What I'm saying is that there is even less evidence for their argument that Napster is harming record companies and artists than there is for my argument that Napster is helping them. Just trying to prove a point, namely that the comment about P2P users screwing artists over worse than the record labels do is baseless. There is no evidence for it, and in fact, it would be easier to argue the opposite.
I like Open Source and all, but if I _want_ something that I write to be _mine_, then I want it to be mine for my lifetime.
It's not just about what you want. It's about what's in the best interests of the public. Copyright doesn't exist to protect your right to profit indefinitely. In fact, that notion was specifically rejected when the the founding fathers were considering the copyright clause of the Constitution. It exists to ensure that there is some incentive for people to create new works that the public will benefit from having access to. When you can't profit from the same works forever, it creates an incentive to come up with new works. I really don't see any public interest in handing out perpetual or even lifetime copyrights. Additionally, if someone wants to try to sell something that is now public domain, they'll probably have a pretty tiny profit margin, since anyone else can sell the same thing.
Maybe the economy was awesome and people had more $$$ to spend on music?
Maybe. But how do you know? They claim Napster would destroy artists because they couldn't make a profit, yet even at Napster's peak, they were raking in record-breaking profits. I think the evidence supports my argument more than theirs. They have yet to show any real damage resulting from file-swapping. That's kind of like accusing someone of murder when everyone can plainly see that the "victim" is alive and well, and just bought a new BMW.
The rest of this post is off-topic. Ignore it if you like.
Damn...this is like the studies that say "concealed carry laws correspond with periods of decreased crime!"
Completely off-topic, but since you mentioned it.... Concealed carry laws don't correspond so much with "periods of decreased crime" as they do with decreased crime in the town/city/state where concealed carry is legal. Obviously other factors must be taken into account as well, but so far, the evidence is on the side of concealed-carry advocates. From what I've read, it's usually a case of the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to opponents of concealed carry. The papers I've read opposing cc take even less into account than the papers in favor of cc. (Btw, I'm not, nor have I ever been, a gun owner. I have read quite a bit about the issue though.)
Neither does simply allowing the original wrong to stand. I love how the crooks of the world always hold this up as a defense when the hammer is finally about to fall.
Actually, even though it probably won't help a bit, what we should also be doing is protesting to the government to change the damn laws that were obviously paid for by the entertainment industry. Extending copyright until it lasts longer than an average human lifetime just defeats the purpose of the "limited times" clause on copyright. What good is it if Disney and the others can just buy an extension every time their copyrights are about to expire?
Ok, is it better if I screw some little old lady out of her pension by promising her a great return and getting her to sign over her money to me and then pointing out some bit of fine print that allows me to keep all of it, or if I just steal it all out from under her mattress? Which one makes me an asshole? More specifically does one make me a bigger asshole than the other? This also leaves out the part where record sales were climbing greatly during the P2P peak. Maybe those downloading were still buying?
Some of the suggestions are quite good. Others are not so good. If you've read my other posts, you know I firmly believe MS is guilty, but that I also want to see the situation fixed properly. I don't want to see the court or the media distracted by unworkable or absurd suggestions.
-Restriction of Licenceing agreements to "Copyright Only"
Not likely. It would be too restrictive, especially in areas where MS does not posess a monopoly. Let them put what they like in the EULA, as long as they comply with the court's decisions on the important matters.
-Stop all bundleing with the OS. All aplications must be sold as a seperate package, or at least put on a seperate CD.
This has been debated to death. There is no objective way to decide what should be included with the OS and what should be a separate application. This is just unworkable.
Microsoft for a period of 5 years should not be able to invest in/buy out other companies.
I'm not qualified to comment on the legality of this point, but it does seem questionable. Now I know that when a company is split, it can't re-merge for some period of time. But I'd like to hear what others have to say on this issue. What pitfalls are there? Are there any precedents for this?
The price of Windows must be artificialy price capped using a formula like PRICE = COST_OF_PRODUCTION*1.25 This will ensure that the consumer is paying a true "market" price for the product.
Umm... it's not a "true 'market' price" if it's set artificially. Correct the other factors that allow them to price their product artificially high and coerce consumers, and this price-setting will be unnecessary.
Auction the rights to develop each Microsoft product for platforms that Microsoft does not support. Microsoft will then give the winner of each auction full acess to the product's source code under a NDA.
If you make their APIs, protocols, and file formats open, this problem goes away.
No spinnoff of a Microsoft division can be made into a seperate company for the next 3 years.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. Although there should be a clause in the ruling that would make these rules apply to whomever receives transfer of Microsoft "intellectual property." Just so that they can't simply sell Windows off to another corporation without transferring the obligations as well.
