User XYZ123@yahoo.com has a message for you. Subject: Get A BI99ER P3N1S
Probably with date info. attached, including an expiration.
Here's why it reduces spam. For XYZ123 to actually send a message with a URL and the sales pitch, they would 1) actually have to have an account at yahoo.com, 2) yahoo.com would have to store the message until either every listed recipient picked it up or the message expired, and 3 XYZ123 would have to be the actual sender of the message, he wouldn't be able to forge a "From:" or glom on bogus Received headers to hide his location. Since yahoo.com has a stated policy against spam, such accounts would quickly be terminated as it would actually cost yahoo.com money to support spammers.
Additionally, it removes my need as the recipient of emails to install spam filters and spend valuable time and money on spam. The onus is now on the sender of the message as they are paying almost the full cost of sending the email and I am only using my bandwidth and time to retrieve their message if I deem it worthy of my attention. The idea here is to push as much of the cost of sending spam as possible onto the actual spammer and the servers that support spammers as possible, thereby making spam unprofitable.
I've come to the conclusion that the real reason we have spam is a technical one, rather than political. Under the current system, the sender pays next to nothing to send an email, and the recipient (or their ISP) bears almost all the cost for any given email. This is because under the current system email servers will accept mail for any local user and have no real method of verifying the sender of the message. If you are going to filter out spam, then it is the recipient who bears the cost in time and money of setting up spam filters and black lists.
Under the system that I describe, it is the sender who bears the cost of storing email messages until the recipients pick them up. It also would make it more difficult for spam to pose as though it came from a legitimate server when it did not. In order for a message to actually get delivered the spammer's mail server cannot hide behind open relays or forged From: headers.
I was trying to come up with a system where the sender actually bears the cost of sending email that is both fair and doesn't require any taxes or artificial levies per message sent. A complete change in email architecture would seem to do that.
The biggest roadblock to implementation is that it is a complete 180 on current store and forward mail architectures. It is more a store and notify and wait for pickup architecture.
I have been giving this a good deal of serious thought from an implementation perspective, and now, I am not the first person to think of this or even to mention it publicly.
As for implementation, I have considered some a few of the details and will get in touch with someone else that I know is interested in this idea as well. It will, however, be a very difficult sell as it would require the replacement of all email software in existence with new versions to handle this new architecture. I see that being a very difficult political fight, and I see it taking a long time to implement the change on an Internet-wide scale.
Clearly, though, the current architecture that was designed in a more casual era when the Internet was less well known and certainly less used has run its course. It cannot stand up to the realities of the Internet as it is (ab)used today.
It's very simple, really. Make the sender pay for every message they send. How?
Simply reverse the email architecture on the 'net. Turn the current method of sending and receiving mail around. Instead of messages being immediately sent to the recipient's server, send the recipient a very tiny message saying that a message with this subject is waiting on the sender's computer for the recipient to pick up.
It would require a change in all the email software currently in use, and the only real hurdle that it provides is that people who are no longer on the Internet all the time can't send mail, but I'm sure someone would be willing to provide that service for a fee.
This would also make it much more difficult to forge headers on a mail, since you would need a valid IP address and/or domain name in order for anyone to get the actual mail that you wanted to send them.
Now, if you spam millions of people peddling whatever it is you're peddling, you'll be using very little bandwidth, a hundred or so bytes compared with several K, until those people come to pick up your message.
Furthermore, you won't be able to hide the originator of the mail nor would you have the problem of open relays spewing a constant stream of junk.
Couple this with PKI and you have a very flexible and very fair system.
The problem that I have with spam is that the current email architecture places 99% of the costs of email on the recipient. If you swing that around and make the spammers have their own, high end servers for handling the millions of mails that they want to send, then spamming will vanish in a hurry.
It is when used on Slackware. Slackware packages add the metadata in a specially named file in the archive, very much like a Java JAR manifest. (A JAR is bascially just a.zip with a manifest.)
When you use pkgtool to install from the tgz file, the package database is updated with info about the package that you just installed. It can also check for dependencies, etc.
I write software for a living. I also write software for my own personal use. I see the bennies every day, because I know how to use the power in my computer to make my work and my hobbies easier. I spend less time working and more time playing, even when I'm paid to be working.
