groups.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
my my my resorting to a personal attack
it's all that is left to you when you are looking at what is right and proper and you can't admit it to yourself
I think you mean to say the parliamentarist system is fully functional in the US. A democratic election of despots^H^H^H^H^H^H^H rulers^H^H^H^H^H^Hleaders does not a democracy make.
The Soviets mainly copied western computers in the Cold War. They copied mostly DEC stuff (pdp-11 and VAX - the DEC engineers even wrote something in Russian on the chip die for the vax CPU since they knew one of the first things that would happen is the Soviets would take the lid off one). They also made their own copies of 74-series TTL, and 8 bit CPUs such as the Z80. Russian homebrewers predominantly cloned the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the 1980s for a home computer, although the Russian homebrewers generally didn't simply copy, they usually made significant extensions to the Spectrum (the Sinclair ZX Spectrum has to be the 80s home computer with the most versions thanks to the Russian homebrewing scene).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Falkvinge's definition of fascism is an interesting one - it makes Hong Kong probably the most fascist state in history, far more than Nazi Germany.
Interesting as well that he believes it is possible to have a fascist state without a curtailment of civil liberties - perhaps he's referring to California Uber Alles?
Does anyone care to speculate which "lexicon" he got this definition from?
Actaully, although i'm not american, i too think that most reasonable alternative is to say that ford "invented" the automobile, or whoever introduced the first mass-produced comercially viable product, or, in any other industry, the same criteria to determine when an application is "ready for production" rather than prototypes and early drafts.
:)
And in that sence, i think that the assumption of Ford as the "inventor" is preetty acurate.
Is either that, or eternal discussions like the one above about computers. Introduction to a market marks a clear and objective point of comparison. In any case, choosing this particular point above other is equally arbitry
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Seeing as how Europe would be under control of Germany right now, if we Americans didn't come bail you guys out. I don't think you have any room to talk.
Ironically in the United States there is disagreement on this fact. The story goes that the Smithsonian believed the first powered flight honors should be awarded to Samuel Langley for testing of his Aerodrome before the Wright brothers test.
The Wright brothers tried to force the Smithsonian into acknowledging them by sending the Wright Flyer to the London Museum instead of the Smithsonian. In 1942, the Smithsonian published a retraction of previous claims and recognized the Wright brother's flight as the first powered, so they could get the plane back to the US museum.
So, both the Wrights and Langley were American, but politics was involved here anyway.
After Rick's talk at Google entitled "Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties", you can read "Copyright 2007 Google, Inc. All rights reserved. Other uses, either in whole or part, are strictly prohibited without express permisson of the copyright owner."
Great talk by the way. Worth looking at.
Welcome to DeusEx AGE.
It's fun you mention Atanasoff. I just shows a trend that is even getting worse these days in the USA : Atanasoff was Bulgarian.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff
The son of a Bulgarian immigrant.... John Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, New York to an electrical engineer and a school teacher.
Wanting to abolish copyright law in favour of all arts being state-funded is just a misguided pipe-dream.
It doesn't even sound very dreamy to me. It's basically another flavour of socialism, which would inevitably suffer from the same major problem of any socialist policy: when you start redistributing the wealth via government enforcement, you hurt those who are successful and benefit those who are not, thus reducing (or, taken to the logical extreme, outright removing) any incentive to be successful. In this context, being successful pretty much means making works that people want. Why bother with niceties like making your product better when you're going to get paid the same anyway?
The only alternative to blanket state funding is some sort of on-merit scheme, as you get with things like research grants in some places today. But then who decides what is meritorious and what is meretricious? I know I wouldn't want either pop culture or highbrow critics deciding on what I was going to get to watch/read/listen to!
