Norwegian Lawyers Must Stop Chasing File Sharers

Skapare sends word from TorrentFreak that Norway's Simonsen law firm has lost their license to pursue file sharers. "Just days after Norway's data protection department told ISPs they must delete all personal IP address-related data three weeks after collection, it's now become safer than ever to be a file-sharer in Norway. The only law firm with a license to track pirates has just seen it expire and it won't be renewed." Skapare adds, "Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously. Maybe they've been watching the abuses in the USA. More info on the Norwegian perspective in this Google translation from Dagbladet.no."

Comments

Half-right...

[Chabo]

Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously. Maybe they've been watching the abuses in the USA.

A bigger part of it is just that European governments take the privacy of their citizens very seriously.

Except Britain, of course.

Re:Half-right...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

And Sweden *cough*IPRED*cough*

Re:Half-right...

[T Murphy]

A bigger part of it is just that European governments take the privacy of their citizens very seriously.

Except Britain, of course.

I was under the impression the British government took privacy very - almost too - seriously. They even have those cameras set up to monitor private lives - ensuring no one's right to privacy goes overlooked or unwatched. How can the government know their citizens have privacy if the government can't watch?

Re:Half-right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Britain, of course.

And lets not forget France. And occasionally Germany, and at some point or another pretty much every "western" country.

Re:Half-right...

[s0l1dsnak3123]

Britain enjoy raping it's citizens of their privacy. Take a look at the echelon project, for example.

Re:Half-right...

[dk90406]

True. Privacy has higher priority in many European countries, but the fact the Norway can clear the logs after three weeks, are a consequence of the *not* being members of EU. EU has issued data retention rules of one year. Some countries (like Denmark) has implemented the directive, others haven't yet.
All in the name of war against terror, of course.

Re:Half-right...

[davester666]

Yeah, that's it. They're watching to make sure nobody else is invading your privacy!

Re:Half-right...

[An ominous Cow art]

*cough*IPRED*cough*

I recommend seeing a doctor, right away.

Re:Half-right...

[I cant believe its n]

Almost; the EU Data Retention Directive calls storing user logs for at least 6 months.

Re:Half-right...

[metacell]

A bigger part of it is just that European governments take the privacy of their citizens very seriously.

Except Britain, of course.

I wish. Since the IPRED2 (the second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) was approved by the European Union, all EU countries are required to log all phone calls, emails and other electronic communications for at least six months.

We're probaby better off than U.S. citizens in terms of systematic monitoring, but the situation is far from satisfactory.

Re:Half-right...

[KingBenny]

You should really take a look at the laws that are being passed in Germany and the laws that the president-king is trying to pass in France. Norway putting it down like this is a bright day for democracy and free speech in Europe. And yea i almost forgot, GB isnt all that good when it comes to respecting privacy either.

Re:Half-right...

[mgcarley]

Excellent. I can't do anything about you if you're a file sharer, but if you try to skimp us on our high taxes, you'd better watch out! (Tax records are public in Norway last time I checked).

This is not over yet...

[Sholmas]

The Minister of Culture has said he supports the outing of "pirates", and will support the so-called "pirate-hunters" in their application for a new lisence. Google Translate link: http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2009%2F06%2F23%2Fkultur%2Ffildeling%2Fteknio%2Ftrond_giske%2F6860130%2F&sl=no&tl=en&history_state0=

Re:This is not over yet...

[TheRealMindChild]

Which I don't really think is a bad thing in and of itself. If you can prove reasonably that someone downloaded MovieX, by all means, fine them 10x the going retail price. The trick is to go after people you KNOW committed copyright infringement. Not the maybe's. Not the torrent sites/Napster-like software producers.

Re:This is not over yet...

[verbalcontract]

"Pirate-hunters" -- you are speaking of course about their age-old enemies, the ninjas?

Re:This is not over yet...

[bertoelcon]

"Pirate-hunters" -- you are speaking of course about their age-old enemies, the ninjas?

Is this why we never hear of piracy reports from Japan. I just put two and two together and it now makes perfect sense.

Re:This is not over yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was then heard to exclaim,

"I'm the greatest pirate hunter in the world!"

Re:This is not over yet...

[hyfe]

Yes, but in the same article Ove Skåra from Datatilsynet (computer-watch.. government institution set up to help protect our privacy. They give out permits for surveillance cameraes and can give out legally binding rulings to companies who are in breach of privacy-laws) is quoted with saying:

"- Da er et brev med en anbefaling på ingen måte nok. Hvis ikke det kommer noen nye opplysninger, vil jeg ikke tro at brevet gjør noen særlig forskjell, sier han. "

(..since we recently had a meeting with the department concerning this..)
"- A letter with a recommondation is by no means enough. Unless there is new information relevant to the case, I do not believe the letter will make any difference".

Re:This is not over yet...

[Kjella]

He was positive the last time too, but the data protection agency has basicly said we need laws/regulatiosn to keep doing this - no more temporary permits. The translation in poor:

"This is a letter with a recommendation in no way NOK. If not there is any new information, I will not believe that letter makes much difference, "he said."
should be:
"Then a letter of recommendation is in no way enough. If there is no new information, I do not believe the letter will make much difference" he said.

Re:This is not over yet...

[T Murphy]

So if a ninja gets a law degree we're all screwed?

Re:This is not over yet...

[kirillian]

Wait...what? Two pirates plus two ninjas = 1 samurai??!?!?

Re:This is not over yet...

[omglolbah]

Actually, the issue here isnt the logging in itself.

It is that what is police business is now pretty much outsourced to a private entity. An entity with a very strong economic stake in said business.

The ip addresses this firm has collected has for instance been used to demand personal information on users from ISPs. They want to have the right to acquire that sort of information -without- involving the courts. That is completely unacceptable. What makes this even worse is that what is currently happening and could become legal precedence in Norway is the practice of one private entity demanding information on the customer of another private entity against this private entity's will.

The courts are the -only- entity that should be allowed to extract this sort of information. A private entity should not be given the rights of a court of law.

I'd love to be more clear and eloquent in my writing but I've spent 12 hours in a hot metal box testing hardware :-p

Re:This is not over yet...

[Dragonslicer]

"Pirate-hunters" -- you are speaking of course about their age-old enemies, the ninjas?

Samus Aran is a ninja? That does explain a lot, I guess.

Re:This is not over yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Minister of Culture has said he supports the outing of "pirates", and will support the so-called "pirate-hunters" in their application for a new lisence.

Why? I heard global warming is a real bitch.

My reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got Norwegian wood.

Or maybe they don't care...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Maybe its not that they care so much about privacy that they don't care so much about piracy.

The reason the US gets so butt-hurt about piracy is because hollywood dominates the entertainment business worldwide - there are only a handful of countries were domestic movies regularly outsell hollywood productions at the box office (mostly S Korea, France, India and mainland China and some of that is helped by quota restrictions on foreign productions), and my guess is that the number is even smaller when it comes to DVDs.

Now I'm going to make a wild-ass guess that a lot of the locally produced works in Norway receive significant public funding. If true, that's also an incentive to ignore piracy because if tax dollars are paying for the creation then it isn't a big leap of logic to expect that the results are "owned" by the public too.

So, from that perspective, it seems reasonable that anti-piracy would be near the bottom of the list of government priorities in Norway (and many other countries for that matter).

Re:Or maybe they don't care...

[causality]

Maybe its not that they care so much about privacy that they don't care so much about piracy.

The reason the US gets so butt-hurt about piracy is because hollywood dominates the entertainment business worldwide - there are only a handful of countries were domestic movies regularly outsell hollywood productions at the box office (mostly S Korea, France, India and mainland China and some of that is helped by quota restrictions on foreign productions), and my guess is that the number is even smaller when it comes to DVDs.

Now I'm going to make a wild-ass guess that a lot of the locally produced works in Norway receive significant public funding. If true, that's also an incentive to ignore piracy because if tax dollars are paying for the creation then it isn't a big leap of logic to expect that the results are "owned" by the public too.

So, from that perspective, it seems reasonable that anti-piracy would be near the bottom of the list of government priorities in Norway (and many other countries for that matter).

I've always felt that when govenrments worry about things like piracy and drug usage, what they're really doing is sending the message "we have an overabundance of resources and personnel which is why we can afford to worry about these things -- please reduce our size and power immediately." The message is quite clear but there are a lot of people who have difficulty interpreting it.

Re:Or maybe they don't care...

[twidarkling]

what they're really doing is sending the message "we have an overabundance of resources and personnel which is why we can afford to worry about these things -- please reduce our size and power immediately."

Holy shit. You're right. I've never thought of it that way. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Or maybe they don't care...

[westlake]

hollywood dominates the entertainment business worldwide - there are only a handful of countries were domestic movies regularly outsell hollywood productions at the box office...and some of that is helped by quota restrictions on foreign productions

I suspect that would be true across the board - music, books, games and videos of every sort.

But that has implications the geek may not like.

It suggests - first of all - that the small scale open-sourced "garage band" culture the geek imagines will never happen.

It suggests that your home-grown product, your ethnic or national culture will remain permanently under siege.

--- and that makes the political case for government intervention.

The suppression of piracy always has two roots:

The need to protect your export markets. The need to protect your domestic producers. When those two interests converge, the pirate doesn't stand a chance.

Re:Or maybe they don't care...

[jonaskoelker]

[hunting piracy and drugs is] sending the message "we have an overabundance of resources and personnel [...] please reduce our size and power immediately."

I always thought it sent the message "We have the power to control your lives because there's no oversight or accountability, and we want to because we're powertripping pricks, so screw you and give us more power".

Not that I agree with it...

Re:Or maybe they don't care...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, better to have a small government that doesn't have the resources to investigate these things for themselves, and rely on lobbyists to give them the insight they need to legislate. >_>

So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

We've a few questions.

1. What's the tech economy like over there?
2. How long does it take to learn your language OR how English friendly is it?
3. What's the average cost of living in your cities?

Thanks in advance.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Dionysus]

1. What's the tech economy like over there?
2. How long does it take to learn your language OR how English friendly is it?
3. What's the average cost of living in your cities?

1. It's OK. Mostly in finance and oil industry. Java (SOA) is heavily used.
2. Business is basically English (even for Norwegian companies). My company has Swedes (lots), Sri Lankan, Englishmen, couple of Indians/Pakistani, French. Coding/documentation is in English.
3. About like Bay Area.

All that, and we get standard 5 weeks of paid vacation, paternity/maternity leave (husband/wife get to share how much they spend at home the first year), strong currency (relatively cheap to buy stuff when you travel), beautiful Swedish women.
Minuses: a socialist government and Jante Law ingrained in the Norwegian psyche.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Itninja]

I have heard there is something like a 60% tax rate. Is that true?

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

...beautiful Swedish women...

It's not too flattering to your female citizens if the most beautiful women in your country are from another country...