It's the difference between me and my father-in-law. He's a professional machinist. Give him a lathe, some tools, materials, tell him what you want, and it's yours. Me? I'd look at you, look at the stuff, shrug my shoulders, and get back to the important business of playing Quake III.
Now, on the other hand, if you were to give me a computer, an OS, a compiler, and tell me to write you some software to do x, y and z, then I'm your guy. My father-in-law would look at you and then go back to surfing the 'net.
You've never heard the ultimate in the use of the word. Once heard a Marine Drill Instructor say the following when a M60 overheated and jammed during training:
"Fuck! The fucking fucker's fucking well fucked!"
Notice that "fuck" is used in that sentence as every single part of speech.
For me, the Doctor was and always will be as portrayed by Tom Baker. I guess it's just the age I was and the time that it made it to TV in the US, but Tom Baker is the first Doctor that I saw and the best.
BTW, he also plays a very interesting Sherlock Holmes.
Thing I like about Tom Baker is his wonderful sense of humor and style. He'll take a role that everyone expects to be played one way, and take it in some totally new direction. Very interesting actor to watch.
As for who gets to play the Doctor next, I don't really care. It will be ages before we'll get to see him in the States. Heh, I may just have to plug the TV in again if Dr. Who returns.
It was also about that time that people stopped writing and saying "the United States are" and started saying "the United States is." There's a world of difference between those two.
This all happened about the time of the War Between the States.
So, am I really the first to realize that spammers would love this? Now, they can get a message through that a human can decipher, but that a computer would have a very hard time deciphering. You probably now need to attach a spell checker to your spam filter and if there are too many misspelled words, then trash the message. 'Course, I'd lose a lot of mail from my/. friends!:-)
Second, if companies can send jobs overseas, and move their capital around whither they will, so too should workers be able to chase the jobs. I'm sure many folks here would be more than happy to code while sitting on a beach in Goa.
The simple fact is, you can't. Nearly every nation in the world has very strict laws concerning foreign workers coming to their shores and working. If you're American, try to get a job in Bangalore. You won't. You can't get a visa to work there without already having a job lined up, and they wouldn't hire you when there are plenty of Indians around who could do the same job. In most countries, you can't hire a foreign worker without demonstrating on the visa paperwork that there were no qualified local applicatns for the job.
It's actually easier for people to come to the U.S. and find work than it is for Americans to go overseas and find work. The market for labor is entirely one-sided in the U.S., and the big corps hold all the cards. They ship jobs overseas, but labor can't move overseas to chase those jobs.
This doesn't make sense... you stopped watching because of advertising, but then point out that the ads are more entertaining than the shows. So you stopped watching because it became more entertaining???
You know how it goes. When you're sitting at your desk in your office, typing feverishly into the textarea on the web form, trying to finish your post before someone comes in and sees you're reading slashdot instead of working, you don't always express yourself with the most eloquence that you could possibly bring to bear. If I had more time to reflect and edit the post, I probably would have worded that bit differently. You have to make some allowances in these types of communications. Not everyone has hours to just sit back and write the most thoughtful and carefully worded prose. If they did, then everything would be modded insightful or interesting.
Anyway, I quit watching TV, 'cause it is all crap, and 'cause I don't have time to waste on it. Y'know I used to enjoy watching TV as a kid, but then I grew up and my tastes became a bit more sophisticated. I remember seeing a Dukes of Hazzard re-run when I lived in France several years ago, and my first thought was, "I used to like that garbage?" My second thought was, no wonder they think Americans are idiots.
European TV for the most part is just as bad. I imagine TV everywhere is crap, but have no evidence to support that assertion.
That reminds of the time that I was at the local Social Security office for some business or another and the lady in front of me in line was trying to get a new SSN because hers had been stolen and the person who stole it was in prison in Arizona and had several outstanding warrants, and how the poor lady found it had been stolen in the first place was she was placed under arrest only to be released a couple hours later with an apology when the police found out that the person who was really wanted for the crime was already in jail in Arizona.
You know what they told this lady? "We don't give out new social security numbers." That if she really wanted one, she'd have to write some office in Washington, and basically beg for a new number, which she'd probably never get.
You know what happens to people when this happens? Their name and their social ends up in law enforcement databases as an alias of a known criminal, and it will almost never be removed. I kid you not.