We have market economics for a reason. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good way of finding what people want. And the thing about copyright, which none of the alternative approaches often suggested around here can match, is that it effectively allows the costs of an expensive but good product to be shared between many people, each of whom may enjoy the benefit of that work for a much smaller cost. If something costs more to make, then in order to return a profit it requires either more people to benefit from it, or that people perceive a greater benefit and so are willing to pay more for it. Isn't a system that rewards making works with wider and/or stronger appeal a good thing?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Only if being born in New York and growing up in NY and Florida makes one Bulgarian. His father (also John Atanasoff, some sources have Ivan -- perhaps he anglicized his name when he immigrated) was Bulgarian, but he was a natural-born American.
The US primary and secondary school system is fucked up, but the situation is nothing new -- the Scopes trial was in 1925, and Scopes lost. Importing talent is one of the ways the US has kept ahead for so many years. Now with much the rest of the world being comparatively less fucked up than it was e.g. during the Cold War, we're likely to lose that particular advantage.
Just because Joe Six-Pack is ignorant doesn't mean the rest of us have to be. If you go by Joe Six-Pack rules, then Douglas Aircraft Company invented the airplane, too.
Isn't it funny how that sounds like a virus?
Okay. Okay. A country is... a guy who gets up in the morning, brushes his teeth (sometimes) and then eats some scrambled eggs. Also he likes to look at porno on occasion. Nothing too kinky.
A person is a body of land with defined borders, an economy, a bunch of countries living in it, and probably a flag.
I'm pretty close, right?
Any author, Musician, anyone who creates something has the right to give it away for free, as in zero cost to the person who accepts it, with the following proviso:
If the author/musician/creator of said work had entered into an agreement with another party to be compensated while creating said work, and in the agreement promised said sponsor a percentage of the revenue from the sale of said work at a price the market will bare. Unless said sponsor releases the creator of the work from said agreement, or the agreement has a defined term and that term had lapsed. Until said agreement is satisfied, then the creator of said work has no such lawful right to give away said work without satisfying the terms of the agreement.
Many creators of literary or musical works do in point of fact make those works available for free and deliver it in many ways of which the internet is only one.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
To be fair, in one of the two elections the majority of voters voted against W.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
If books become more prone to "thievery", publishers will recoup costs by increasing the amount of advertisements per copy. Paperbacks already host a slew of ads for other books by the same publisher. I'm sure that we can soon look forward to more product placement and ad-inserts, particularly in pop-lit.
So some people have found a way to make a profit by competing with free, but you can't? Furthermore, they are making a profit off of a "pittance." So at the low end, you should be able to make money, what about at the high end? Without copyright it wouldn't be possible to make quality large-scale films? Have you heard of a country called China that is famous for neglecting copyright laws? Have you seen any of their blockbuster movies from the last 20 years? They have huge resources poured into these films, some good, some bad just like hollywood. They keep coming out too, despite the fact that pirates sell knock-offs for a pittance. Mainland China also has a new generation of film-makers who are underground. They command none of these resources and are facing persecution by the government, yet they are still making award-winning films.
I think the real problem is that you are afraid. You are afraid of adapting to a new environment, and you are not alone. Most people are afraid of change, but you are the one that will lose when you "stop producing." So go ahead, quit. It will be easier than adapting your skills and talents to an environment where distribution is no longer an economic factor.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
I used to think like this guy, but I changed.
It's simply not ours to decide for what reason anyone should be in the business. If they are in it for the sake of art, so be it. If they are in it to earn a living and maybe, just maybe a family with kids, who are we to think they shouldn't be in it? Who are we to decide they should work for free? Who are we to slap away the only weapon they got in this digital age, and be it DRM?
If you have to work for a living, you just have to ask yourself on whether it's the right of the community to decide that you should be in it for free. Than ask the same question to the musician, artist, whatever. Same answer? I suppose.
And if you dare to answer different, that music and art should be free but your work should not be, all I got to say to you is that you can hardly say to value art the way you should do. Fortunately, society answers differently.
Amen. Mod galoise up. It's not the idea or the first semi-working prototype that matters. It is the first commercially viable and successful invention that matters - because that is the invention that eventually changes the world.