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[TheMaister]

1. Soso. Opera's doing very nicely these days at least. :p Also, I think we're a leading force in micro/nano technology.

2. Norwegian is kinda hard to learn as you can't learn it well by studying alone. It has so many ways of expressing yourself that wouldn't make any sense in eg. English. I guess it's the same for most languages, but Norwegian is considered a hard language to learn because of all the irregularites. Something we learn in school is "EVERY rule has an (many) exceptions." :p English and Norwegian is in the same language familiy though (Germanic). But hey, what do I know about learning Norwegian from scratch, as I'm a native speaker :p

3. Expensive, in fact, VERY expensive, but the wages are pretty good (even if you don't have a high class job, you can still earn a lot), so I guess it evens out. Just avoid Oslo, as it's the #2 (or #1?) most expensive city in the world.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Skapare]

Major companies work in English. English is a required language in all schools now, so only the older people and the language challenged can't speak it in some way. But, Norwegian isn't so hard to learn. Lots of words shorter than English ... "light and sound" is "lys og lyd" ... "USB memory stick" is "USB minne pinne" ... "lightning and thunder" is "lyn og torden". And "FAEN" is the universal curse word.

Cost of living in the Oslo area is very high (you might want to try Trondheim if you like the cold or Bergen if you like the rain). Taxes are high. Health care is socialized.

Lots of tunnels to drive around in. The longer ones even have a rest stop or two inside.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[EvilIdler]

I think Dubai was more expensive than Oslo :)

But it's OK, actually. Most big cities in the north and west of Europe are getting expensive, but salaries are matching. Apartments can range from a few thousand NOK if you have luck (my cave is one of the cheap ones) to 15000 NOK (well over $2000) if you're an idiot. You don't need to live smack-dab in the middle of downtown, especially if you don't actually work there. It's also a relatively small city, so despite the best efforts of Ruter/NSB, you can get to work fast enough.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[orzetto]

Not Norwegian myself, though lived there 7 years. Possibly moving back in the near future.

1. 1. Pretty good I would say. The country has had budget surplus for years and is not feeling the effects of the crisis as bad as e.g. Iceland. Estate prices actually went up 4% first quarter (most Norwegians do own their home, so it's a good indicator).
2. 2. Norwegian is not as difficult as German but not as easy as French, many words are not guessable. Main difficulty is that everybody speaks very good English and practising Norwegian is quite difficult if you are not strong-willed. Also, most imported TV shows and movies are in original language (i.e. 90% English). Learning Norwegian also means you can read Danish and read/understand Swedish.
3. 3. Insane, but you pay what you get for. Alcoholic beverages quite expensive because of local edition of prohibition never really being abolished. Foodstuffs are expensive because of protectionism, and quality is lacking (keep in mind I come from a country with high food standard, so I am picky; from the US it's probably still an improvement). Other wares (computer parts, internet connections, whatever could interest a slashdotter) are in line with most of Europe. However, salaries are pretty high for most standards. Note that the Gini index is quite low, i.e. as a sysadmin you will make more than in the US, but not as a CEO.

You forgot to ask for:

• Taxes; it's 25% VAT IIRC, plus about 25-30% on your income (that's for a typical engineering job, after all detractions are taken care of). In 2007 I made 458 kNOK (about $100k) gross as a C++ programmer and paid 29.5% in direct taxes.
• Healthcare: Grand Old Socialist system. You pay 7.8% of gross income (that's already included in the figure at the previous point), when you go to the hospital you could have to pay a fee; anything beyond a certain amount (it used to be 1600 NOK / $250) is shouldered by the state, though. Dentists are for reasons unknown to me only private (and guess what, that's the part of the Norwegian health care that it expensive and broken).
• Bureaucracy: pretty efficient. I live in Germany now and I think the Norwegians did a better job. Not boneheaded at following rules, result-oriented but not scruffy.

So yes, it's a pretty nice place to be, unless you can't stand snow, rain, and socialists in power.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the average is 38%. But it really doesn't matter since everyone is filthy rich anyway.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Chrutil]

Norwegian is not as difficult as German but not as easy as French, many words are not guessable.

Strange - In my world Germanic languages are much easer to learn than Latin languages.
^C

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[The Wannabe King]

That depends on how you calculate it. The income tax is usually about 30 % - 35 % for an ordinary income ($60k). The marginal tax rate is 47.8 % for income over $110k. In addition the employer has to pay a tax of 14.1 % of the employee's income that the employee never sees. It should probably be included. The VAT is a whopping 25 % (14 % on food).

If you make a lot of money, and spend most of it on non-food, it is probably possible to pass 60 %, but that is rare.

I would also say the numbers are misleading without some information on what you get. Norway, like the rest of Europe, has universal heath care so there is no health insurance to pay, no matter what preconditions you may have. The taxes also include unemployment benefits, a pension plan and 100 % pay for a year if you can't work due to illness. Comparing tax rates without accounting for insurances you absolutely need to have is not fair.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on how much you make, we have a high level of progressive taxation. Also, we have free health care. As in, I pay close to nothing if I need to go to hospital. Also, we have 5 weeks paid vacation. Also, we are greased in oil, so we're one of the richest country in the world, per capita. Most Norwegians don't think the taxes are too bad.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[fadir]

1. Opera is based in Oslo. A couple of Oil&Gas oriented IT companies exist.
2. Norwegian is very easy to learn if you actually take a little time and do it. But it's not required, especially not for an IT job.
3. Oslo is one of the most expensive cities in world, but so are the incomes.

Plus: a socialist government, 44(54) weeks maternity/paternity leave 100%(80%), amazing countryside

Have a look at wikipedia. If you like to live the "American dream" then you will probably be disappointed. If you life without fear to lose your job next day then you might like it here.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[fadir]

Top-tax is 48% (starts at 450.000kr if I remember it right). Why don't you guys just simply google it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[fadir]

I don't know why you think that Norwegian is hard to learn but we have a student from England here and he learnt fluent Norwegian within a few months without any major effort. The language is pretty easy, no fancy grammar or the like.

Try learning Russian or Finnish and then compare it to Norwegian!

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[ketilwaa]

Taxes; it's 25% VAT IIRC

Partly correct. It's usually that, but 14% on food that you take away. (Meant for making groceries cheaper, but actually also applies to take away food and coffee.) Cultural things (like going to the movies) are 8%.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[fadir]

Nice summary even though I don't understand how one could think that French would be easier to learn than Norwegian.

Actually 100% of the movies are original language with subtitles, except for children stuff. I have yet to find a single dubbed 12+ movie.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[oldhack]

"Minuses: a socialist government and Jante Law ingrained in the Norwegian psyche."

So, how do you say "passive-aggressive" in Norwegian?

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[IrquiM]

This is actually not what he said. What he said was, between the lines, the Swedish girls are easier to get into bed, and the difference is non-existing when it comes to looks

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[IrquiM]

same as in UK/US actually ;)

or, you could say Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left Party)

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[IrquiM]

Regarding #3... it's number 5 in the latest "poll" :)

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Kjella]

2. Norwegian is not as difficult as German but not as easy as French, many words are not guessable. Main difficulty is that everybody speaks very good English and practising Norwegian is quite difficult if you are not strong-willed. Also, most imported TV shows and movies are in original language (i.e. 90% English). Learning Norwegian also means you can read Danish and read/understand Swedish.

If norwegian is your first langauge outside english, I'd call it optimistic to understand swedish and danish as well. You said you live in germany now and knowing german helps a lot, often words have their german counterpart instead. For example window = vindu (norwegian) - vindue (danish) - fönster (swedish) - Fenster (german).

Healthcare: Grand Old Socialist system.

This might need a small clarification for US readers. It goes something like this:
Norwegian left <---> Norwegian right <--------------------> Democrats <---> Republicans
Not communist left in that you got democracy, freedom of speech, pro-choice, gay marriage etc. but economically it's very different than the US.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Maxo-Texas]

Because a native might provide information on the secondary taxes not listed on that page.

It is a great page, but it doesn't come close to the total tax load.

In the US, the stated tax rate is 28% on the page.
In reality, it's much higher.
So I know that the rate on that page doesn't include.

Social security Taxes (7.5%) -- except for rich people.. who it can be .1% or less (esp if they structure their income as dividends)
Employer portion of social security (7.5%) -- except for rich people.. who it can be .1% or less (esp if they structure their income as dividends)
Sales Taxes (5-8%-- higher some places)
Metropolitan bus service taxes (1%)
Gasoline taxes (low because they forgot to index for inflation)
Property taxes
cigarette taxes (now more than the purchase price of the cigarettes in many states)
alchohol taxes (usually over 10% but under 50% of the purchase price)
Car taxes (usually fairly low)
Telephone taxes (higher than the bill portion of my land line)
Electricity taxes
Water Taxes (not the water bill- the tax portion usually phrased as a sewer fee)
Mud taxes
Trash collection taxes ...
There are over 50 common taxes the last time I saw the list.
---

Our tax system is regressive on people in the middle-- about $20k to about $80k.
While they are highly aggressive against people below $20k- they also have tax credits for them which mitigates the hit a bit.

---

Then when you include corporate taxes which corporations usually pass straight through to the consumer, the rate is almost always over 50% tax load.

They've just found a lot of ways to hide it.

Just like in our last election, they had bills to "vote yes to give permission to sell 50 million in 10 year bonds to cover police pension funding, old people, children, new schools, free beer for everyone"... when what it really meant was "vote yes to raise taxes by 50 million dollars over the next 10 years so we can give out these benefits".

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[causality]

In addition the employer has to pay a tax of 14.1 % of the employee's income that the employee never sees.

I will add just one thing to that: businesses don't actually pay taxes. Sure, they are charged taxes and they transfer money to the government, but when they do so they act as collection agents for the government. The difference between exclusive sales taxes and inclusive income taxes is that for the sales tax, the receipt given to the customer itemizes exactly how much of the total sum was spent on the tax. The meaningful difference ends there. The reason is because to a business, taxation is just another expense and is factored into their ideas of how much they need to charge for their goods and services in order to make the desired/attainable profit. If you raise the tax rate for businesses they will respond by raising the prices they charge by a proportionate amount, just as they would raise their prices if the cost of raw materials for their products went up. Thus, businesses do not pay taxes; they pass them on to their customers.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Eccles]

You forgot Medicare taxes (2.9% of income?) too.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Carnildo]

Telephone taxes (higher than the bill portion of my land line)

You might want to take a close look at those "taxes": many of them are actually service fees or are otherwise returned to the phone company.

For example, my monthly phone bill is about $24, of which $12.50 is for phone service. However, the second-largest part of the bill is a $7.50 fee named and described as if it were a tax, but it's actually what I'm paying the phone company for access to their network -- the government doesn't see one penny of it.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[causality]

This might need a small clarification for US readers. It goes something like this:
Norwegian left Norwegian right Democrats Republicans
Not communist left in that you got democracy, freedom of speech, pro-choice, gay marriage etc. but economically it's very different than the US.