I really feel sorry for that lady, and I really hate the fact that everyone everywhere is always asking for my SSN. As a policy, I don't give out except to those who "really" need it for tax purposes. Everybody else can give me a different ID number if they want my business.
I actually had that discussion with a manager at a rental shop. He said they needed my SSN for record keeping. I flat out told him that they didn't. I also pointed out that it was a crime to use the SSN as a personal identifier outside of the context of the social security administration, and at the time it was. He still said he needed my SSN. I told him that I guess he didn't need my business and left.
Alot of these places want your SSN so that they can run a credit check on you. Still, I won't do business with them. That's just one more place where your SSN can leak. The SSN is way over used and too many organizations rely on it for too much. It is a single point of failure, and we know how catastrophic a system with a single point of failure can be.
I'm not the OP, and I agree with the mods that it is insightful to ask how far avoiding ads goes, because it seems we can't escape advertising these days. I'd just like to say that there is so much advertising today, do we really need more?
Over the past decade, my TV watching has slowly dwindled, mostly because of advertising and "product placement".--It's sad when you notice that most of the ads are actually more entertaining than the shows.--First, I didn't renew my cable subscription in 1996, and then, about two years ago, I pretty much stopped watching TV all together. Of course, you can't avoid the TVs that seem to be stuck everywhere these days, like in shop windows, on the sides of buildings, and at the gym. The gym I go to has TVs everywhere and on some of the equipment, too. I don't need those TVs to distract me from my workout. Besides, I'd much rather stare at the blonde wearing the spandex outfit and doing lat pull downs.
I haven't used Mandrake in the past because I never saw a compelling need to try it out when Debian, Red Hat, and Slackware have served my needs well. Someone gave me some Mandrake CDs once and at the time, I intended to try it, but never bothered to install it. Since they're adding adware, I may just skip them entirely in the future.
I know you can just "look away" and reconfigure your browser, but we're already bombarded with advertising every time we turn around. I look at my monitor, and it has the maker's logo on it, there are 2 empty soda cans and a bottle on my desk with the maker's logo on it, ditto for the printer on my desk, the diet notebook on my desk, and nearly everything else in my office. You can hardly walk down the street (or go to the gym) without being accosted by logos on T-shirts, shoes, and people's asses. Why people pay to be a billboard for a company selling cheap, sweat shop-made goods at an outrageous markup is beyond me, but I guess being somebody else's bitch is a fashion statement these days. Sure, you give me a contract like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, and I'll get the swoosh tattooed on my forehead, but I'm not gonna pay money to wear a shirt with YOUR logo on it. The only logo shirts that I wear, I either got for free, or I bought to support a free software project or a non-profit cause.
No, I have enough advertising in my life without TV, without AdWare, and without Mandrake. If it's all the same to you, I'll stick with FreeBSD.
It's very simple, really. Trading songs, movies, or other materials online without permission from the copyright holder of the work is a crime, both in the legal and moral sense. Folks on here love to spout that it is technically "copyright infringement," but it really amounts to stealing, not in the "theft by unlawful taking" sense, but in the sense of using another's property without their permissions.
Now, I'm going to be the first one to tell you that copyright terms are too long under current law. Life plus 75 years in no way meets any reasonable definition of limited. But, I'll also be the first to say that copyright is a good thing and a lot better than the way things were before copyright. In the days before copyright, you used to have to get permission from the gov't (usually a minister of the autocratic ruler in your country) to print your own works, and even if you secured this permission there was no guarantee that some cut-rate printer in Holland wouldn't just pirate your work anyway. In fact, many letters from authors in the Renaissance up to the 18th and 19th centuries bemoan the appearance of unauthorized editions of their works, not so much for the loss of revenue, but for the omissions, errors, and changes that often appeared in them.
Copyright can benefit the little guy against the big guy. As authors of free software, it is the only legal leg that we have to stand on against people or corporations who abuse our code.
If you think your file trading is an innocent act of civil disobedience or that you're sticking it to the man and large corporations, think again. You're helping to undermine respect for copyright, and your rationalizations make it easier for people to "steal" other copyrighted works, such as free software.
