There's always the third option of creating something new if the existing options don't suit you. He does make a good point. However, I would like to also point out that the record industry had to build up to the point where it could shamelessly rip artists off with impunity. Artists capitulated a little at a time over the years. They didn't put up enough of a fight whenever new onerous terms were added to contracts. Existing artists didn't support new artists so that they wouldn't get screwed. Now it's too late and all musicians are faced with the monolithic recording industry. They cannot regain control or power unless they really work together and with their fans to create another option.
Hmm, stretch my imagination as far as I can and I still don't see the connection between committing genocide and lobbying for copyright law.
That's because he wasn't trying to make such a connection. The connection was that an idea can be distorted to the point where it becomes practically the opposite of what it was intended to be. He never compared genocide to lobbying for copyright law at all.
As far as getting admins to actually patch things, I think that's best left up to the market. If a company repeatedly suffers because their admins aren't patching their machines properly, then maybe they should get new admins.
The (extremely bright) group of lawyers at the conference seemed fairly confident that this latest overreaching would be a key component of the downfall of the law.
I would hope so. I've read Lessig's book "Code", but I haven't looked into the Eldred case lately. I'll be reading these papers tomorrow probably, they sound interesting.
patents and copyrights will expire and as such there is a growing base of public domain.
Except that practically nothing copyrighted has become public domain for decades now. I think saying "copyrights will expire" is being overly optimistic, and maybe downright presumptuous. If Disney's lawyers and campaign contributions have anything to say about it, no copyrighted work will ever again become public domain unless it's specifically made so by the owner.
We should be as mean and as ruthless as possible in order to make this war as short as possible.
And what will be left to live for once we've taken away the rights, liberties, and justice from the citizens of this country? You seem to think that we'll just go flatten a few countries and everything will be all better. It won't happen like that. We'll lose our rights, the War on Terrorism will continue, as there is no end condition that we can call victory. At least with drugs, it's obvious that we're losing. We'll never know if we've stamped out terrorism. Terrorism requires us to be vigilant against it, always. This isn't a temporary war. It won't end. You can't say, "we'll get our rights back when it's over." You can't compare it to previous wars. It's not really a war.
Times of war demand different standards. Get over it.
This is nothing like the Civil War. At least then there was an actual war. We knew when it started. We knew when it ended. We knew who the enemy was. How is the current "war" anything like that? War hasn't even been declared! It's just that our government declares these unofficial "wars" on everything these days. War on Drugs. War on Poverty. War on People Who Don't Eat Their Vegetables. Now we get the War on Terrorism. Is there a declaration of war? How do we know when the war is won? Is there a defined goal of the war that we can conclusively determine whether or not we've achieved? I believe this will turn out to be much like the War on Drugs in that it will go on and on and on, sap our freedom, sap our tax money, empower the government, cause great suffering to innocent people, cause serious corruption in our own government and military as well as others around the world, and ultimately achieve exactly nothing. You can ignorantly cheer on the loss of essential liberties in this country, but I'll not join you. I fear that someday, things will get to the point that even you will recognize the monster you're helping to create.
Bullshit. If we let the AG spy on anyone he considers a terrorist suspect, then what's to stop him from later using the same tactic against suspected drug dealers (especially since he's already been trying to tie the drug war to the war on terrorism) and from there on down the chain? Not to mention the fact that there is no way in hell that you can give these suspects a fair trial once you've taken away their attorney-client privelege. It just can't work in an adversarial justice system such as ours. It tips the balance in favor of the prosecution. You want to tell all the people that the FBI has been scooping up lately that they are all presumed guilty and they will not be allowed to have fair trials? Welcome to the New America. We're well on our way to implementing the same practices we've condemned in other countries for decades.
Slashdot is doing some screwy things lately. I've had entire posts turned into links because/. removed a closing anchor tag somehow. I repasted my post (i always copy a post before submitting now since it fails so often) into notepad, so I know that it wasn't my mistake.
So you want to throw the "innocent until proven guilty" assumption out the window then, huh? Why do we even bother to pretend we're a democracy anymore? Assholes like you want to give all authority over to the government without assigning any accountability or oversight. We'll just trust them to always do what's right? You're ignorant and more of a danger to the American way of life than any terrorist out there.