I've seen this exact rant pasted before. Please just let this crap die and stop modding it up.
imagine i was at concert and told you what i saw?
do i need to pay to someone for that?
imagine i was at concert and just have sung to you what i heard at concert (just another way of telling you what i saw)?
do i need to pay to someone for that?
imagine i was at concert and i'm such a great singer i did it even better than the original singer?
imagine i was at concert and was also able to show you dancing which i saw?
imagine i was at concert and was better in both singing and dancing later on when trying to say to you how much i liked it?
imagine i was so good in that that you called some of your friends to join us to see how good i am?
imagine some of your friends invited even more friends?
imagine i didn't know all of the people which appeared there?
do i need to pay to someone for that?
imagine i'm quite bad in both singing and dancing?
what's the fucking difference?
fuck copyright.
Anyway, all I have to say is that artists will get paid. It'll happen. The market will change, the way information spreads will change, the way the various forms of art and how it's made will change, and the way art is spread will change. Artists will get paid. It may not be a fair pay, it could be many times better or many times worse. Artists will get paid.
Throughout history artists have created and have received some sort of payment in some way. I'm sure that the cave painters of prehistory got a sizable amount of berries for creating artwork on the cave walls. And even if they didn't get paid for it, they still did it. That's a key point to being an artist. You may end up toiling in obscurity, creating images only you will see, but if you love doing it, you'll never stop.
The artists of Greece and Rome received commissions to sculpt and paint the various gods in the various pantheons in existence at the time. I would assume some sort of payment was received for those works. Even if they didn't get a cash or store credit, they created the works just the same. Renaissance artists had only two clients, the king and the church. They got paid. They got to paint portraits of the nobility, portraits of Popes, the ceilings of chapels, vast landscapes, stunning Religious battles and triumphs.
In the early 1900s there were these two large wars, you may have heard of them, World War I and World War II. Artists made propaganda posters related to the war. But also, anti-war demonstrators had their posters and pamphlets, as well. Not to mention, there were still heavy demands for domestic publications, most (if not all) used Illustration, as photography still hadn't matured yet. So, for better or worse, artists still got paid. After the wars, the major commissioners of Illustration were magazines. That's how Norman Rockwell made a living. He got paid from magazine Illustration (covers of the Saturday Evening Post, mainly). There used to be a market for movie posters, as well. Look at films throughout the mid 1900s into the 1980s, most movie posters were painted.
Here's the point I'm trying to make. The king and the church, magazine publications, propaganda posters, movie posters, they're all gone. None of them are viable means to make a living as an artist anymore. Sure, there are still a few artists who make a living off of them, but it's very few, you can count the number of artists on one hand. The point is that the source of money for artistic people has always changed, and will continue to change. Just because there's file sharing and the Internet, where people can get these things for free, doesn't mean artists won't get paid. Most people just make the assumption that this is the way it is, was, and ever will be, and it's not. With several large corporations holding all the cards, deciding who gets paid, who doesn't, and decided whether or not to sue someone who turned their mascot into a piece of art composed of cans of poo.
I don't know what the next big wave of artistic revenue is going to be, but artist will get paid. For example, I have all of my personal artwork on the Internet. I haven't received a dime for it. No one buys the prints, no one clicks the ads on my Blog (http://www.wolflog.com/), but I don't really care. I'm creating the artwork because I enjoy it. I receive small commissions here-and-there and that's it. It's not glamorous...and my name will probably never be noticed in the art world, but I don't really care.
So, as an artist ignored by companies, who doesn't receive a huge cash influx from them. I say, screw the bastards. Maybe then, when the next form of payment for artists comes around, I'll actually receive some green.
OK, I know you're joking and all, but here's why it'll never happen. Given that even far right-wing politicians here support universal health care, the reason Canada will never get statehood, (no matter what happens with quebec separatism) because the GOP will never allow a new state to join the union that will be guaranteed to send two democrats to the senate, forever, or at least until the heat death of the universe.
(same thing goes for PR as well...)