Trading music without permission is akin to some company sticking GPL'd code in their proprietary product and selling it without source code. I'm sure most of you would call that act "theft."
I'm not saying that all P2P is illegal. I see how it can have many legal uses beyond sharing the latest drivel from the RIAA, and this is the real reason that I think P2P has them running scared. They realize that if they don't paint P2P in a dirty light, if they don't clamp down on people sharing unauthorized stuff (the bulk of the use right now), people will use it to distribute their own original material. Artists will bypass the RIAA gatekeeper and go directly to their fans. The RIAA will not be able to milk that cow for any money, and they will not be the arbiter of what is fashionable in music. In essence, P2P can destroy the mass market for music and turn the music industry into a boutique industry with a market more like a bazaar. (To me, that's a good thing. To the folks at the RIAA, that's economic murder.)
Besides, it's ASCAP and BMI that usually look out for artists' royalties. Shouldn't they be the ones pursuing these "criminals" and not the RIAA?
Just some thoughts that were interrupted by the phone.--Don't you just hate it when someone calls you on your lunch break?
Please mod me down, I'm a redundant, trolling, flamebait-loving dogmatist and I was a pro-DMCA lobbyist. It makes sense, when you really hunker down and think about it.
RTFL = Read the Fucking License
I've often heard of companies having a crack legal team, but this is the first time that I've heard of one being on crack. Five minutes after the code leaks, the world and his wife knows that SCO are completely full of shit and their law suit has suffered a mortal wound.
Slashdot Mirror
so they think anything that's user friendly must be vulnerable. A classic logic error, whose name I forget right now.
:-)
How about "familiarity breeds contempt"?
How about post hoc, ergo propter hoc?
note sometimes check engine does indicate a "real" problem... or an emissions issue...
Or a loose gas cap.....
The message would be something like:
User XYZ123@yahoo.com has a message for you.
Subject: Get A BI99ER P3N1S
Probably with date info. attached, including an expiration.
Here's why it reduces spam. For XYZ123 to actually send a message with a URL and the sales pitch, they would 1) actually have to have an account at yahoo.com, 2) yahoo.com would have to store the message until either every listed recipient picked it up or the message expired, and 3 XYZ123 would have to be the actual sender of the message, he wouldn't be able to forge a "From:" or glom on bogus Received headers to hide his location. Since yahoo.com has a stated policy against spam, such accounts would quickly be terminated as it would actually cost yahoo.com money to support spammers.
Additionally, it removes my need as the recipient of emails to install spam filters and spend valuable time and money on spam. The onus is now on the sender of the message as they are paying almost the full cost of sending the email and I am only using my bandwidth and time to retrieve their message if I deem it worthy of my attention. The idea here is to push as much of the cost of sending spam as possible onto the actual spammer and the servers that support spammers as possible, thereby making spam unprofitable.
I've come to the conclusion that the real reason we have spam is a technical one, rather than political. Under the current system, the sender pays next to nothing to send an email, and the recipient (or their ISP) bears almost all the cost for any given email. This is because under the current system email servers will accept mail for any local user and have no real method of verifying the sender of the message. If you are going to filter out spam, then it is the recipient who bears the cost in time and money of setting up spam filters and black lists.
Under the system that I describe, it is the sender who bears the cost of storing email messages until the recipients pick them up. It also would make it more difficult for spam to pose as though it came from a legitimate server when it did not. In order for a message to actually get delivered the spammer's mail server cannot hide behind open relays or forged From: headers.
I was trying to come up with a system where the sender actually bears the cost of sending email that is both fair and doesn't require any taxes or artificial levies per message sent. A complete change in email architecture would seem to do that.
The biggest roadblock to implementation is that it is a complete 180 on current store and forward mail architectures. It is more a store and notify and wait for pickup architecture.
I have been giving this a good deal of serious thought from an implementation perspective, and now, I am not the first person to think of this or even to mention it publicly.
As for implementation, I have considered some a few of the details and will get in touch with someone else that I know is interested in this idea as well. It will, however, be a very difficult sell as it would require the replacement of all email software in existence with new versions to handle this new architecture. I see that being a very difficult political fight, and I see it taking a long time to implement the change on an Internet-wide scale.