I think you have to close and reopen IE for the setting to take effect. I tried disabling active scripting on a page and then reloading, yet it still ran the scripts. Only after I closed IE and reopened it and returned to the site did the script not run.
Sorry, but votes don't make laws. They just help determine who will be making the laws. After that it just depends on who has the most money to lobby to get the laws designed in their favor. Additionally, while the states haven't won their case, the FTC already determined that what the record industry is doing is illegal, and that sticks no matter what.
No. Not semantics. Fact. He didn't compare Gates to bin Laden. He compared a statement by Gates to a fictitious, yet equally ridiculous, statement by bin Laden. Nowhere does he compare Gates to bin Laden. I think the attack on your intelligence was warranted.
First of all, I see file-sharing as more of an act of self defense than a crime. The record industry has no problem using whatever means necessary to get money from consumers, regardless of whether they have to break the law, or buy the law. People can't compete with such large industries in the areas of lobbying. What is left but to simply ignore the law whenever possible? It's kind of sad to see that everyone jumps down the throats of the file-swapping software makers and those that use the services, yet when the record industry steals from the public, they never get more than a little slap on the wrist, if even that. When the government is too beholden to corporate interests, we all suffer, and this is a perfect illustration of that.
What's going on with/. lately? I can paste my post into notepad and see that I closed the anchor tag after that second link. I don't know why it doesn't get closed after I submit.
What's more, your opinions do not represent a majority view.
Do the majority of Americans know a single thing about the record industry or copyright law? Hell, most of them don't even know who their own House representative is. I'm sorry to break it to you, but if we have to depend on what the majority knows or believes, we're in deep shit. Now if you'd said "majority of people who are fairly well informed on the subject, then you might be onto something. But I'd really like to see some evidence of that.
What was ambiguous in my post? The record companies are thieves, plain and simple. There is no ambiguity. There is just so much corruption that the concept of equal protection doesn't seem to apply to those who get ripped off by the record industry. Do we get our money back? Do we get anything? Nope. Where's this justice you talk about?
Given sufficient time and resources, if your illegal actions persist, you will be tracked down and your illegal activities be terminated.
Sure thing pal, and when will the hammer of justice fall on the thieves represented by the RIAA? Never? Get off your "justice" high-horse then. You're a hypocrite trying to justify double-standards.
I agree that they should be taught that. I just happen to disagree that we should write them off because of the fact that most of them are uneducated, and because a huge number of them already have AIDS and can't afford the drugs to treat it.
I suggest you simply accept yourself for what you are: a petty theif.
So? Thieves steal from thieves. Just because the record industry uses price-fixing and other tactics to steal doesn't make it any less criminal. Well, it does according to the government, since those corporations will not have any of their assets siezed, nor will any employee spend any time in prison, nor will they even have to give back what they stole. Guess this is just another example of why the law is not the same as morality or ethics. So why should we care again that thieves are stealing from thieves?
No.. the record companies should realize that their years of gouging customers are coming to an end. They've already been smacked by the FCC for price fixing. That has been going on for years. THEY ARE THIEVES every bit as much as people who download music and don't pay for it. All of their hysterics really seem like the pot calling the kettle black. They don't give a damn about artists, except how much money they can make off of them. That they tell us otherwise is just another indicator of their hypocrisy.
You are correct in saying that people download music to avoid paying for it, but you don't go far enough with the explanation. Why do they want to avoid paying for it? Maybe because retail prices on CDs are outrageous? Maybe because they know that artists get only a tiny tiny piece, if anything of that money? Maybe because they know that they are being screwed by a cartel of record companies that are set on gouging consumers? Maybe because copyright laws have been so distorted by money from the entertainment industry that there is no longer any public interest in them now?
That's a fucked up point of view there. When someone you care about is affected, will you tell them that it's better that they just die so they don't infect anyone else? Keeping people alive is the best we're able to achieve at the moment. But that's a start. Maybe they'll still be alive when a cure is developed.
Slashdot Mirror
There's always the third option of creating something new if the existing options don't suit you. He does make a good point. However, I would like to also point out that the record industry had to build up to the point where it could shamelessly rip artists off with impunity. Artists capitulated a little at a time over the years. They didn't put up enough of a fight whenever new onerous terms were added to contracts. Existing artists didn't support new artists so that they wouldn't get screwed. Now it's too late and all musicians are faced with the monolithic recording industry. They cannot regain control or power unless they really work together and with their fans to create another option.