After major breakups, the stockholders almost always made more money than before the breakup. The combined value of the two (or more) companies after the breakup is usually more than the value of the original company. Don't cry for the stockholders, they'll make a killing.
It wasn't a good idea for them to hard code the monetary values into the law. The value of money can change significantly over time. Ten million is a drop in the bucket for Microsoft. Of course the jail time sounds interesting.
Actually, it could very well be considered fair use, or at least that's the way the law seems to read. Fair use matters are extremely tricky to work out and courts constantly differ on how to deal with them. Here's a good excerpt from Terry Carroll's copyright FAQ:
3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own use, so I can play it in my car?
This issue has been argued back and forth for many years, with consumers groups arguing that this was a fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), and the recording industry arguing that it was not. The issue was finally settled by Congress when the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (P.L. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. 1001 - 1010) was passed in October 1992. This Act added ten sections to Title 17, one of which provided an alternative to the fair use analysis for musical recordings.
The new section states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. 17 U.S.C. 1008.
As the legislative history to this statute noted, "In short, the reported legislation would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." H.R. Rep. 102-780(I).
Does this mean you can make copies for your family and friends, as long as it's not "commercial?"
A strict reading of the words in the statute
would seem to say that you may. This is not as outrageous as it sounds. Part of the impetus behind the AHRA was the perception that blank tapes were being used mostly to copy commercial musical sound recordings. As a result, the AHRA provided that a royalty payment (referred to as a "DAT tax" by its detractors) be paid for each sale of digital audio tape to compensate authors of musical works and sound recordings for the profits lost due to these copies. See 17 U.S.C. 1003, 1004. Arguably, the AHRA anticipates and allows exactly this type of copying, and a literal reading of section 1008 would tend to support this position. But the AHRA is still sufficiently new this hasn't been tested in court yet.
Note, also, that this section applies only to musical recordings; it clearly does not include spoken word recordings. Of course, it is still
possible that such a use of a spoken word recording might still be considered a section 107 fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), even though
section 1008 does not apply to provide a clear exemption.
It's not that he's fallen for it. This is a mainstream piece, and given the mainstream media's consistent portrayal of hackers as criminals, do you think this makes the EFF look good to most people? Not likely.
Well, regardless of what happens now, informing the judge about the loopholes is still a good thing to do. She will have to write her ruling eventually, and the more she understands about what needs to be covered, the better.
Sounds good to me. I just wish there was some way to translate this into legalese and submit it to the court. Unfortunately, I don't happen to know any lawyers, nor could I afford one right now.
Contempt? Of course. But I prefer to express it in a way that someone who does not yet understand the issues, and therefore does not feel the contempt, would give a second glance to before writing me off as a radical loonie. That's why I was suggesting giving it some structure. Maybe turn it into a FAQ format, or a timeline. If you must keep the images, at least move them off of the front page. Perhaps move them to pages where the user will see them after they've read the portions that will make them understand, if not share the contempt. Basically, try to create a site that doesn't look like a tabloid story, but more like an in-depth, investigative journalism article.
Were the copyrights to the original contributions by various people signed over to Eric somehow? How were they assigned to CRC? Could those contributions still be the property of the contributors? Could they be contributed elsewhere?
Well, I don't think it's necessarily a question of how much deeper, but of how much broader. I think it should be made clearly mandatory that the Win32 API be made public in its entirety. I have heard plenty of claims that parts of it are not available. I don't have the requisite knowledge to investigate those claims myself though. Additionally, if other applications are to be able to interact with Microsoft's OS and attending applications, then the file formats must be publicly available as well. That's the key thing. Star Office can't operate on MS Word files effectively unless they know how the files are structured. I've heard claims that the available file format documentation is not complete. As long as anyone who finds that there is something missing from the documentation has some recourse in obtaining the missing information in a timely manner, that should be satisfactory.
Finally there are the protocols. Now, since Microsoft is now planning to leverage their OS domination into Internet transaction domination, I think it should be made mandatory that the.NET protocols be available, in their entirety, as well. Otherwise we end up with Microsoft having a monopoly in yet another area. That would be highly counter-productive, and would make the entire legal battle a huge waste of taxpayer money. Oh yeah, 5 years is too short of a time too. The remedies should be maintained for at least 10 years if they are to have any real effect on the market. Microsoft has dominated and abused their monopoly for a long time now. We need to make sure that the remedy alows for a sufficient amount of time for the recovery to take place.