Clearly, though, the current architecture that was designed in a more casual era when the Internet was less well known and certainly less used has run its course. It cannot stand up to the realities of the Internet as it is (ab)used today.
It's very simple, really. Make the sender pay for every message they send. How?
Simply reverse the email architecture on the 'net. Turn the current method of sending and receiving mail around. Instead of messages being immediately sent to the recipient's server, send the recipient a very tiny message saying that a message with this subject is waiting on the sender's computer for the recipient to pick up.
It would require a change in all the email software currently in use, and the only real hurdle that it provides is that people who are no longer on the Internet all the time can't send mail, but I'm sure someone would be willing to provide that service for a fee.
This would also make it much more difficult to forge headers on a mail, since you would need a valid IP address and/or domain name in order for anyone to get the actual mail that you wanted to send them.
Now, if you spam millions of people peddling whatever it is you're peddling, you'll be using very little bandwidth, a hundred or so bytes compared with several K, until those people come to pick up your message.
Furthermore, you won't be able to hide the originator of the mail nor would you have the problem of open relays spewing a constant stream of junk.
Couple this with PKI and you have a very flexible and very fair system.
The problem that I have with spam is that the current email architecture places 99% of the costs of email on the recipient. If you swing that around and make the spammers have their own, high end servers for handling the millions of mails that they want to send, then spamming will vanish in a hurry.
It is when used on Slackware. Slackware packages add the metadata in a specially named file in the archive, very much like a Java JAR manifest. (A JAR is bascially just a .zip with a manifest.)
When you use pkgtool to install from the tgz file, the package database is updated with info about the package that you just installed. It can also check for dependencies, etc.
What if your house burns down?
There are more important things to worry about than losing your snapshots.
I'd like to see CONSUMERS buying their cameras from Hasselblad and Mamiya and their ilk.
Sheesh! When I want one, I have to rent it!
I write software for a living. I also write software for my own personal use. I see the bennies every day, because I know how to use the power in my computer to make my work and my hobbies easier. I spend less time working and more time playing, even when I'm paid to be working.
It's the difference between me and my father-in-law. He's a professional machinist. Give him a lathe, some tools, materials, tell him what you want, and it's yours. Me? I'd look at you, look at the stuff, shrug my shoulders, and get back to the important business of playing Quake III.
Now, on the other hand, if you were to give me a computer, an OS, a compiler, and tell me to write you some software to do x, y and z, then I'm your guy. My father-in-law would look at you and then go back to surfing the 'net.
I think you get the idea.
You've never heard the ultimate in the use of the word. Once heard a Marine Drill Instructor say the following when a M60 overheated and jammed during training:
"Fuck! The fucking fucker's fucking well fucked!"
Notice that "fuck" is used in that sentence as every single part of speech.
This is classic and very poetic.
SCO has no legal strategy. I knew that from day one when they hired David Boies and company.
Boies is a big shot. His firm is great at publicity and not so great in the court room. Just ask Al Gore.
This is a ploy to jack the stock price up and transfer shares to other Canopy ventures where the shares can be sold off the books.
I'm also pretty sure I wasn't the first person to have discovered IRIX's ``killall'' command after Linux's. :)
Muahaha! We got you, we did!
For me, the Doctor was and always will be as portrayed by Tom Baker. I guess it's just the age I was and the time that it made it to TV in the US, but Tom Baker is the first Doctor that I saw and the best.
BTW, he also plays a very interesting Sherlock Holmes.
Thing I like about Tom Baker is his wonderful sense of humor and style. He'll take a role that everyone expects to be played one way, and take it in some totally new direction. Very interesting actor to watch.
As for who gets to play the Doctor next, I don't really care. It will be ages before we'll get to see him in the States. Heh, I may just have to plug the TV in again if Dr. Who returns.
You missed this one.
that being an asshole isn't a crime.
It was also about that time that people stopped writing and saying "the United States are" and started saying "the United States is." There's a world of difference between those two.
This all happened about the time of the War Between the States.
Yeah, but this is still the same State Dept. that had several "classified" laptops just walk out of the building never to turn up, again.
Just 'cause the administration changes, doesn't mean the bureaucrats do.