There are multiple ways I could interpret that, and I hope I interpreted it correctly. It sounds like your country is free of the abomination that exists in the USA since around the 1930s, which is the partitioning (and thus, dilution) of freedom into artificial concepts of "economic freedom" and "personal freedom". There is no major party in the USA that supports both, so no matter who wins our elections, the question is not "will the power and size of government and thus its involvement in daily life be expanded?" but rather, there is only the question of "for what stated purpose will the power and size of government be expanded?" which of course is unsustainable long-term.

Likewise, our money system is fatally flawed because it is designed in such a way that there is always more debt than there is money in circulation and therefore, it too is unsustainable long-term. I will just make one mild comment: after a while, a reasonable person starts to believe that these things are not accidents.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

Econ 101 FAIL.

A company can't just raise prices without decreasing demand, except for in extreme edge cases. What the taxes actually affect is what you've described as "attainable profit". Of course, millionaire execs complaining about how they aren't making enough profit is much less marketable than "teh evil gvmt is raising your prices".

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Dionysus]

Norwegian girls, Swedish girls. You decide.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the political difference:

Norwegian left Norwegian right Democrats Republicans

It really scares me how narrow the political spectrum in the US is.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Wheely]

I dispute this as a resident of Norway.

The Swedes are more difficult and grumpy whereas the Norwegian are easy and carefree. They do look similar though.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Wheely]

Norwegians think itÂs a hard language to learn but itÂs construction is largely the same as English. Obviously it has weird constructs (like indicating "the" twice if thereÂs a adjective describing a noun but not if there isnÂt - wtf?) but it isnÂt madly different than English. It is surprisingy imprecise compared to English though which makes it easier to learn than it might be.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[causality]

A company can't just raise prices without decreasing demand, except for in extreme edge cases.

In isolation, no. However, taxes have a unique status among all other expenses: they tend to affect all companies equally. So if you make widgets, and your tax rate increases, so does the rate of all other companies making widgets. Result: price of widgets increases by some margin. The supply-and-demand scenario you mention does not apply here.

It'd be nice if you would address this before being so quick to declare a "fail".

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[causality]

I love the political difference:

Norwegian left Norwegian right Democrats Republicans

It really scares me how narrow the political spectrum in the US is.

What bothers me is that it is a spectrum at all. The reason why political spectrums can be accurately represented by two points (defining the extremes) and a line (defining the possible middle points) is because it is one-dimensional thinking.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein: "The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them."

Lots of our problems that seem to be insoluble are only insoluble according to the systems which created them. This is why the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans that exists in the USA is a stranglehold that is greatly stifling the sort of new ideas (such as the Fair Tax Act) that would help to reverse some of the damage that has been done.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, Norwegians go to hell.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[teh kurisu]

I'd say you probably could learn passable Norwegian by studying alone. To be fluent in any language you've really got to surround yourself with native speakers. I think what makes Norwegian difficult is the diversity of dialects - a learner that could get by in Oslo might struggle in for example Ålesund.

English doesn't really have that problem as it's fairly standardised worldwide, although there's a bit of variation in the UK and Ireland. The problem with English is the sheer size of the vocabulary and the writing system that bears only a passing relation to the sounds that the words make.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Skapare]

A lot of English words come from French instead of Norsk, so for English speakers, French really could be easier. Having studied both as a native English speaker (my nickname does not mean I'm from Sweden) I'd say they are close to equal. A German speaker might find Norwegian easier than French. The Danes and Swedes no doubt will as the languages are very similar.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[alx5000]

Minuses: a socialist government and Jante Law [wikipedia.org] ingrained in the Norwegian psyche.

Well, that might be your minuses, but you just added 2 of my pluses to the list ;)

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you passed Econ 101. Unfortunately there's a hell of a lot more to the field than 101. Next semester in 102 you'll get to elasticity / inelasticity, which by itself reveals your whole argument as asinine.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, the half-assed economics BS here is just mind-bogging. Makes me wonder if these idiots bothered to graduate from high school.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

Post more links. Thanks.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[rgarbacz]

In general taxes in Europe (the continent) are higher, but one gets a lot of benefits in return, such as:

• health insurance
• retirement insurance
• unemployment insurance
• social insurance (in case one has no job for a longer time)
• free education for children on all levels

So it is very misleading to compare taxes in the US with those in European countries directly.
But still, if you do not use it, you benefit to others, e.g. there is a bachelor tax in Germany, but on the other hand a couple having a child can stay with a child for 2 years with something like full (or close to full) salary (only one of the parents of course).

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Itninja]

My taxes are lower in the US, so let's see what I am missing out on here.....

• health insurance

• Got it. Paid by employer.

• retirement insurance

• Got it. Paid by government.

• unemployment insurance

• Got it. Paid by employer.

• social insurance (in case one has no job for a longer time)

• You mean like if I'm disabled? Got it. Paid by government.

• free education for children on all levels

• Got it. At least up to age 18, but then they are not children anymore. Paid by government.

All this and, since I work for a non-profit, I don't even pay the Social Security tax. Suck on that rest of the world!

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, your employer pays fully for health, retirement and unemployment insurance for the rest of your life? Even if you are fired over some petty politics, get physically sick, get mentally ill, are downsized, the organization goes bankrupt, or the pension/insurance scheme collapses?

I've worked in America. The winners brag about how great the system is; the losers were once as arrogant as you but have no means to express their regret. People like you are the Believers who pray each time the storm rampages through their city; each time you thank Providence for your survival and cite the paucity of Faithful counterexamples.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[metacell]

# social insurance (in case one has no job for a longer time) # You mean like if I'm disabled? Got it. Paid by government.

No, I think he's referring to social wellfare benefits, which are broader than the pension granted to disabled people.

Also, I think the different social benefits generally provide a higher standard of living than in the US. So it's not just the number of benefits, it's also how big they are.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[metacell]

As a Swede, I agree ;-)

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[blitziod]

not exactly true...the cost of living( factoring in prices after taxes) has a lot to do with the cost of labor and anything produced by labor. So in the case of an income tax based system, local companies do not pay taxes BUT the taxes are paid by the conumer. In the case of a sales tax system ALL taxes are paid by the consumer where the product is consumed. Basicly our income tax subsidizes companies in japan, china, etc. If everyone used a sales tax system it would be more fair, and we would fair better on the export markets.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Trepidity]

That also depends on the market. If the widget market is a high-margin business with high barriers to entry (what companies like to call "competitive moats"), then an increase in tax rates will tend to just reduce profits. The profit margins would still be high even post-tax, so there's no reason for companies to exit the business, so supply isn't reduced.

Classical economics basically assumes that costs of goods and services approach their cost of production, plus a marginal profit at the minimum needed to ensure that people will bother staying in the market at all. Many markets don't operate like that ideal, though, and instead have quite high profit margins. In those cases, you can't really directly apply the classical analysis, because conditions are aren't at the equilibrium that it assumes. Instead, you have to analyze the specific factors of the market to figure out why profit margins are high, which will tell you something about whether tax increases are likely to raise prices, or instead reduce margins.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[orzetto]

If norwegian is your first langauge outside english, I'd call it optimistic to understand swedish and danish as well.

I stand my ground and aim higher: Norwegian and Swedish are pretty much the same language, with some quaint words on either side to mark the difference. Norwegians and Swedes always speak each their own language when talking to each other, and I never heard anyone having problems with that.

As for Danish, sometimes I read Danish and realise it is not Norwegian only after a few lines. Danish pronunciation is however much more difficult.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[causality]

That also depends on the market. If the widget market is a high-margin business with high barriers to entry (what companies like to call "competitive moats"), then an increase in tax rates will tend to just reduce profits. The profit margins would still be high even post-tax, so there's no reason for companies to exit the business, so supply isn't reduced.

Classical economics basically assumes that costs of goods and services approach their cost of production, plus a marginal profit at the minimum needed to ensure that people will bother staying in the market at all. Many markets don't operate like that ideal, though, and instead have quite high profit margins. In those cases, you can't really directly apply the classical analysis, because conditions are aren't at the equilibrium that it assumes. Instead, you have to analyze the specific factors of the market to figure out why profit margins are high, which will tell you something about whether tax increases are likely to raise prices, or instead reduce margins.

Thank you for an actual explanation. I am willing to learn but it's harder to do that when the only thing the ACs are willing to tell me is "HAH YOU FAIL!" without explaining why. What they call competitive moats, is that really very common? I can only think of a few off-hand, like cellphone companies for example.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[Weezul]

If you have a "real job" in the U.S. then your health insurance is covered by your employer. So only freelancers need to include that in the comparison. Of course, you need to factor savings into health care after retirement.

U.S. tax rates are also about 30% to 35% for many many people, but they rise to 50% more slowly than Norway's. I think there is almost an inherent equilibrium state on taxes, which are determined more by psychology than economics. You can't really take much more than 30% of income that people need or more than 50% on income people don't need.

So I'd say the VAT is the biggest single difference between European and U.S. taxes.

As an aside, the 60% marginal rate will come to the U.S. courtesy of the flat tax folks and the republicans. :) How you ask? Many right wing Americans want some VAT that *replaces* income tax. It'll never happen that way however, they'll add the VAT and reduce the income tax, but not eliminate it. Then both the VAT rate and the income tax rate will slowly & separately rise over time, eventually settling into the same equilibrium state seen in Europe.

Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters:

[rgarbacz]

Late, but they say better late than never.

My post was not about EU vs US, and never meant to be. I am really sorry, that it triggered so much emotions.

Regarding the merit, I lived in both places, and I am just pointing out the differences, which I know of.
So, regarding EU, I was talking about:

• free education on ALL levels for (in most cases) everyone, i.e. many European countries have it as a law, that education should be available for everyone, even not citizens, additionally the standard basic education is required by the law
• health, retirement, and disability insurance for everyone, regardless of whether a person is employed or not
• social help regardless of the situation, also when one simply cannot find a job
• sick time is payed
• vacation are guaranteed and payed (>= 28 days/year)
• it is required by the law for employees to take their vacation

What is good? I do not say, e.g. I understand that students are usually more diligent when they pay for the lectures, but on the other hand a free academic education gives everyone a chance, regardless of their status. What I said was just that one cannot compare taxes between EU and US directly.

In my humble opinion it would be good if people were not only required to take their vacation, but also to go abroad once a while.

Election year

[Ost99]

Don't expect this to be the last word on the matter, the politicians just don't want to rock the boat right now.

The Minister of culture has openly supported the vigilante tactics of the "pirate-hunters", but this is probably not the right time of the 4-year election cycle to do anything drastic.
During the last election the same man promised to re-legalese file sharing. The statement was retracted only days after a surprising high turnout of young voters won him and his party the election...