Hmm, stretch my imagination as far as I can and I still don't see the connection between committing genocide and lobbying for copyright law.
That's because he wasn't trying to make such a connection. The connection was that an idea can be distorted to the point where it becomes practically the opposite of what it was intended to be. He never compared genocide to lobbying for copyright law at all.
b) they're usually run by people who have better things to than care about their operating system's security.
And unfortunately written by that same sort of people.
As far as getting admins to actually patch things, I think that's best left up to the market. If a company repeatedly suffers because their admins aren't patching their machines properly, then maybe they should get new admins.
The (extremely bright) group of lawyers at the conference seemed fairly confident that this latest overreaching would be a key component of the downfall of the law.
I would hope so. I've read Lessig's book "Code", but I haven't looked into the Eldred case lately. I'll be reading these papers tomorrow probably, they sound interesting.
patents and copyrights will expire and as such there is a growing base of public domain.
Except that practically nothing copyrighted has become public domain for decades now. I think saying "copyrights will expire" is being overly optimistic, and maybe downright presumptuous. If Disney's lawyers and campaign contributions have anything to say about it, no copyrighted work will ever again become public domain unless it's specifically made so by the owner.
Senior VP of the Windows division isn't good enough to make this a significant issue? Wouldn't that be like one step down from Ballmer?
And unfortunately, given that most of the news they cover is bad news, they are also rather accurate and prophetic.
We should be as mean and as ruthless as possible in order to make this war as short as possible.
And what will be left to live for once we've taken away the rights, liberties, and justice from the citizens of this country? You seem to think that we'll just go flatten a few countries and everything will be all better. It won't happen like that. We'll lose our rights, the War on Terrorism will continue, as there is no end condition that we can call victory. At least with drugs, it's obvious that we're losing. We'll never know if we've stamped out terrorism. Terrorism requires us to be vigilant against it, always. This isn't a temporary war. It won't end. You can't say, "we'll get our rights back when it's over." You can't compare it to previous wars. It's not really a war.
Times of war demand different standards. Get over it.
This is nothing like the Civil War. At least then there was an actual war. We knew when it started. We knew when it ended. We knew who the enemy was. How is the current "war" anything like that? War hasn't even been declared! It's just that our government declares these unofficial "wars" on everything these days. War on Drugs. War on Poverty. War on People Who Don't Eat Their Vegetables. Now we get the War on Terrorism. Is there a declaration of war? How do we know when the war is won? Is there a defined goal of the war that we can conclusively determine whether or not we've achieved? I believe this will turn out to be much like the War on Drugs in that it will go on and on and on, sap our freedom, sap our tax money, empower the government, cause great suffering to innocent people, cause serious corruption in our own government and military as well as others around the world, and ultimately achieve exactly nothing. You can ignorantly cheer on the loss of essential liberties in this country, but I'll not join you. I fear that someday, things will get to the point that even you will recognize the monster you're helping to create.
Bullshit. If we let the AG spy on anyone he considers a terrorist suspect, then what's to stop him from later using the same tactic against suspected drug dealers (especially since he's already been trying to tie the drug war to the war on terrorism) and from there on down the chain? Not to mention the fact that there is no way in hell that you can give these suspects a fair trial once you've taken away their attorney-client privelege. It just can't work in an adversarial justice system such as ours. It tips the balance in favor of the prosecution. You want to tell all the people that the FBI has been scooping up lately that they are all presumed guilty and they will not be allowed to have fair trials? Welcome to the New America. We're well on our way to implementing the same practices we've condemned in other countries for decades.
Slashdot is doing some screwy things lately. I've had entire posts turned into links because /. removed a closing anchor tag somehow. I repasted my post (i always copy a post before submitting now since it fails so often) into notepad, so I know that it wasn't my mistake.
So you want to throw the "innocent until proven guilty" assumption out the window then, huh? Why do we even bother to pretend we're a democracy anymore? Assholes like you want to give all authority over to the government without assigning any accountability or oversight. We'll just trust them to always do what's right? You're ignorant and more of a danger to the American way of life than any terrorist out there.