So, am I really the first to realize that spammers would love this? Now, they can get a message through that a human can decipher, but that a computer would have a very hard time deciphering. You probably now need to attach a spell checker to your spam filter and if there are too many misspelled words, then trash the message. 'Course, I'd lose a lot of mail from my /. friends! :-)
Second, if companies can send jobs overseas, and move their capital around whither they will, so too should workers be able to chase the jobs. I'm sure many folks here would be more than happy to code while sitting on a beach in Goa.
The simple fact is, you can't. Nearly every nation in the world has very strict laws concerning foreign workers coming to their shores and working. If you're American, try to get a job in Bangalore. You won't. You can't get a visa to work there without already having a job lined up, and they wouldn't hire you when there are plenty of Indians around who could do the same job. In most countries, you can't hire a foreign worker without demonstrating on the visa paperwork that there were no qualified local applicatns for the job.
It's actually easier for people to come to the U.S. and find work than it is for Americans to go overseas and find work. The market for labor is entirely one-sided in the U.S., and the big corps hold all the cards. They ship jobs overseas, but labor can't move overseas to chase those jobs.
This doesn't make sense... you stopped watching because of advertising, but then point out that the ads are more entertaining than the shows. So you stopped watching because it became more entertaining???
You know how it goes. When you're sitting at your desk in your office, typing feverishly into the textarea on the web form, trying to finish your post before someone comes in and sees you're reading slashdot instead of working, you don't always express yourself with the most eloquence that you could possibly bring to bear. If I had more time to reflect and edit the post, I probably would have worded that bit differently. You have to make some allowances in these types of communications. Not everyone has hours to just sit back and write the most thoughtful and carefully worded prose. If they did, then everything would be modded insightful or interesting.
Anyway, I quit watching TV, 'cause it is all crap, and 'cause I don't have time to waste on it. Y'know I used to enjoy watching TV as a kid, but then I grew up and my tastes became a bit more sophisticated. I remember seeing a Dukes of Hazzard re-run when I lived in France several years ago, and my first thought was, "I used to like that garbage?" My second thought was, no wonder they think Americans are idiots.
European TV for the most part is just as bad. I imagine TV everywhere is crap, but have no evidence to support that assertion.
That reminds of the time that I was at the local Social Security office for some business or another and the lady in front of me in line was trying to get a new SSN because hers had been stolen and the person who stole it was in prison in Arizona and had several outstanding warrants, and how the poor lady found it had been stolen in the first place was she was placed under arrest only to be released a couple hours later with an apology when the police found out that the person who was really wanted for the crime was already in jail in Arizona.
You know what they told this lady? "We don't give out new social security numbers." That if she really wanted one, she'd have to write some office in Washington, and basically beg for a new number, which she'd probably never get.
You know what happens to people when this happens? Their name and their social ends up in law enforcement databases as an alias of a known criminal, and it will almost never be removed. I kid you not.
I really feel sorry for that lady, and I really hate the fact that everyone everywhere is always asking for my SSN. As a policy, I don't give out except to those who "really" need it for tax purposes. Everybody else can give me a different ID number if they want my business.
I actually had that discussion with a manager at a rental shop. He said they needed my SSN for record keeping. I flat out told him that they didn't. I also pointed out that it was a crime to use the SSN as a personal identifier outside of the context of the social security administration, and at the time it was. He still said he needed my SSN. I told him that I guess he didn't need my business and left.
Alot of these places want your SSN so that they can run a credit check on you. Still, I won't do business with them. That's just one more place where your SSN can leak. The SSN is way over used and too many organizations rely on it for too much. It is a single point of failure, and we know how catastrophic a system with a single point of failure can be.
I'm not the OP, and I agree with the mods that it is insightful to ask how far avoiding ads goes, because it seems we can't escape advertising these days. I'd just like to say that there is so much advertising today, do we really need more?
Over the past decade, my TV watching has slowly dwindled, mostly because of advertising and "product placement".--It's sad when you notice that most of the ads are actually more entertaining than the shows.--First, I didn't renew my cable subscription in 1996, and then, about two years ago, I pretty much stopped watching TV all together. Of course, you can't avoid the TVs that seem to be stuck everywhere these days, like in shop windows, on the sides of buildings, and at the gym. The gym I go to has TVs everywhere and on some of the equipment, too. I don't need those TVs to distract me from my workout. Besides, I'd much rather stare at the blonde wearing the spandex outfit and doing lat pull downs.