Re:Election year

[hyfe]

The Minister of culture has openly supported the vigilante tactics of the "pirate-hunters"

Yes, but "Trond Giske, 4.0, god som gull", is demonstratebly not the brightest chap. Anything he says without a script should be just plainly disregarded.

There's a reason he's stuck as minister of culture. He's open, friendly and generally agreeable, so they want him as a visible part of the team, but not doing anything important. If he ever gets an important position, I will consider turning in my citizinship.

Re:Election year

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but the "green-red" coalition (Ap, SV, Sp) led by the social democrats (Ap) will get the boot in this election if only the conservatives (H) and centrists (V, Krf) can stop fooling themselves and open up for government cooperation with the liberal/libertarian-conservatives (FrP).

Anyway Trond Giske has always been something of a fool --or if fool is too harsh a word then something of an apparatchik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik-- but in this case a useful one as he has successfully alienated at least some young voters (and young people here often tend towards voting right or right-centrist rather than left).

gnaa recruiting

[Anonymous Coward]

8==C=O=C=K=S=L=A=P==D~~ cockslap to dirty pirates join GNAA

It's not fair!

[Locke2005]

The most beautiful women in the world, AND they protect pirates!?! Damn, I wish I were Norwegian!

Re:It's not fair!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Damn, I wish I were Norwegian!

Well, if it's any consolation, you can at least blame your mother for that.

Re:It's not fair!

[Anonymous Coward]

What, because she didn't move to Norway to find some Norwegian guy? If you're going to pass the blame on, blame Canada.

Re:It's not fair!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, we have the most beautiful women in the world. /Sweden

How do I Immigrate?

[NukeDoggie]

How do I immigrate to Norway from US? Sounds like the place to be!!! I'm in IT, and have pretty fair skills, Siebel, VB, some web, java, C etc also Cobol and other dinosaurs and assorted relics...

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instructions

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Critical oil industry application skills would be a help. Or saturation diving experience.

. . . and if your idea of Christmas Dinner is a blow-torched sheep's head, you're in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalahove

"I got dibs on the tongue!"

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[Kjella]

Before we scare away all the nice people, it's a traditional christmas dinner but not the most typical. Top three are pork ribs, Pinnekjøtt and Lutefisk. A minority has also adopted the english christmas turkey, smalahove is probably around 5th place. P.S. If you read anywhere that Pizza Grandiosa is popular for christmas, it's for the kids that don't want the wierd stuff :D

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[IdleTime]

Grandiosa!
Now that is one thing I miss after 10 years in the US, Grandiosa, Brunost and Sursild!

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[AliasMarlowe]

Top three are pork ribs, Pinnekjøtt and Lutefisk.

Advice: avoid lutefisk. It's nasty, very nasty.
In fact, in the nastiest dish in the world competition, Norway powered into second place with lutefisk. It was judged more repulsive than Scotland's haggis, but less disgusting than the Swedish entry, surströmming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstrmming, even the Swedes have to drink a bottle of vodka before eating it).
Boiled sheep's eyes or raw sea-slugs taste a lot nicer than lutefisk or surströmming. I speak from actual experience.

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming

there, fix'd that for ya

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. How could Haggis even be on the list, with corn smut, natto, and civet coffee around?

I mean, is there even anything in haggis any more disgusting than a typical hot dog? Or any other sausage, for that matter?

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Lutefisk has no taste whatsoever, which is a good thing, since it is all about the sauce anyways.

Re:How do I Immigrate?

[caereth]

Ehm. Lutfisk has almost no taste as far as I know, so I fail to see why it's so disgusting. SurstrÃmming is vile, but lutfisk is harmless.

Well..

[hyfe]

Full disclosure: I'm Norwegian! As somebody who has spent a fair time abroad, I'm growing to like Norway more and more. We're just, well, sensible. The ISP's don't censor, don't log and don't do crappy shit. They all do subscribe to a voluntary kidporn DNS-filter though. I actually downloaded the list of wikileaks once, switched to opendns (whom we all should avoid) and checked it out. I really, really regretted it. There really was childporn there. Anybody getting of on that shit needs to have their dick cut off. Either way, the ISP's are upfront if they're selling internet with usage limits (mainly due to strong Norwegian customer protection, companies aren't allowed to fuck you over), and everything just generally works. Not that that stops most norwegian from bitching about everything though. Bitching is kinda the national past-time. Seriously, I'm a big believer in the "freedom to not be fucked over". I definitivly enjoy not being screwed over, and I really do think more people should subscribe to it :)

Re:Well..

[Daemonax]

Anybody getting of on that shit needs to have their dick cut off.

That's perhaps a bit harsh. I know a couple of guys that get off over anime drawings of young looking girls. The stuff revolts me, I find it incredibly repulsive... But we talked about why it is that they like younger looking females, and we all agreed that the most plausible explanation (we could think of) was that attraction to younger females was at one point in our evolution quite favourable due to much shorter life spans. If you were going to breed, you did it when you were young. This of course selected for those that were attracted to young females.

I still find it repulsive, but the fact that it's cartoon drawings they get off on (I don't know if they go further, they claim they don't), and that I can understand why some people may be attracted to younger females due to the above... Well I just wouldn't go as far as saying they need their dicks cut off, or need to be punished just because they're considered sexual deviants. As long as they don't harm another human I'm willing to live and let live.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISP's don't censor ... They all do subscribe to a voluntary kidporn DNS-filter though.

Censoring kidporn is censorship! I'm sure kiddy-porn fans would consider Norway "sensible" if they didn't do this. Just goes to show: people like when their government does what they want - regardless of the consequences for everyone else, and I'm talking about both piracy and kiddy porn with that statement.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how anime fits into all of this, but from an evolutionary angle, ephebophilia makes sense - pedophilia (sexual attraction to pre-pubescents) does not.

Re:Well..

[Sousuke]

I'm not a fan of the loli-genre of manga/anime (and definitely not of the 3D equivalents), but I don't really see how being "in possession" of those drawings could harm anyone. I mean, those drawings could well be keeping people with those tastes too occupied to do anything beyond the confines in their own room, away from the children (hopefully)... and that can't be that bad of a thing, right?

Re:Well..

[2obvious4u]

I hate that I live in fear of the government. I hate censorship. I'm even scared to make this post. I have never looked at child porn, nor had the desire to do so, but the parent post makes me curious what the big deal is and I have a very curious urge to google it and see what the fuss is; however I know that if I do I'll probably have my big brother government knocking down my door and arresting me on some sort of child pornography charges. So once again I'm afraid of my government and I guess that is the way they want it to be... that doesn't mean its right.

Re:Well..

[Daemonax]

Yup indeed. If it stops them from harming others then that should be seen as a good thing. Even though most of society would find their tastes repulsive we should not act on emotion, but rather be rational and think about things first.

Re:Well..

[ubercam]

We're just, well, sensible.

I'm assuming you mean "we" as in everyone except all those crazy death metal bastards who burn down churches, right? Those guys are SCARY. Fucked up shit happens everywhere... Norway is no exception.

Full disclosure: I'm Canadian, and I think we're fairly sensible most of the time too, but then you hear about the white supremacist parents drawing swastikas on their kids, the revolving-door youth "justice" system, the bus beheader, the deadbeat drunk who left his young daughters outside to freeze to death in -40 C in nothing but diapers, Karla Homolka & Paul Bernardo, Robert Pickton, the Mayerthorpe Massacre... the list goes on and on and on...

Re:Well..

[Kabuthunk]

In all technicality, the main guy behind the church-burning is Varg Vikernes (recently released from prison), who's band Burzum was more Black Metal or Dark Ambient, not death metal.

Re:Well..

[IrquiM]

Actually, there was mainly one person burning down the churches, and he is, as far as I know, still in prison.

And most death metal bastards aren't that scary. Trust me - they're more scared of you then you are of them!

Re:Well..

[Cross-Threaded]

Not to take anything away from what you said but I think you meant -40 F.
.
In all seriousness, there are some seriously fucked-up people in this world.

Re:Well..

[RPoet]

You mention the censorship filter (which even the universities and colleges subscribe to). You didn't mention that fictional writings depicting people described as minors having sex, is illegal. So are drawings of such, and animation. We also just barely escaped legislation against saying or writing criticism against organised religion. Our Prime Minister of many years was an ordained priest, placing us in league with Iran. When a person is born in Norway, he is automatically a member of our protestant state church by default, and you have to opt-out later if you find that offensive. Our state-controlled oil company is heavily involved in horrifically harmful oil sands projects in Canada. Broadband development is held back by prior state monopolies. Our politicians are corrupted by special interest groups and our lazy media routinely let them get away with blatantly abusing their powers for personal gain.

I resent claims that we are "just sensible".

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a huuuge fecking difference between a drawing (hentai, loli etc etc) and actual child porn. While Norwegian law doesnt differenciate between the two most people do seem to think there is a difference.

Especially considering no children are hurt in drawing drawings..

Oh, and removal of the penis is stupid, they'd die too fast.

I want them to be nibbled to death by.. cats! (b5 reference, bonus points if you get it :-p)

Re:Well..

[ubercam]

I didn't mean to say that all death metal guys are bastards, just the ones that burn down churches for the fun of it.

I know some crazy metal people, some of whom look the part, some of whom don't, but they're nice normal people all around. I would love to go to Wacken one day with them, except I'd need to bring a spare liver or I don't think I would make it home hehe. I'm not a metal fan, but the party is apparently fantastic.

Re:Well..

[init100]

I actually downloaded the list of wikileaks once, switched to opendns (whom we all should avoid) and checked it out. I really, really regretted it. There really was childporn there.

Did you check the entire list? I haven't seen it, but I'd guess that it contains more than just a handful of sites, so checking the entire list could be a pretty hefty job. There is no surprise that the list contains child porn sites, I mean, that's the publicly stated goal of the list. The problem with such a list is that there may be certain sites sneaked into the list by the government, despite having no connection to child porn, simply because the government deems them unfit for general consumption. Since the list is confidential, it is in practice not possible to appeal inclusion into the list, since nobody outside the government and the ISPs know what it contains.

Personally, I'd rather get the child pornographers prosecuted and their sites taken offline, than having a secret list unavailable to public scrutiny, of sites that all ISPs simply block. It's the difference between taking care of a problem and pretending that it doesn't exist. That the secret list can be silently expanded to other topics that the government doesn't like, with the public having no say in the matter, is also a significant problem since it allows for unchecked censorship by the government.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think parent is a liar. I also downloaded the list and went through a lot more than a few sites. I did not find a single site which contained child pornography.

I did find a few child modeling sites, a handful of extremely graphic anti abortion sites, and a WHOLE lot of gay porn sites.

That list is wacked.

Re:Well..