That's what the remedy should be accomplishing, but you and others keep throwing up objections that Microsoft shouldn't be prohibited from doing what others are able to do, despite the fact that anti-trust law specifically allows such actions for the very purpose of removing monopoly power from the offending corporation.
I happen to agree that divesting XBox and certain other parts is irrelevant to anything in the case. However, open APIs are quite relevant, as these are the main obstacle to open interoperability in the OS market. Microsoft HAS a monopoly, and HAS abused it. That much was proven by the DOJ. There need to be viable remedies proposed, not just another stupid consent decree with holes big enough to drive a truck through, AGAIN! We tried that route last time. It didn't work at all. Why should we try the same thing that didn't work before? If you're going to make a decree, you need to make damn sure they won't be able to ignore it, and that it will accomplish the goal of ensuring competition in the relevant market(s).
The major remedies I would propose are the publication of prices for OEMs, and regulations to prevent Microsoft from interfering with OEMs that want to add software and/or change the system configuration in any way that doesn't violate existing copyright or trademark laws. This should remove Microsoft's ability to strongarm OEMs.
Second, I would propose that all protocols, file formats, and APIs be fully documented and that that documentation be made publicly available in a timely manner whenever there are changes to any of the above. Since Microsoft's formats and OS are the defacto standard now in many cases, this should allow competition in both the OS and applications arenas (which is definitely justified given Microsoft's stance, and the DOJ's seeming capitulation, that they should be allowed to incorporate anything and everything into the OS if they so choose).
Tone down the website a bit. Make reasoned, rational arguments and lay off the silly imagery. It's childish and nobody with any credibility whatsoever will take you seriously. Add some structure to it. Get rid of the huge, goofy fonts. If you clean it up, it might be something that I would recommend to others.
You want unfettered capitalism? Ok. Let's remove the legal protection of incorporation. Let's remove corporate welfare entirely. Let's remove government oversight and regulation departments. You getting the picture? Now go talk to the people running the corporations in this country and ask them if they really want unfettered capitalism. I guarantee they don't. It would get very ugly very quickly, and we would all suffer for it.
Slashdot Mirror
There are LOTS of people who have made similar choices
Same problem here as with the article... evidence please?
What I'm saying is that there is even less evidence for their argument that Napster is harming record companies and artists than there is for my argument that Napster is helping them. Just trying to prove a point, namely that the comment about P2P users screwing artists over worse than the record labels do is baseless. There is no evidence for it, and in fact, it would be easier to argue the opposite.
I like Open Source and all, but if I _want_ something that I write to be _mine_, then I want it to be mine for my lifetime.
It's not just about what you want. It's about what's in the best interests of the public. Copyright doesn't exist to protect your right to profit indefinitely. In fact, that notion was specifically rejected when the the founding fathers were considering the copyright clause of the Constitution. It exists to ensure that there is some incentive for people to create new works that the public will benefit from having access to. When you can't profit from the same works forever, it creates an incentive to come up with new works. I really don't see any public interest in handing out perpetual or even lifetime copyrights. Additionally, if someone wants to try to sell something that is now public domain, they'll probably have a pretty tiny profit margin, since anyone else can sell the same thing.
Maybe the economy was awesome and people had more $$$ to spend on music?
Maybe. But how do you know? They claim Napster would destroy artists because they couldn't make a profit, yet even at Napster's peak, they were raking in record-breaking profits. I think the evidence supports my argument more than theirs. They have yet to show any real damage resulting from file-swapping. That's kind of like accusing someone of murder when everyone can plainly see that the "victim" is alive and well, and just bought a new BMW.
The rest of this post is off-topic. Ignore it if you like.
Damn...this is like the studies that say "concealed carry laws correspond with periods of decreased crime!"
Completely off-topic, but since you mentioned it.... Concealed carry laws don't correspond so much with "periods of decreased crime" as they do with decreased crime in the town/city/state where concealed carry is legal. Obviously other factors must be taken into account as well, but so far, the evidence is on the side of concealed-carry advocates. From what I've read, it's usually a case of the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to opponents of concealed carry. The papers I've read opposing cc take even less into account than the papers in favor of cc. (Btw, I'm not, nor have I ever been, a gun owner. I have read quite a bit about the issue though.)
Two wrongs dont make a right.
Neither does simply allowing the original wrong to stand. I love how the crooks of the world always hold this up as a defense when the hammer is finally about to fall.
Actually, even though it probably won't help a bit, what we should also be doing is protesting to the government to change the damn laws that were obviously paid for by the entertainment industry. Extending copyright until it lasts longer than an average human lifetime just defeats the purpose of the "limited times" clause on copyright. What good is it if Disney and the others can just buy an extension every time their copyrights are about to expire?