I haven't used Mandrake in the past because I never saw a compelling need to try it out when Debian, Red Hat, and Slackware have served my needs well. Someone gave me some Mandrake CDs once and at the time, I intended to try it, but never bothered to install it. Since they're adding adware, I may just skip them entirely in the future.
I know you can just "look away" and reconfigure your browser, but we're already bombarded with advertising every time we turn around. I look at my monitor, and it has the maker's logo on it, there are 2 empty soda cans and a bottle on my desk with the maker's logo on it, ditto for the printer on my desk, the diet notebook on my desk, and nearly everything else in my office. You can hardly walk down the street (or go to the gym) without being accosted by logos on T-shirts, shoes, and people's asses. Why people pay to be a billboard for a company selling cheap, sweat shop-made goods at an outrageous markup is beyond me, but I guess being somebody else's bitch is a fashion statement these days. Sure, you give me a contract like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, and I'll get the swoosh tattooed on my forehead, but I'm not gonna pay money to wear a shirt with YOUR logo on it. The only logo shirts that I wear, I either got for free, or I bought to support a free software project or a non-profit cause.
No, I have enough advertising in my life without TV, without AdWare, and without Mandrake. If it's all the same to you, I'll stick with FreeBSD.
It's very simple, really. Trading songs, movies, or other materials online without permission from the copyright holder of the work is a crime, both in the legal and moral sense. Folks on here love to spout that it is technically "copyright infringement," but it really amounts to stealing, not in the "theft by unlawful taking" sense, but in the sense of using another's property without their permissions.
Now, I'm going to be the first one to tell you that copyright terms are too long under current law. Life plus 75 years in no way meets any reasonable definition of limited. But, I'll also be the first to say that copyright is a good thing and a lot better than the way things were before copyright. In the days before copyright, you used to have to get permission from the gov't (usually a minister of the autocratic ruler in your country) to print your own works, and even if you secured this permission there was no guarantee that some cut-rate printer in Holland wouldn't just pirate your work anyway. In fact, many letters from authors in the Renaissance up to the 18th and 19th centuries bemoan the appearance of unauthorized editions of their works, not so much for the loss of revenue, but for the omissions, errors, and changes that often appeared in them.
Copyright can benefit the little guy against the big guy. As authors of free software, it is the only legal leg that we have to stand on against people or corporations who abuse our code.
If you think your file trading is an innocent act of civil disobedience or that you're sticking it to the man and large corporations, think again. You're helping to undermine respect for copyright, and your rationalizations make it easier for people to "steal" other copyrighted works, such as free software.
Trading music without permission is akin to some company sticking GPL'd code in their proprietary product and selling it without source code. I'm sure most of you would call that act "theft."
I'm not saying that all P2P is illegal. I see how it can have many legal uses beyond sharing the latest drivel from the RIAA, and this is the real reason that I think P2P has them running scared. They realize that if they don't paint P2P in a dirty light, if they don't clamp down on people sharing unauthorized stuff (the bulk of the use right now), people will use it to distribute their own original material. Artists will bypass the RIAA gatekeeper and go directly to their fans. The RIAA will not be able to milk that cow for any money, and they will not be the arbiter of what is fashionable in music. In essence, P2P can destroy the mass market for music and turn the music industry into a boutique industry with a market more like a bazaar. (To me, that's a good thing. To the folks at the RIAA, that's economic murder.)
Besides, it's ASCAP and BMI that usually look out for artists' royalties. Shouldn't they be the ones pursuing these "criminals" and not the RIAA?
Just some thoughts that were interrupted by the phone.--Don't you just hate it when someone calls you on your lunch break?
Please mod me down, I'm a redundant, trolling, flamebait-loving dogmatist and I was a pro-DMCA lobbyist. It makes sense, when you really hunker down and think about it.
RTFL = Read the Fucking License
I've often heard of companies having a crack legal team, but this is the first time that I've heard of one being on crack. Five minutes after the code leaks, the world and his wife knows that SCO are completely full of shit and their law suit has suffered a mortal wound.
This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.
I've enjoyed most everything I've read by Vance. For a more crebral kick try his Languages of Pao.
Hell, I'd sell out for $40 million!