[blitziod]

well: The age of consent in Norway is 16, as specified by the Norwegian General Civil Code 196 which reads: "Any person who commits or is accessory to another person's committing an act of indecency with any person who is under 16 years of age shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years." The sexual act may not be punishable if those involved are of a "similar age or development".[citation needed] Norwegian General Civil so I am guessing 16 year old porn is legal in norway and not considered child porn. The USA has someof the highest ages of consent in the world.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

There really was childporn there.

Then why don't they do something about it? No, censoring doesn't count as doing something.

A few weeks ago, we had the discussion about Germany wanting a similar filter. One of the people against it - who was a victim himself - noted that the Norwegian list has several German servers. Presumably, the German list will have just as many Norwegian servers.

These lists are becoming a way for countries to cover each others backs. Everyone is filtering the everyone else's kiddie porn servers, so they don't need to do anything about the servers in their own back yard.

Re:Well..

[vivaelamor]

I would not even go as far as to argue that point as it distracts from the real reason people should be tolerant of harmless behaviour, it is none of their business. As soon as you start going on the defensive you fuel the aura of guilt people perceive with deviants. If they can't appreciate on their own the value of tolerance then educate them through examples of things in their lives that should not be tolerated if you apply their standards equally. If that doesn't work then they aren't worth the effort, anything you do that manages to convince them will have lessened your chance of gaining real tolerance from those capable of it.

Yarrrrr...

[petrus4]

I'm currently sitting here listening to an mp3 of the Symphony of the Seas, from the old album Hooked on Classics, along with mental flashbacks of the scene where the Jolly Roger was raised during Pirates of the Carribean.

As this article refers to a victory for piracy, it is a good opportunity to issue a collective, impassioned scream of defiance against the very concept of intellectual property; to remind ourselves of who the enemy is, and why they must, and eventually will, be entirely and unrelentingly destroyed.

WIPO, RIAA, MPAA, and other related organisations, you are recognised as institutions which perpetuate the toxic mentality that making money is, in itself, more important than being alive to spend it. In our ongoing war with you, it is we, the greater public of this planet, who have the will of God on our side. We will have justice. We will have vengeance.

You are going to be removed from human memory.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

Those of us who are creators are very alarmed by statements like this. You might as well tell me that I don't deserve to get paid for all the stuff I create - no matter how great it is. Is it really a good idea to undermine the ability of digital creators to even earn a living? Without intellectual property, I end up spending years working on stuff and essentially giving it away to the world - while my mortgage company comes and pounds down my door. Why am I not entitled to a small amount of protection in the marketplace, so that I can earn a living from my hard work?

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

entitled to a small amount of protection

"Small"? Really?

And you should always offset your mentality by the fact that you didn't create anything in a vacuum. The creation might have been written down by you, but it was created by all of society, in an abstract sense.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

entitled to a small amount of protection

"Small"? Really?

Yes, small.

And you should always offset your mentality by the fact that you didn't create anything in a vacuum. The creation might have been written down by you, but it was created by all of society, in an abstract sense.

I see what I'm doing as "value added". My years of work are the "value added" part.

Besides, you could easily apply those same concepts to "real" property. Take land-property as an example: the earth was here long before humans. Therefore, any attempts to put up a fence and call this "mine" or "yours" is wrong. The farmer sells crops - but he didn't construct the seeds ex-nihilo, he didn't sit down and design the genetics, he didn't create the sunlight or the soil. Therefore, farmers should not be entitled to sell crops. They should not have the benefit of laws that prevent people from taking them without paying him, because he was not 100% responsible for creating the food. And your car? It's made mostly of glass and metal. The metal was pulled out of the ground. The glass is made from sand. It's all from the earth - not created by man. Therefore, land-property, food crops, and anything made of glass and metal cannot be "property" - because no one constructed them in a vacuum. Once you bring in "value added", suddenly cars and crops become legitimate property. The same goes for the digital world.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Cross-Threaded]

You don't deserve to get paid for all the stuff you create!

You deserve to get paid for the things you create that people find valuable enough to pay you for.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[westlake]

I'm currently sitting here listening to an mp3 of the Symphony of the Seas, from the old album Hooked on Classics, along with mental flashbacks of the scene where the Jolly Roger was raised during Pirates of the Carribean.

In other words:

You are wholly a product of a pop culture in which strong copyright is the norm.

--- and how typically geek it is that your fantasies of piracy come second-hand from a Disney theme park ride.

Symphony Of The Seas 89 cents.

Hooked on Classics was a series of record albums first introduced in 1981, toward the end of the disco era's peak in popularity.
Louis Clark, former arranger for Electric Light Orchestra, conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing a collection of very recognizable extracts from classical music pieces played over a continuous beat (sometimes an overtly disco fast beat, sometimes a slower and more subtle rhythm) which linked the segments together. This is called the Symphonic Rock or Orchestrated Rock genre, like London Symphony Orchestra did in their Classic Rock series but with less electronic effects. Hooked on Classics

Re:Yarrrrr...

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

Those of us who are creators are very alarmed by statements like this.

How many of us creators have you talked before making blanket statements about how we feel about things?

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is entitled to anything. If creating your intellectual property doesn't pay your bills, I suggest getting a job that does.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is worth anything really.

Stuff is worth what people are prepared to pay for it. It's that simple.
Physical objects are worth something because they are limited by nature. Immaterial objects can be replicated for
free in unlimited quantities.

If people aren't prepared to pay a lot of cash for a plastic disc that comes with a strict set of rules of how one is allowed to use said disc, then tough luck.

This doesn't mean you can't make money making music, movies, etc. You just have to accept that the glory days are over and you won't be able to make as much money as some fortunate people did in the 80s and 90s.

I bet you can still make a decent living out of it if you adapt to the marked and actually provide your customers with what they want (like any other business, instead of relying on obscure and privacy invading laws).

I can't speak for everybody but I can tell you what I want. I want easy access to media without DRM or watermarks, in formats I can use on virtually any device I have.

Media people might be scared of non-DRM media. But from the tiny things I've learned from economics and business is that is better to sell without profit to cover your costs than not to sell at all (last minute tickets etc).

This simply means that it's better to have 1 out of 2 buying your media instead of 2 out of 2 pirating your media.
Getting 2 out of 2 to buy your media will never happen - just accept it.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

You will get paid. WHAT THE PRODUCT IS WORTH! ONCE!

You will no longer have a lifetime plus monopoly on making money with that product tho.

The same system the rest of the world has been using for goods and services for a very long time.

We gave you copyrights. A LIMITED monopoly on the sales of your creative works. And you fucked us over. You ruined it. good fucking job. you got all fucking greedy and expect to be paid FOREVER for creating something once.

Well you better fucking give that idea up. We're not going to put up with it anymore.

Either that or you'll 'win'. And i expect to be paid residual income from all the houses i've built in the last 20 years. And everyone else will step up to collect perpetual fees for the products they created.

Really now. Which system do you want? Can't have both. Either we all deserve to be paid forever for creating something once. Or we get paid once for creating something.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

You don't deserve to get paid for all the stuff you create!

You deserve to get paid for the things you create that people find valuable enough to pay you for.

I agree 100%. The fact that I work on a project for several years entitles me to exactly $0. However, I do think I deserve a chance to setup prices for my work. The consumer can choose to accept that deal or reject it. The existence of piracy / ignoring of copyright, on the other hand, eliminates my ability to negotiate at all. It's like walking into a store and telling a shopkeeper that he can either set prices I accept or I'll simply take the item. Of course, there's no reason for me (as a consumer) to ask reasonable prices at all - I can say, "sell me this car for $1, or I'll take it", and the seller has no negotiating leverage at all. Piracy / no copyright, then, eliminates the creator's ability to negotiate at all, and gives the consumer complete and total control over the transaction - no matter how unreasonable they want to be.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

Those of us who are creators are very alarmed by statements like this.

How many of us creators have you talked before making blanket statements about how we feel about things?

I can provide you with a long list of creators complaining about piracy, if you would like.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

1. I didn't setup the copyright system, so don't blame me for "[fucking] us over".
2. I'm not defending the excessively long copyright lengths that we see. Personally, I think ten or twenty years is plenty. What I'm arguing about is the idea that copyright lengths should be eliminated, or filesharing legalized. What those things do is effectively reduce copyright lengths to 0 seconds. Heck, I've toyed with the idea of putting my own work under a much shorter copyright length (like a 14-year founder's copyright) or something shorter. Why would I do that? Simply because I don't agree with current copyright.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

Without intellectual property, I end up spending years working on stuff and essentially giving it away to the world

Only if you choose to. No one's forcing you to do any work that you aren't being paid for. If you choose to do that, hoping to get paid later by selling copies, and then it doesn't pan out because people get copies elsewhere, that's as much your fault as it is theirs.

Why am I not entitled to a small amount of protection in the marketplace, so that I can earn a living from my hard work?

Because no one else needs "protection" in order to earn a living from their hard work. You can learn to make a living without it just like they do.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

Once you bring in "value added", suddenly cars and crops become legitimate property. The same goes for the digital world.

Not quite.

A car is legitimate property because it can only be in one place at a time. If I take your car, you don't have it anymore. As the owner of a car, you have the right to hang onto that car until you voluntarily give it up, so if I want it, I'll have to pay you (or convince you some other way).

Information doesn't work that way. You can keep your copy of a song, program, etc. and use it however you like even while someone else is distributing copies: their use can't possibly conflict with your use. It makes no sense to apply the concept of ownership to something like that; it's unnecessary at best, and dangerous at worst.

You're right about creating things in a vacuum, though. A farmer owns his crops not because he designed them from scratch at the molecular level -- he didn't -- but because they grew out of seeds, soil, fertilizer, and water that all belonged to him already. Likewise, a car company owns the cars they make because those cars were made from steel and other materials the company already owned, and a car buyer owns his car because he got it in a voluntary exchange: the money he paid for the car was compensation for the car maker's loss of that car.

Along the same lines, if I learn some information (say, someone sends it to me over the internet) and use it to rearrange bits on my hard drive, the hard drive still belongs to me. If I then want to describe that pattern of bits to someone else (say, send it to them over the internet), I believe I'm entitled to do so: surely I have the right to share facts about a chunk of metal I own, right?

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

The existence of piracy / ignoring of copyright, on the other hand, eliminates my ability to negotiate at all. It's like walking into a store and telling a shopkeeper that he can either set prices I accept or I'll simply take the item.

Not really. It's more like walking into a store and telling a shopkeeper that he can either set prices you accept, or you'll get an identical item from the cheaper shop next door. When you go next door, the first shopkeeper doesn't become any poorer; he just doesn't gain your business.

Piracy doesn't eliminate your ability to negotiate, it provides competition. You're offering copies of a file for $X, they're offering copies of the same file for $0. That's a competition you won't win, because the cost of providing those copies is approximately $0.

What the pirates can't compete with is your work as a creator. They can beat you at making copies, but you'll stomp them at making original works. So let them take the copying business, and make your living by charging for creating originals.