Ok, is it better if I screw some little old lady out of her pension by promising her a great return and getting her to sign over her money to me and then pointing out some bit of fine print that allows me to keep all of it, or if I just steal it all out from under her mattress? Which one makes me an asshole? More specifically does one make me a bigger asshole than the other? This also leaves out the part where record sales were climbing greatly during the P2P peak. Maybe those downloading were still buying?
Some of the suggestions are quite good. Others are not so good. If you've read my other posts, you know I firmly believe MS is guilty, but that I also want to see the situation fixed properly. I don't want to see the court or the media distracted by unworkable or absurd suggestions.
-Restriction of Licenceing agreements to "Copyright Only"
Not likely. It would be too restrictive, especially in areas where MS does not posess a monopoly. Let them put what they like in the EULA, as long as they comply with the court's decisions on the important matters.
-Stop all bundleing with the OS. All aplications must be sold as a seperate package, or at least put on a seperate CD.
This has been debated to death. There is no objective way to decide what should be included with the OS and what should be a separate application. This is just unworkable.
Microsoft for a period of 5 years should not be able to invest in/buy out other companies.
I'm not qualified to comment on the legality of this point, but it does seem questionable. Now I know that when a company is split, it can't re-merge for some period of time. But I'd like to hear what others have to say on this issue. What pitfalls are there? Are there any precedents for this?
The price of Windows must be artificialy price capped using a formula like PRICE = COST_OF_PRODUCTION*1.25 This will ensure that the consumer is paying a true "market" price for the product.
Umm... it's not a "true 'market' price" if it's set artificially. Correct the other factors that allow them to price their product artificially high and coerce consumers, and this price-setting will be unnecessary.
Auction the rights to develop each Microsoft product for platforms that Microsoft does not support. Microsoft will then give the winner of each auction full acess to the product's source code under a NDA.
If you make their APIs, protocols, and file formats open, this problem goes away.
No spinnoff of a Microsoft division can be made into a seperate company for the next 3 years.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. Although there should be a clause in the ruling that would make these rules apply to whomever receives transfer of Microsoft "intellectual property." Just so that they can't simply sell Windows off to another corporation without transferring the obligations as well.
After major breakups, the stockholders almost always made more money than before the breakup. The combined value of the two (or more) companies after the breakup is usually more than the value of the original company. Don't cry for the stockholders, they'll make a killing.
It wasn't a good idea for them to hard code the monetary values into the law. The value of money can change significantly over time. Ten million is a drop in the bucket for Microsoft. Of course the jail time sounds interesting.
Thus, there's at least some financial gain, justifying the term "piracy"
Justifying it in some cases perhaps, but certainly not for the blanket accusations made by the RIAA.
Actually, it could very well be considered fair use, or at least that's the way the law seems to read. Fair use matters are extremely tricky to work out and courts constantly differ on how to deal with them. Here's a good excerpt from Terry Carroll's copyright FAQ:
3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own use, so I can play it in my car?
This issue has been argued back and forth for many years, with consumers groups arguing that this was a fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), and the recording industry arguing that it was not. The issue was finally settled by Congress when the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (P.L. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. 1001 - 1010) was passed in October 1992. This Act added ten sections to Title 17, one of which provided an alternative to the fair use analysis for musical recordings.
The new section states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. 17 U.S.C. 1008.
As the legislative history to this statute noted, "In short, the reported legislation would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." H.R. Rep. 102-780(I).
Does this mean you can make copies for your family and friends, as long as it's not "commercial?"
A strict reading of the words in the statute
would seem to say that you may. This is not as outrageous as it sounds. Part of the impetus behind the AHRA was the perception that blank tapes were being used mostly to copy commercial musical sound recordings. As a result, the AHRA provided that a royalty payment (referred to as a "DAT tax" by its detractors) be paid for each sale of digital audio tape to compensate authors of musical works and sound recordings for the profits lost due to these copies. See 17 U.S.C. 1003, 1004. Arguably, the AHRA anticipates and allows exactly this type of copying, and a literal reading of section 1008 would tend to support this position. But the AHRA is still sufficiently new this hasn't been tested in court yet.
Note, also, that this section applies only to musical recordings; it clearly does not include spoken word recordings. Of course, it is still
possible that such a use of a spoken word recording might still be considered a section 107 fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), even though
section 1008 does not apply to provide a clear exemption.
It's not that he's fallen for it. This is a mainstream piece, and given the mainstream media's consistent portrayal of hackers as criminals, do you think this makes the EFF look good to most people? Not likely.
They don't, but we'd better hope that the court does.