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Let me ask you the same question that I ask anybody who asserts that position:
Given that, in economics, something only has value if it has scarcity and utility, how do we make sense of a situation where the marginal cost of production approaches zero? If your software/movie/album that I'm about to buy costs you effectively zero to produce another copy of it, what should be the appropriate price?
I'm not saying this to troll or pick a fight, I really am curious as to what copyright
Personally, the only way I see out of this mess is a statutory license. An extra charge per month on your ISP bill, distributed to artists, using the royalty system for radio airplay as a guide/model. As far as I can see, the only alternative is to allow a truly draconian intrusion into all of my internet traffic...
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
And I'll point out a small detail for you: Copyright law is not a natural law or a human right. It's a social contract, at best, a balance of interests within a social context.
So, when I say, (for example) that an easy solution would be to make all private, non-commercial copying to be 100% legal, I'm not saying we start "taking something away" from creative producers. It's me saying "Hi, remember that free ride/monopoly we gave you back when we passed copyright laws that give you a monopoly on reproduction of your work? Well, due to changing needs in society, we're going to change the way that freebie we gave you works."
AFAIK, no one has a guarantee of their revenue stream in the constitution.
I don't get to have one hugely successful project I work on when I'm 25 years old and then live off the results of that for the rest of my life, so why should authors/artists get to do that?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
I have slight disagreements with some items in your list, but I fully agree with the substance of the message: "Enough is enough. We're not gonna tolerate living in a US-centric universe driven by lies and paranoia, anymore!" This being said, given how a lot of /. readers are Americans and fit the description for one or several of the groups of people you describe, you're likely to be modded down as a flame bait, precisely because you've touched on a number of proverbial "Elephant in the corner" issues.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
So yes, copyleft would not exist without copyright, but copyleft would be much less needed without copyright as well.
Ok, so here we go again.. Please what exactly is natural law? What exactly is a human right? Allow me to inform you of the fact that ANY law, of any kind, with the possible exception of the laws of physics, is, in point of fact, a Social Contract that we all for the most part agree upon.
So, when I say, (for example) that an easy solution would be to make all private, non-commercial copying to be 100% legal, I'm not saying we start "taking something away" from creative producers. It's me saying "Hi, remember that free ride/monopoly we gave you back when we passed copyright laws that give you a monopoly on reproduction of your work? Well, due to changing needs in society, we're going to change the way that freebie we gave you works."You are now talking about two very separate ideas here. 1st of all, you are perfectly free to make 10,000 copies, at your own expense, of any copyrighted work and then scatter them about your home, apartment, hovel or whatever it is you live in. You may not distribute them, sell them, or in any way cause them to be distributed. Its called fair use spend as much money as you want, its fine by me.
I suppose you could try and get the law changed, for "needs of society". let me tell you, you are going to really have to work hard to convince me, or pretty much any reasonable person that the "needs of society" demand that I can no longer have the exclusive control over the sale and distribution of anything artistic or literary work that I create. AFAIK, no one has a guarantee of their revenue stream in the constitution.I agree with you that there is no provision in the constitution that enumerates any such right; however, the law as passed by congress concerning copyright does.
I don't get to have one hugely successful project I work on when I'm 25 years old and then live off the results of that for the rest of my life, so why should authors/artists get to do that?Hmmm well you could, if you create something that falls under the provision of copyright law. Those that come to mind are a book, a score of music, a screenplay, a movie, software, pick any of those and as long as people will buy/license is from you you can never work another day in your life within the framework of copyright law.
So pretty much it sounds as though you are crying "sour grapes" that you were not ____________ ( inset the appropriate adjective) enough to create such a work and now you have to be a wage slave for the rest of your life. Well guess what so do about 99.9% of the rest of the population of the planet. You know what, life sucks and until you can accomplish something like writing a book people want to buy and read, music people want to buy and listen to or any body of work covered by copyright law, copyright law is really meaningless to you, well unless you are trying to justify taking someone else's work and trying to sell it, or justify giving it away for the "cool"factor or whatever.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Yeah, well, one man's sour grapes is another man's questioning the validity of our current arrangement.