Piracy / no copyright, then, eliminates the creator's ability to negotiate at all, and gives the consumer complete and total control over the transaction - no matter how unreasonable they want to be.

No, the transaction is still controlled by both supply and demand. People are only able to get files for free because other people are willing to distribute those files for free. And they're willing to do that because the cost of copying a file is negligible.

People are not, however, nearly as willing to create new works for free, and that's where you come in as a professional creator.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[bentcd]

Piracy / no copyright, then, eliminates the creator's ability to negotiate at all, and gives the consumer complete and total control over the transaction - no matter how unreasonable they want to be.

You won't be negotiating directly with each customer but then that is probably not something you want to do anyway. What you are doing is setting a price point and seeing that some amount of people choose to buy from you at that price point. If you choose to lower the price you will probably see that you get more sales and if you increase it you will get fewer. This can be considered a form of negotiation even if economists tend to call it price elasticity and such. This is how business on a larger scale has been done for many decades and there is nothing really new here.

The one aspect that /is/ somewhat new with digital products is that some number of those people who choose not to buy from you will choose to pirate the material instead of doing without. This does not change the basic nature of your price elasticity curves though. It may or may not shift them around in some direction or the other but that's basically it.

The one problem you /will/ probably have with piracy of digital goods is that you will feel upset about people getting access to your work for free. This is moral outrage and has nothing to do with your business decisions. If you are letting such moral outrage interfere with your business decisions then this is a deficiency in your economic strategy that is likely to cause you a net monetary loss.

As an example of the latter, a Norwegian author recently announced that he was going to refuse his publisher the right to make an audiobook of one of his works, because of piracy. In the interview he managed to complain that in refusing to give these rights he knew he would be losing out on around $10k in income from the audiobook but this was obviously the fault of the pirates. In essence, he is deliberately setting fire to $10k that could have been his in order to spite the pirates and then blames the pirates for him having burnt up that money. This is not a sound business decision. (Note: monetary amounts converted to USD and heavily approximated from memory. For Norwegian readers, this was in Dagens Næringsliv some days ago as I recall.)

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us who are creators are very alarmed by statements like this. How many of us creators have you talked before making blanket statements about how we feel about things?

I can provide you with a long list of creators complaining about piracy, if you would like.

Start with those Metallica fruitcakes. Put Madonna on the list. And then stop. We've already heard enough from "creators" that have an unending sense of entitlement to an unending revenue stream.

Then go read Janis Ian's take on the music industry, and when you've gotten over yourself and realized your true place in society, maybe you'll realize that copyright's purpose isn't about you at all. It just isn't: it's about enriching everyone's lives, not just your pockets. Too bad that Thomas Jefferson isn't around: he could enlighten you. You'll just have to make do with some of his writings. Look them up: maybe you'll develop a clue and realize that you're not as important in the overall scheme of things as you think you are.

"Content creators", "artists", whatever it is that the more or less creative elements of our culture are calling themselves these days have no intrinsic right to a guaranteed income. Produce what we, your buying public, actually want and stop trying to shove it down our collective throat ... learn how to earn a living without the arrogance and dubious protection of the content cartels. Hell, I might even start buying music again, but as it is now, I cannot see giving any of my hard-earned money to anyone who has aligned themselves with the pure black nasty evil of the RIAA and its member corporations. That's why I stopped buying records and CDs from the major labels some thirty years ago: I didn't like who I had to thank for it.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[bentcd]

The farmer sells crops - but he didn't construct the seeds ex-nihilo, he didn't sit down and design the genetics, he didn't create the sunlight or the soil. Therefore, farmers should not be entitled to sell crops. They should not have the benefit of laws that prevent people from taking them without paying him, because he was not 100% responsible for creating the food.

The real difference is that in the crops example it took real people real effort to create each single piece of corn. If we had a magical corn duplication device that we could just plug into the wall and have it output corn, then certainly we shouldn't be paying any /farmer/ for each corn that we produce with that machine!

Likewise, since a digital copy of a digital work does not involve any actual work for anyone other than myself (having to type the copy command or whatever) then there is no fundamental reason anyone needs to be paid for the production of that copy.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[selven]

Because a monopoly is not the only way to make money from your hard work?

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

This statement shows exactly the anti-creator mentality of the pirate. You are the kind of person who calls creative works "content", always tells creators victimized by online piracy "it's time to get a real job", and is slowly killing culture while believing he is preserving it.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Cross-Threaded]

If you have something that is digital (or easily digitized) that you don't want to be copied, it is up to you to come up with a method of distributing it where you make sure you get paid, or the people who want it don't get the product.

As much as we'd like to see it, you can't legislate morality, and if you try to do that, good luck enforcing it.

I think that the best bet would be a modified version of the recording companies (as they were 30 years ago), except that the distribution model has changed.

So I guess the right message to send is the one to the distributors of content to get with the program, and start distributing these things in a modern-day efficient manner.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

Not quite. A car is legitimate property because it can only be in one place at a time. If I take your car, you don't have it anymore.

Keep in mind the context of the discussion: the context was this - copyrighted media does not occur in a vacuum; we are all creatures of our own culture; and so, things that I create are influenced by our common culture. The argument that he was making was that digital content cannot be copyrighted or 'monopolized' because (in some ways) it sprang from our common culture - it did not originate 100% from my own mind. My argument, then, was about whether or not a thing needed to be 100% the product of our own mind/labor in order to have certain special rights over it. My answer is "no", and then I illustrated with physical property that that particular line of argument doesn't hold up.

Your argument, on the other hand, isn't so much a rebuttal of what I was saying as it is a completely different argument against intellectual property.

A farmer owns his crops not because he designed them from scratch at the molecular level -- he didn't -- but because they grew out of seeds, soil, fertilizer, and water that all belonged to him already. Likewise, a car company owns the cars they make because those cars were made from steel and other materials the company already owned

That may be, but where did this "ownership" come from in the first place? If I wanted to get all hippy, I could say that the universe belongs to all of us. Any attempts of a farmer to claim he *owns* seeds, soil, or water are really a 'theft' from humanity and the earth's creatures. Attempts by car companies to take iron from the earth and claim 'ownership' of it is to steal the earth from beneath our feet and sell it back to us. Of course, I'm not honestly arguing this - I'm just illustrating that drawing soil and iron from the earth could be comparable to drawing ideas from our common culture.

Along the same lines, if I learn some information (say, someone sends it to me over the internet) and use it to rearrange bits on my hard drive, the hard drive still belongs to me. If I then want to describe that pattern of bits to someone else (say, send it to them over the internet), I believe I'm entitled to do so: surely I have the right to share facts about a chunk of metal I own, right?

When you describe this as "rearranging bits" you're actually generalizing the situation and depriving bits of meaning. Once you've done that, you can make a variety of arguments that are true in general, but may be false in more specific cases.

For example: I could describe stabbing someone as "rearranging molecules". Then, once I've made that generalization, I can say, "Are we going to make laws against rearranging molecules?" Yet, the specific case (stabbing someone) should be illegal. Similarly, you could describe child pornography as "just a bunch of bits on my hard drive", then argue that sequences of bits should not be illegal. Or, I could counterfeit money, and call it "just a sequence of ink and paper". Or, I could download a book, replace the authors's name with my own, and then say that I'm only changing bits on my own device, and then pass it to others while claiming "I have the right to share facts about a chunk of metal I own" - and what's wrong with that? So, what you are doing by generalizing the situation is stripping things of meaning - meaning that is important.

In fact, if your argument about "bits" was true, then not only would filesharing be legal, but it should be legal to sell pirates media as well, since pirated media is just a particular sequence of bits. When you define it that way, it seems absurd to allow a creator to have a monopoly over sales. (I don't know if you agree with the idea of selling pirated media. Most pirates seem to disagree with it, but not all of them do.)

Which gets down to the issue: what about inte

Re:Yarrrrr...

[jonaskoelker]

Why am I not entitled to a small amount of protection in the marketplace, so that I can earn a living from my hard work?

Because the rest of us are worse off if you have it.

I think that's the argument copyright abolitionists should make to have a good case. I want them (us) to have data backing it up. ISTR there being some, but I haven't exactly looked hard.

Is it really a good idea to undermine the ability of digital creators to even earn a living?

Red Hat makes money even though CentOS and Fedora exist, giving away essentially the same software. Red Hat gives away software as a driver for support sales.

I hear musicians make a pittance from RIAA-member (Sony, BMI, Capitol Records, etc.) contracts, and get most of their money touring. Without copyrights, you can still make money touring. Even if other people are allowed to play $BAND's songs, I'd rather go see $BAND than $COPY_OF_BAND. And they can still sell T-shirts and CDs at the tour.

Copyright abolition might not work for books and movies. For particular books (i.e. public school textbooks) it might make sense for the government to fund the writing of text books which are then given away freely to everyone (including schools). Similarly for college text books, maybe; we probably won't be using SICP for introductory programming here at my university, and a lot of courses are based on lecturer's notes.

Also, as everyone else has probably pointed out, you don't get a small protection in the market. You get a lifetime+70 monopoly and pretty excessive control over how your creation can be used. At least in the US, for law-abiding consumers. A lot of people are sick and tired of the excessive control. I love that none of my videos have segments I can't skip, and that I can listen to my legally bought music on my computer without fiddling around with disks. "Even" on Linux (f.u., Apple, ...).

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

My argument, then, was about whether or not a thing needed to be 100% the product of our own mind/labor in order to have certain special rights over it. My answer is "no", and then I illustrated with physical property that that particular line of argument doesn't hold up.

Agreed.

That may be, but where did this "ownership" come from in the first place? If I wanted to get all hippy, I could say that the universe belongs to all of us. Any attempts of a farmer to claim he *owns* seeds, soil, or water are really a 'theft' from humanity and the earth's creatures.

Hippy or not, those are all physical things and they can only be in one place at a time. There are other ways we could decide who will possess that seed at any given time -- maybe it could belong to a different person every day, or every minute -- but we can't escape the fact that someone must have exclusive possession of it at any given time.

When you describe this as "rearranging bits" you're actually generalizing the situation and depriving bits of meaning. Once you've done that, you can make a variety of arguments that are true in general, but may be false in more specific cases.

Fair enough. Let me clarify.

I contend that I do have the right to rearrange bits on my hard drive into any pattern -- period. In general, and in all specific cases. (Although I might voluntarily give up that right if, say, I'm running a hosting service and I make a promise to my customers.)

It's my hard drive, my magnetic particles, and as long as what I'm doing is confined to my own property, no one has the right to declare any particular sequence of 1s and 0s verboten. I see no meaningful difference between that and forbidding me to write certain things in a notebook, or think certain thoughts in my mind.

I also contend that I have the right to share any facts I know, about my property or otherwise, except in cases where serious harm to another person would result from the spread of those facts (and sometimes even then). "Serious harm" would include bodily harm (sharing nuclear launch codes) and severe invasions of privacy (sharing medical info).