Well, regardless of what happens now, informing the judge about the loopholes is still a good thing to do. She will have to write her ruling eventually, and the more she understands about what needs to be covered, the better.
Sounds good to me. I just wish there was some way to translate this into legalese and submit it to the court. Unfortunately, I don't happen to know any lawyers, nor could I afford one right now.
Contempt? Of course. But I prefer to express it in a way that someone who does not yet understand the issues, and therefore does not feel the contempt, would give a second glance to before writing me off as a radical loonie. That's why I was suggesting giving it some structure. Maybe turn it into a FAQ format, or a timeline. If you must keep the images, at least move them off of the front page. Perhaps move them to pages where the user will see them after they've read the portions that will make them understand, if not share the contempt. Basically, try to create a site that doesn't look like a tabloid story, but more like an in-depth, investigative journalism article.
Were the copyrights to the original contributions by various people signed over to Eric somehow? How were they assigned to CRC? Could those contributions still be the property of the contributors? Could they be contributed elsewhere?
Well, I don't think it's necessarily a question of how much deeper, but of how much broader. I think it should be made clearly mandatory that the Win32 API be made public in its entirety. I have heard plenty of claims that parts of it are not available. I don't have the requisite knowledge to investigate those claims myself though. Additionally, if other applications are to be able to interact with Microsoft's OS and attending applications, then the file formats must be publicly available as well. That's the key thing. Star Office can't operate on MS Word files effectively unless they know how the files are structured. I've heard claims that the available file format documentation is not complete. As long as anyone who finds that there is something missing from the documentation has some recourse in obtaining the missing information in a timely manner, that should be satisfactory.
Finally there are the protocols. Now, since Microsoft is now planning to leverage their OS domination into Internet transaction domination, I think it should be made mandatory that the .NET protocols be available, in their entirety, as well. Otherwise we end up with Microsoft having a monopoly in yet another area. That would be highly counter-productive, and would make the entire legal battle a huge waste of taxpayer money. Oh yeah, 5 years is too short of a time too. The remedies should be maintained for at least 10 years if they are to have any real effect on the market. Microsoft has dominated and abused their monopoly for a long time now. We need to make sure that the remedy alows for a sufficient amount of time for the recovery to take place.
I wonder what would have happened to the DOJ's budget next year if they didn't cave in quickly on the MS settlement.
Actually, just being "no worse off" would imply that the solution was probably inneffectual, given that Microsoft was (is) abusing their monopoly.
That's what the remedy should be accomplishing, but you and others keep throwing up objections that Microsoft shouldn't be prohibited from doing what others are able to do, despite the fact that anti-trust law specifically allows such actions for the very purpose of removing monopoly power from the offending corporation.
I happen to agree that divesting XBox and certain other parts is irrelevant to anything in the case. However, open APIs are quite relevant, as these are the main obstacle to open interoperability in the OS market. Microsoft HAS a monopoly, and HAS abused it. That much was proven by the DOJ. There need to be viable remedies proposed, not just another stupid consent decree with holes big enough to drive a truck through, AGAIN! We tried that route last time. It didn't work at all. Why should we try the same thing that didn't work before? If you're going to make a decree, you need to make damn sure they won't be able to ignore it, and that it will accomplish the goal of ensuring competition in the relevant market(s).
The major remedies I would propose are the publication of prices for OEMs, and regulations to prevent Microsoft from interfering with OEMs that want to add software and/or change the system configuration in any way that doesn't violate existing copyright or trademark laws. This should remove Microsoft's ability to strongarm OEMs.
Second, I would propose that all protocols, file formats, and APIs be fully documented and that that documentation be made publicly available in a timely manner whenever there are changes to any of the above. Since Microsoft's formats and OS are the defacto standard now in many cases, this should allow competition in both the OS and applications arenas (which is definitely justified given Microsoft's stance, and the DOJ's seeming capitulation, that they should be allowed to incorporate anything and everything into the OS if they so choose).
Tone down the website a bit. Make reasoned, rational arguments and lay off the silly imagery. It's childish and nobody with any credibility whatsoever will take you seriously. Add some structure to it. Get rid of the huge, goofy fonts. If you clean it up, it might be something that I would recommend to others.
You want unfettered capitalism? Ok. Let's remove the legal protection of incorporation. Let's remove corporate welfare entirely. Let's remove government oversight and regulation departments. You getting the picture? Now go talk to the people running the corporations in this country and ask them if they really want unfettered capitalism. I guarantee they don't. It would get very ugly very quickly, and we would all suffer for it.
If it weren't for the government (i.e. the public), there would be no such thing as a corporation.