I think you have to close and reopen IE for the setting to take effect. I tried disabling active scripting on a page and then reloading, yet it still ran the scripts. Only after I closed IE and reopened it and returned to the site did the script not run.
Sorry, but votes don't make laws. They just help determine who will be making the laws. After that it just depends on who has the most money to lobby to get the laws designed in their favor. Additionally, while the states haven't won their case, the FTC already determined that what the record industry is doing is illegal, and that sticks no matter what.
No. Not semantics. Fact. He didn't compare Gates to bin Laden. He compared a statement by Gates to a fictitious, yet equally ridiculous, statement by bin Laden. Nowhere does he compare Gates to bin Laden. I think the attack on your intelligence was warranted.
First of all, I see file-sharing as more of an act of self defense than a crime. The record industry has no problem using whatever means necessary to get money from consumers, regardless of whether they have to break the law, or buy the law. People can't compete with such large industries in the areas of lobbying. What is left but to simply ignore the law whenever possible? It's kind of sad to see that everyone jumps down the throats of the file-swapping software makers and those that use the services, yet when the record industry steals from the public, they never get more than a little slap on the wrist, if even that. When the government is too beholden to corporate interests, we all suffer, and this is a perfect illustration of that.
What's going on with /. lately? I can paste my post into notepad and see that I closed the anchor tag after that second link. I don't know why it doesn't get closed after I submit.
You can try to call it something else, but using illegal tactics to screw customers out of their money is just as much stealing as infringing on copyrights is stealing. Why is it just "disagreeable behavior" when the record industry deprives consumers of money through illegal acts, but "criminal behavior" when it happens the other way around?
What's more, your opinions do not represent a majority view.
Do the majority of Americans know a single thing about the record industry or copyright law? Hell, most of them don't even know who their own House representative is. I'm sorry to break it to you, but if we have to depend on what the majority knows or believes, we're in deep shit. Now if you'd said "majority of people who are fairly well informed on the subject, then you might be onto something. But I'd really like to see some evidence of that.
Reality
I am not speaking of an ambiguous moral concept.
What was ambiguous in my post? The record companies are thieves, plain and simple. There is no ambiguity. There is just so much corruption that the concept of equal protection doesn't seem to apply to those who get ripped off by the record industry. Do we get our money back? Do we get anything? Nope. Where's this justice you talk about?
Given sufficient time and resources, if your illegal actions persist, you will be tracked down and your illegal activities be terminated.
Sure thing pal, and when will the hammer of justice fall on the thieves represented by the RIAA? Never? Get off your "justice" high-horse then. You're a hypocrite trying to justify double-standards.
I agree that they should be taught that. I just happen to disagree that we should write them off because of the fact that most of them are uneducated, and because a huge number of them already have AIDS and can't afford the drugs to treat it.
I suggest you simply accept yourself for what you are: a petty theif.
So? Thieves steal from thieves. Just because the record industry uses price-fixing and other tactics to steal doesn't make it any less criminal. Well, it does according to the government, since those corporations will not have any of their assets siezed, nor will any employee spend any time in prison, nor will they even have to give back what they stole. Guess this is just another example of why the law is not the same as morality or ethics. So why should we care again that thieves are stealing from thieves?
No.. the record companies should realize that their years of gouging customers are coming to an end. They've already been smacked by the FCC for price fixing. That has been going on for years. THEY ARE THIEVES every bit as much as people who download music and don't pay for it. All of their hysterics really seem like the pot calling the kettle black. They don't give a damn about artists, except how much money they can make off of them. That they tell us otherwise is just another indicator of their hypocrisy.
You are correct in saying that people download music to avoid paying for it, but you don't go far enough with the explanation. Why do they want to avoid paying for it? Maybe because retail prices on CDs are outrageous? Maybe because they know that artists get only a tiny tiny piece, if anything of that money? Maybe because they know that they are being screwed by a cartel of record companies that are set on gouging consumers? Maybe because copyright laws have been so distorted by money from the entertainment industry that there is no longer any public interest in them now?
That's a fucked up point of view there. When someone you care about is affected, will you tell them that it's better that they just die so they don't infect anyone else? Keeping people alive is the best we're able to achieve at the moment. But that's a start. Maybe they'll still be alive when a cure is developed.