It would not, however, include making it more difficult for someone else to sell access to those same facts to the same people: that's not an actual harm, and in any case if it's OK for him to spread those facts, they can't be inherently dangerous.

For example: I could describe stabbing someone as "rearranging molecules". Then, once I've made that generalization, I can say, "Are we going to make laws against rearranging molecules?"

And I would respond, "Yes, we are. It should sometimes be illegal to rearrange molecules."

Should it ever be illegal to rearrange bits stored on one's own property? I'm having a hard time imagining any case where it should.

Similarly, you could describe child pornography as "just a bunch of bits on my hard drive", then argue that sequences of bits should not be illegal.

You certainly could. Bits don't hurt children; child molesters do.

Or, I could counterfeit money, and call it "just a sequence of ink and paper".

Indeed, you should be allowed to print your own ink onto your own paper in whatever pattern you like. The problem comes when you try to trick someone else into accepting it as money.

Or, I could download a book, replace the authors's name with my own, and then say that I'm only changing bits on my own device, and then pass it to others while claiming "I have the right to share facts about a chunk of metal I own" - and what's wrong with that?

Nothing's wrong with that. If you can do it without giving the false impression (implicitly or explicitly) that you wrote the book, more power to you.

If you print out a page of someone else's book, write your name at the top, and show that paper t

Re:Yarrrrr...

[petrus4]

You are wholly a product of a pop culture in which strong copyright is the norm.

And I assume you somehow aren't? ;)

Also, before accusing me of being a pure pop culture robot by mentioning Pirates, realise that the raising of the Jolly Roger as depicted in that film, would itself have been inspired by real world events where the raising of said flag actually happened.

If you're looking for irony, consider it ironic that the film industry have produced films utilising an icon that would remain deeply appropriate for those of us who are opposed to the concept of intellectual property, whether they themselves had made use of it or not. Their material is as much a product of history, as we are supposedly a product of their material.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

I can provide you with a long list of creators complaining about piracy, if you would like.

A list that includes *all creators* and authorizes you to speak for us? When you say:

Those of us who are creators are very alarmed by statements like this.

you're claiming to speak for a large group that holds a diverse range of opinions. Inflating your personal opinions by pretending you represent a huge group is just goofy.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

I also contend that I have the right to share any facts I know, about my property or otherwise, except in cases where serious harm to another person would result from the spread of those facts (and sometimes even then). "Serious harm" would include bodily harm (sharing nuclear launch codes) and severe invasions of privacy (sharing medical info).

And spreading copyrighted material does harm to the creator's ability to get paid for their work - which in turn, leads to harming society because it is poorer for the loss of creative works when creators go elsewhere. There's been a lot of discussion about whether filesharing harms creators (I think it does), but I see a lot of pirates arguing that selling pirated goods harms the creator while filesharing does not. Since you agree with selling pirated goods, how do you justify harming the creator by selling pirated material with the idea of not harming someone through the release of information?

Further, you do admit that the release of certain information can be a violation of privacy, plagarism, etc. What you are doing to make those judgments is treating "electrons on your piece of metal" as more than just bits - you are treating it as "information". You are allowing yourself to think about the data wholistically, rather than just a collection of bits. Thus, you've now broken your own earlier argument that you should be able to treat information as just a bunch of electrons on a piece of metal you own. I guess we can put the "just electrons on metal" argument to rest once and for all.

In some sense, you can think of copyrighted material as being under a kind of loose NDA (non-disclosure agreement). As someone who is involved in running a business, I'm sometimes in a position where I have to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to see certain information. The reason they want me to sign a non-disclosure agreement is because release of that information could harm that other business in some way. I see copyright as being a lesser version of that. It protects businesses and creators. Copyright helps to avoid the harm caused by piracy (and you already agree that "causing harm" is a legitimate reason for restricting the spread of bits), which, in turn, allows us to create the stuff that society wants. It's a bargain that we've struck.

We might compare it to laws against shoplifting. While you might argue that shoplifting is "wrong", let's imagine that stealing has no moral implications at all. Let's say that we live in a society where "sharing" is the ideal thing to do. And let's ignore the fact that shoplifting deprives the owner of their copy. Is there any reason to restrict shoplifting? Yes, if the existence of shoplifting drives stores and factories out of business, leaving society with no products at all. If it ultimately leaves society poorer in the long run, then laws against shoplifting are a good thing. I see copyright in much the same light.

You might say that information should only be restricted when the release of that information results in "Serious harm" or "severe invasions of privacy", but now you're talking about drawing a line on a continuum. Society has always supported laws designed to improve the state of the community, even if they fall into neither of those two categories. Laws against spam, for example. Spam is just sending bits around the internet. It results in harm by clogging our inboxes. It's clear that allowing spam to go unrestricted harms us all.

In fact, I could go into a whole discussion showing how copyright law improves society by allowing creators to recoup their contribution to society. If 10,000 people are willing to pay a creator $10 for something he created, then each of them place a value of at least $10 on that product. On average, they might place a value of $20 on that product. This means society (as a whole) has benefited by $200,000 from that creation. And, if someone is contributing something worth $200,000 t

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd mod you up if I could. Don't bother arguing with anyone who supports selling pirated stuff. They can't be reasoned with.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

And spreading copyrighted material does harm to the creator's ability to get paid for their work - which in turn, leads to harming society because it is poorer for the loss of creative works when creators go elsewhere.

That's not really harm: no one is actually made poorer, they just might find it a little harder to sell something at their preferred price.

I think it's a dangerous precedent to expand our definition of "harm" to include such things. After all, it isn't only pirates who "do harm to the creator's ability to get paid for their work". Competing products also do that: if I spend $10 on a ticket to Terminator: Salvation -- or a CD, or a pizza -- that's $10 I can't spend on a ticket to Up. Reviewers do it as well: if Roger Ebert writes a negative review of Up, I'm less likely to buy a ticket. If we apply this definition fairly, we'll have to outlaw a lot more than just unauthorized copying.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether filesharing harms creators (I think it does), but I see a lot of pirates arguing that selling pirated goods harms the creator while filesharing does not. Since you agree with selling pirated goods, how do you justify harming the creator by selling pirated material with the idea of not harming someone through the release of information?

As I wrote above, I don't believe that's the sort of "harm" the law ought to be concerned with. It's competition, and like any other competition, it makes things tougher for the competitors -- but the end result is a more efficient market. If I can sell DVDs of The Little Mermaid and offer my customers a better deal than Disney can, then I deserve to take over Disney's share of that market.

Further, you do admit that the release of certain information can be a violation of privacy, plagarism, etc. What you are doing to make those judgments is treating "electrons on your piece of metal" as more than just bits - you are treating it as "information".

No... like I said, I contend that I have the right to write any pattern of bits onto my hard drive, period. If I possess information, I have the right to write it down in any form I choose.

Spreading information, in some cases, is worth preventing. It's inherently dangerous for, say, Osama bin Laden to have our nuclear launch codes. But it's equally dangerous no matter who spreads that information, because the codes are the same no matter where he learns them.

Likewise, your private medical information only belongs in the hands of you and your doctors. It's a violation of your privacy for someone else to have it, no matter where they get it. (Privacy violation is a little different from nuclear launch codes, though, because we presume that you -- the subject of that private information -- are in the best position to know what information is harmful. If you release the information to the public, that's evidence that you've determined that the information isn't really harmful at all.)

The problem with plagiarism, as I said before, is that it's a false representation. If you have a page of someone else's writing with your name written at the top, sharing that page might or might not constitute plagiarism, depending on the context. The violation isn't in creating or sharing the page, but in deceiving a third party.

In some sense, you can think of copyrighted material as being under a kind of loose NDA (non-disclosure agreement).

I think that's a stretch. It's not an "agreement" at all: there's quite a difference between forming a business relationship with someone and holding them to the terms of a contract you've gotten them to sign, and holding someone else with whom you have no relationship to the terms of a contract they've never read or agreed to.

It's also not "non-disclosure", because you aren't trying to keep anything secret: see below.

The reason t

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

After all, it isn't only pirates who "do harm to the creator's ability to get paid for their work". Competing products also do that: if I spend $10 on a ticket to Terminator: Salvation -- or a CD, or a pizza -- that's $10 I can't spend on a ticket to Up. Reviewers do it as well: if Roger Ebert writes a negative review of Up, I'm less likely to buy a ticket. If we apply this definition fairly, we'll have to outlaw a lot more than just unauthorized copying.

No, there is legitimate competition which harms a business, and there is illegitimate ways of harming a busines. They are NOT the same thing. Saying so would confuse "Walmart harmed my business by opening next to my store" with "shoplifters are harming my business by stealing things". The first one is legitimate. The second one is not. I'm not asking for stopping everything that could possibly harm someone's businesses. (I'm sure you know that's NOT what was arguing, so your point is an argument against something I never said or implied.)

By the way: here's the problem with your counterfeit money system - where you believe that someone should not be prosecuted for creating counterfeit money, only for trying to pass it off as "real". What your system does is allow someone to print counterfeit money. Then, they can advertise this counterfeit money (which is a perfect or near perfect copy of real money) to the general public - with full disclosure that the money is fake. They sell this money for 1/10th the value printed on the fake money. Millions of people all over the world buy it with the intention of passing it off as real money. Now, law enforcement all over the world has to deal with millions of people passing off fake (but perfectly / nearly perfectly copied) money to the public. This is a nightmare for the police because they have to catch everyone the first time they try to pass-off the money. The people passing-off the fake money as real can then pretend that they didn't know the money was fake (claiming they don't know where they got it - maybe from an ATM, or a store, etc). This allows them to avoid prosecution.

So, in your world, counterfeit money is rampant. The printers have a strong incentive to create fake money (they get paid lots of real money), and what they are doing is completely legal. The counterfeit-money buyers are acting illegally, but they're increasing their money 10-fold by this scheme, and they're difficult to catch and prosecute. Now, you've setup a situation where the entire system collapses.

I think the problem here is that your trying to construct a legal system based on "first principles" like "no deception" or "don't deprive people of things". Instead, you need to look at the society-wide effects of the legal system you propose. The problem is that it doesn't work very well, and leaves society worse-off -- even though all laws are derived form "first principles", and therefore, should (theoretically) produce a good society. In fact, you can't even justify the existence of government taxes based on first principles. The idea that taxes are theft would actually suggest that taxes shouldn't exist.

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your post because even though you're wrong, I have very little confidence that I can convince you that you are wrong. I also think that most people would agree with me, and would rather live in a society according to my proposed legal system than your proposed legal system. I don't see the point of running around trying to convince you that your system wouldn't work very well in the real world.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

No, there is legitimate competition which harms a business, and there is illegitimate ways of harming a busines. They are NOT the same thing.

Sure, but now you're begging the question by asserting that one form of competition is "illegitimate" while other forms are not.