Here's my problem with copyright right now: I don't see a way to stop piracy short of a very draconian trusted-computing-type regime. (And, I'm not 100% convinced that piracy is that much of a problem right now anyway, but that's a separate issue)
So, I figure, the genie's out of the bottle on P2P etc. Therefore this seems like a choice between intrusive government or corporate control over your computer or allowing/turning a blind eye to private, non-commercial copyright infringement. I don't think we can appeal to people's 'better nature' in hopes of stopping copyright infringement. We can't even stop drunk driving with that kind of approach.
Given that choice, I pick the latter, hands down. You wanna go after commercial pirating shops with the full force of law? Go for it. But controlling non-commercial private copying requires too much of an infringement on the rights of ordinary citizens.
Am I missing something here?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Well, I don't want any of that either, but (a) that's not what we're talking about here, and (b) posting rants on the net isn't going to help at all, and may in fact make it worse. Have some fruit juice--prunes, if you need it--and have a cleansing bowel movement. I do believe that in your case, it'll clear your head. Then find an outlet for all of that pent-up frustration. Form a band. Start a blog, a group blog. Write a letter to the editor.
Better yet, study the formation of these United States. It's very informative to what you seem to be so upset about. Some of it is what makes the place work, even if you don't happen to like it. Some of it really sucks possum ass. It turns out that your Congressional representatives can be made to pay attention very quickly if they (or their staff, get to know their staff) get a whiff of "dissatisfaction with the incumbent." For them, it's get re-elected or die. For you, it's something to do with your time. It's also very, very handy to be able to drop your Congressional reps' names like you know 'em if the IRS tries to intimidate you.
Or, if you prefer, stay there in the corner and keep complaining.
I mean, at the very least, you could offer some solution. Even a toddler can come up with a solution, although it may involve imaginary friends. I can tell you from experience that "there's room for improvement" is a far healthier place to stand than "it's all fucked."
And do keep us updated; your personal worldview is positively fascinating.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."
As much as I don't admonish the subject line (I'm biased for women of any nationality) the OP was correct, if not a bit rude, to state that American's did not invent these things.
For example, Germans are greatly responsible for inventing the automobile, not the US or the UK. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcar.htm
America's contribution was mostly in assembly and manufacture (sounds like US-China today....something to consider from a historical perspective) as Henry Ford was so well recognized for.
I could go on with the other examples, but I think I've got enough cannon fodder for you folks. The Internet I have to give to the US however since ARPA funded it, and Gore commercialized it. However we can still see the problems with such a singular approach to its development.Jeruvy
I don't know if you are missing something but let me give you my perspective on this. The people who are P2P'ng are in point of fact breaking the law, its that simple.
As the old saying goes, "Choose your battles wisely", and that is what the content owners are doing. Now we can argue all day long about the wisdom of some of the battles they have chose, but for the most part they are doing so.
What they are trying to do is corral the beast. They are fully aware that it cannot be defeated, so they are trying to contain it and put the fear of god into everyone. Trust me, no one at EMI/VIRGIN/SONY/BMG or any other of the large content owners gives a rats ass that you have a central machine in your home that streams content out to the various devices in your home especially if you purchased that content from them since that means they made the buck.
What gets their panties in a bunch is when you start hooking up your next door neighbor, or half your damn apartment complex, and I have seen people do this, or when you open your system to the internet and now lots and lots of other people are downloading content.
Now beyond that what really makes them wake up sweating are people like Pirate Bay who just give away the content that cost EMI/VIRGIN/SONY/BMG or whomever a hell of a lot of money to produce to the entire world. Eventually the likes of Pirate Bay are going to get shut down. I don't care what country they are in, at some point the political pressure will just be to much to bare for the government of the host country and it will happen.