I believe it's every bit as "legitimate" as offering any other identical products. They're not interfering with anyone else's stock, blocking customers from accessing anyone else's store, etc. They're just offering the same thing for less and letting customers choose the better deal.

Consider a town with two theaters showing the same movie; one charges $9.50 for a ticket and the other charges $10. I expect you'd say that's legitimate competition because both theaters have the studio's permission to show that movie. But I'd say the studio's permission has no bearing on the legitimacy of either theater's operation: as long as they own a projector and a few reels of film, it's automatically "legitimate" for them to charge people to sit on their property and watch the film.

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your post because even though you're wrong, I have very little confidence that I can convince you that you are wrong.

Well, I also doubt that you can convince me of that, just as I doubt I can convince you that you're wrong. Such things rarely happen in online debates.

But it's still unfortunate that you skipped what I think were the most important parts of that post, the last two responses: I think I did serious damage to the claim that people are entitled to get paid for unsolicited work they've already done, and to the claim that granting a monopoly on copies is anything like paying your employees. I had hoped to at least see your take on those points.

Re:Yarrrrr...

[brit74]

No comment on my "counterfeit money" section?

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

You first. :P

We can discuss the issue of counterfeiting money, if you'd like, after you respond to the points I mentioned. I'm open to some compromise there. But I'm not going to cater to your requests while you're ignoring mine.

A good start...

[jd2112]

I recommend that the backup alarms be removed from all ambulances in Norway as the lawyers will most likely go back to chasing ambulances...

Re:A good start...

[TBoon]

Go back to? I don't think they ever chased them in the first place, as our legal system clearly isn't nearly as broken as a certain other place...

Re:A good start...

[jd2112]

Go back to? I don't think they ever chased them in the first place, as our legal system clearly isn't nearly as broken as a certain other place...

If it wasn't broken, would they be chasing file sharers in the first place?

One third right...

[macraig]

And Germany. And...?

Re:Hopefully they aren't storing this on a Linux b

[Anonymous Coward]

If I ever find you, you son of a bitch, I will pummel you within an inch of your life with magic missiles until you beg for mercy. Perhaps if my mood at the time feels chaotic evil I will cast chromatic spray upon you for the coup de grace. You should beware because I am much more powerful than a lowly level 5 dwarf. Huzzah!

Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy ser

[mcgrew]

Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously

I wish my government would. Little did the founding fathers suspect that some day our privacy would be at risk, or it would have been included in the Bill of Rights.

Proxy?

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone in Norway cares to set up an anonymous proxy...I'm just saying.

miss-read

[mustafap]

>Skapare adds, "Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously.

Funny, I first read that as "Sounds like Norway's government treats PIRACY seriously". and thought, that's a contradiction.

Privacy first, piracy second. Suits me.

Hardly censorship

[catman]

That "censoring" is so ridiculously easy to get around that it doesn't count as censorship - more like a warning that the site you're looking for probably contains child pornography. I certainly don't envy the people who are maintaining the list!

Re:Hardly censorship

[RPoet]

It's not ridiculously easy for an average person to find alternative DNS servers and change his DNS settings with them. Many people who accidentally hit the "stop sign" Verboten page are terrified. It's a reminder that they are under the watchful eyes of the criminal police, and I do think that can inhibit their inclination to freely seek and post information.

It's censorship, but it's a censorship that most people agree with. And if you disagree with it, you're suspicious, so you better shut up.

It's okay though

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood movies (by definition) don't come from Norway. Nor do many of the popular games on the torrent list or many of the English-singing bands known from MTV and elsewhere.

Basically, if it's in English then it's fine to pirate it because the US and England are powerful enough and their citizens who create these things don't need(/deserve) our money. Plus, it's just digital information anyway - it can be copied cheaply and should therefore be free for us.

Also, our money helps support local Norwegian groups, because they're a minority in the world and deserve the money more than foreign groups/individuals.

[/troll]

The summary is wrong.

[IrquiM]

The "pirate chasing"-lawyers got a temporary license in 2006 for doing exactly that while we were waiting for new laws.

That license is now expiring (This autumn) and they're not getting a new one. Not because they want to protect the privacy of Norwegian citizens, but because temporary is temporary.

Now, read my last sentence again please.

(Still though, Norway's a good place to live - can recommend it to everyone!)

Re:The summary is wrong.

[RPoet]

It's worth noting that they're appealing the decision, which means they can keep the license to surveil until Autumn when the appeal can be handled. At the same time, our Minister of Culture and Education (who is as paid-off by copyright mafiaa as America's Orrin Hatch) is pressuring the Norwegian Data Protectorate (which decided to halt the surveillance permit) to change its mind. I don't think this private surveillance is going anywhere, to be honest.

Re:The summary is wrong.

[omglolbah]

Especially not this close to the election.

It would pretty much guarantee the vile hatred of the younger votes which happen to be quite important. Especially considering the amount of people who might vote if properly motivated *grins*

Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The government doesn't care. The Data Inspectorate (for lack of a better term) has been waiting for clarification from the govt all the time that the law company had a temporary license. When the license expired, it was not renewed - simple as that. The relevant law will be revised in 2010, there's a parliamentary election in September 2009 - nobody's going to do anything until at least after the election. And the current government doesn't care about privacy, so I'm voting for the one party that's made privacy protection a high-priority item in their program.

Offtopic, but nowhere else to ask

[causality]

Do unordered lists like that look odd to anyone else? This only happens to me on Slashdot, but whenever anyone uses the UL and LI tags here, it ends up putting annoying greyish bars smack in the middle of the list. It's happened to me when I was the one authoring the post and constructing the list, so I know it's not because of extraneous HTML tags or anything like that. If it happened on any other site I ever visit I'd suspect a rendering problem with Firefox. Now I don't mean this in a bad way, but just realistically, considering all the oddities I see on Slashdot (like the way comment count occasionally disappears and reappears on the main page without explanation) I don't think this is because of Firefox.

Re:Offtopic, but nowhere else to ask

[init100]

Do unordered lists like that look odd to anyone else? This only happens to me on Slashdot, but whenever anyone uses the UL and LI tags here, it ends up putting annoying greyish bars smack in the middle of the list.

It does to me, specifically the gray bars that appear below (on the z-axis) the list items.

Yeah right

[Snaller]

What are you smoking?

They have passed directives which require all ISP's in all countries TO LOG IP destinations and protocol of ALL their users. And that's one example.

Re:Hopefully they aren't storing this on a Linux b

[morghanphoenix]

Every time I see this post I wonder if he meant to use "web-sights" or if he simply doesn't know how to spell.

Re:Hopefully they aren't storing this on a Linux b

[Ex-MislTech]

web-sights....

I think we are done here...

Re:Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Actually, it's more like the government 'promised' that the law would be revised, and clear signals would be sent from the politicians for how monitoring of filesharers should be treated. The Datatilsynet, the department responsible for ensuring people's digital privacy, etc are protected, gave that license under the assumption that the law/policies would be revised soon. It didn't happen. And the Datatilsynet are very strong on protecting people's privacy, and thus they didn't want to be providing the loop-hole that allowed politicians to leave this hot topic on ice.

Nomnomnom Re:How do I Immigrate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, the Swedes beat us again!

Tunnels and wood Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lots of tunnels to drive around in. The longer ones even have a rest stop or two inside."

Norwegian AC here. Yeah we love tunnels and mountains and rock, and we also love trees and wood and forests.

I'm beginning to suspect we're the illicit offspring of dwarfs-on-elves forbidden sex XD

But we also love water and the sea so maybe we should throw in some tentacle monsters as well? (Japan please hurry up and get back on the right side of the North pole! We've got spare room between Island and Norway ;D)

Socialists in power Re:So, for the Norwegian Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

Social democrats not socialists, the difference is often large and a lot of the social democrat policies are much closer to the conservative policies than the socialist ones.

Of course one can debate politics endlessly but my opinion (as a Norwegian AC voting for FrP, the right-most mainstream party) is that Arbeiderpartiet (the social democratic labor party) is to the right (not left!) of for example the current US executive administration. Arbeiderpartiet also has the history of being a staunch opponent to Soviet communism (in particular through the recently deceased Haakon Lie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_Lie who was a political juggernaut) and Arbeiderpartiet was a dependable supporter of NATO during the cold war (and now). With regard to NATO even the socialists (a party called Sosialistisk Venstreparti) have recently begun relaxing their attitude of opposition, leaving only (some/most) communists in opposition to continued membership.

That said and while I don't share their ideology most Norwegian socialists and communists are sensible people as well as great individuals. Very few of them are anything like the continental or American socialists/communists.

The former leader of FrP (Carl Ivar Hagen) with "glimt i Ãye" ("a sparkle in the eye", i.e. with humor) admitted that everyone in Norway himself included is a social democrat to some degree.

Norway and Norwegians are simply too different :) whether we like it or not (ref.: anderledeslandet trans.: "different-land").

Re:Socialists in power Re:So, for the Norwegian Sl

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm ok Unicode didn't work, "glimt i Ãye" isn't written that way (the strange character is meant to be an o with a slash through it).

Re:What "abuses?"

[vivaelamor]

Slashdot and its readers all said that content owners should go after individual infringers back in 2000 when Napster was getting sued. What's changed?

That's an easy one, I wasn't reading Slashdot in 2000. Go find a time machine so you can troll somewhere more relevant.

offtopic

[Biotech9]

I've been living in Sweden for 5 years (originally Irish) and am starting to plan a move to Berlin. Any tips on how to handle a move to Germany, or things to be prepared for?

(I've heard the job situation is not great, but I work in science and find it's generally unaffected as of yet by the economic situation).

Re:offtopic

[orzetto]

Well, there is not much that can go wrong. Assuming the Swedish system is not too different from the Norwegian, expect increased healthcare costs, since Germany is based on private (and public) insurances; my expenses more than doubled. On the other hand, supposing you are a post-doc, you will pay no taxes.

More on healthcare: watch out carefully for very convenient offers geared for academicians. I got such an offer for about 50 euros a month, but reading the small print I figured out they do not pay for anything expensive, such as transplants and chronic diseases... remind me again, why did I want an insurance? Go to a public agency such as AOK and you will be safe, though it's a stiff 350 euros/month.
Note that there are also cheaper, private ones, but as an immigrant your choices are limited to those that pay for your abortions. It does not matter you are a guy, I am too, but my insurance must pay for my abortions in case I defy nature and get knocked up; that's German bureaucracy for you. That's because some imbecile in the Bundestag feared that immigrants started reproducing like rabbits.

Otherwise, brace yourself for for the language barrier: a lot of people do not speak English to a workable level, especially in the East. I can report of personnel of the main immigration bureau of a German state capital who could not speak English, I shit thee not. You should get a crash-course in German before you even get there.

Re:Hopefully they aren't storing this on a Linux b

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is a "-1, Don't Feed The Trolls" mod option.