Let me add this last little idea and I am done. You really want all these big production houses and distribution companies. Did you enjoy films like "The Matrix" or "Toy Story" or "Harry Potter" or anything like those? I am pretty sure you have. Those kinds of things cost Multiple Millions of dollars to bring to the screen. We could argue all day that Reeves is a horrible actor or that Tom Hanks ONLY used his voice and therefor why did they get paid so much, but that is irrelevant to the argument at hand. If left unchecked, unauthorized distribution will grow to the point where it really starts hitting the bottom line of these companies and then who is going to invest their money? The answer is nobody. So all that content will not be produced or not produced in a manner that you find desirable.
So there you have it, my POV.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
"Apparently piratebay has finally figured out a way to determine harm when it comes to digital goods were no one else has."
Pirate Party != Pirate Bay
Nobody gets fooled this badly, unless they WANT to be fooled. Unless they're TOO WEAK to face the truth.
We've been reaping our foul harvest, no doubt about it. Laziness breeds laziness. Indifference breeds indifference. It's only when our slot gets us in serious trouble that we face up to our problems. The sad part is that the rest of the world has to pay for it, too.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You didn't read closely. One bomb does not make a catastrophic global nuclear conflagration.
The focus of your (I assume it's you, but I'm not sure because both you and the original poster are ACs) initial discussion was on America, and I brought in Europe by way of comparison. By using two cultures as points of comparison, I may be betraying bias, but not bigotry. if I were a Brazilian having a discussion about racism I'd likely talk about the racism and sexism I see in my own country. I wouldn't be bigoted in doing so.
I see. So the level of religious intolerance is the same across the globe. Although the United States has enshrined religious freedom in its constitution, and has a long tradition of diverse religions, the U.S. is no more tolerant of religion than China. And although Hindus and Muslims have been killing each other on the Indian subcontinent for decades, they're no less tolerant of religious differences than Singaporeans. I guess I'm just missing the obvious.
Nice deflection. I was talking about religion. Integrating immigrants into a society economically, while not attempting to strip them of their religious beliefs is not racist. Besides, I don't have a problem with people speaking Spanish or French or Swahili inside the U.S. and keeping their own cultural traditions. Spend any amount of time in the the southwestern United States? It's a quite different culture from the American midwest or east coast.
I still don't really understand what you mean by "women that act like men." Besides, why do you care what women act like? Do you have a great deal of concern about how other men act? Do you seriously think of yourself as a victim of some sort of assault on male rights? You can't honestly believe that men don't still call the shots pretty much everywhere and in pretty much all the things that matter.
Ah, I see. You'd have been out on the streets throwing bombs. You're disgusted that there wasn't armed revolution here in America when Bush won a second time. I guess the wheels of representative democracy move too slowly for some, but the violent overthrow of governments is overrated, too.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
At a guess, I'd say the difference has nothing to with anyone's "sophisticated understanding" of anything.
I agree. But I do think that the American legal, political and social tradition is more sophisticated than Europe's, because the American tradition of religious tolerance stemmed from the desire of so many early American emigrants to escape persecution in Europe.
I also agree that large minorities tend to segregate. But the point remains that there is something about European societies that makes it more difficult for Muslims in Europe to "fit in" with the larger society while maintaining their religious traditions. The isolation you speak of is a two-way street, no doubt. But America has had more than two centuries of experience folding new religions into the national fabric, while wars over religion are still bubbling in Europe.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
True, in my haste to admit that Ford didn't "invent" the automobile I overlooked some deeper points.
While taking "inventor" literally your statement,
"And in that sence, i think that the assumption of Ford as the "inventor" is preetty acurate."[sic]
is in error, there's clearly a connotation to the word inventor that implies something more than putting two of the most important inventions of all time together in a blatantly obvious way.
(The wheel is generally considered the greatest invention, and a cart that can carry people is obviously crucial to society. The engine is obviously far more important than most inventions that predated it. Granting exception to the wheel, shelter, medicine. Wheels have been included in nearly all engines, most people see little value in applying engines to homes, and even people from the mid-west of the US would likely balk at applying engines to medicine (barring production which is less an engine than a robot).)
Ford had the first practical, valuable, useful implementaion of a device which I believe to be to obvious to invent.