not because i say so out of some "information wants to be free man" bullshit, but because the tollbooths you seek to build are simply impossible to enforce. in pther words, i am not describing an alternative ideology to you, i am describing simple reality that pre-internet culture and laws that have to do with policing now defunct distribution media need to catch up to
I think your understanding of the phrase "information wants to be free" is a little incorrect.
It was never about what information wants - it was a way of characterizing a natural tendency of information in an economic sense. It "wants to be expensive" because of the investment that goes into creating that information. It "wants to be free" because, as you say, the costs of distribution and copying are practically zero.
adapt to the new reality, or die
It's not quite that simple. The "new reality" is decided by people. The nature of the internet is not guaranteed to remain the same ten years from now - and with money at stake, I think you will find, ultimately, that the internet can be "policed" by people seeking to protect their copyrights.
Basically, I think your position isn't quite sound enough to consider it a "reality" that these old, antiquated media companies must "adapt to..., or die". These companies have a stake in the future, too, and the resources to impact the course the internet takes in the future. There is already a fight going on to determine this course... The inherently free nature of the internet you believe in is by no means assured.
meanwhile i can give you copy of the movie avatar. the simple pattern of bits that make up the movie rquires no real world involvement, the bits can be enjoyed in and of themselves on a computer monitor. this is a different kind of "intellectual property" because the idea itself is also the product
Suppose it weren't an actual copy of the film "Avatar" - let's say it was just the script.
Now, as people seem to be very fond of pointing out - there's not a lot to it. Basic premise, rehashed story, Mulan/Ferngully/yada yada. What makes the movie is its presentation... The quality of the graphics and how well they're animated, the voice, sound, and music work, and so on. All of these things together represent a tremendous amount of "real world" work, and it's that real world work that's made this "simple" pattern of bits valuable. That sequence of bits could have been pounded out on the keyboard by monkeys, by random chance - but the point is, it wasn't.
There are other ways the same story could be presented - a talented storyteller could make it into a good campfire story, people could perform it onstage, it could be a musical - whatever - but the point is that in any case, that basic idea isn't good for much without all that work that goes into the presentation.
In other words, it isn't the idea that's the product, it's the product that's the product. The only difference is how convenient it is to replicate the product.
Put it the other way: ripping off someone else's motor design requires a bit of effort, expertise, and money. Not as much as making a new motor design, but enough to fit your argument that this is a fundamentally "real world" thing. So why should that idea then get extra protection that other ideas don't? What's the justification?
anything in the real world can, and should be controlled
anything in cyberspace cannot, and should not
Regardless of how I feel about that issue, the point of my post was to clarify someone else's point, which you seemed to be having trouble understanding.
But personally I think that your distinction is a little silly. "cyberspace" vs. "meatspace"? What's the difference?
Basically, what is patented or copyrighted in any case is an idea. It's not the new type of electric motor that gets patented, it's the idea for how it works. But information, once known, can be passed freely. Protecting ideas on the basis of who came up with them is entirely an artificial construct. This doesn't really speak to whether that's a good thing (water and sewer systems, for instance, are also "artificial constructs", with benefits and, I expect, disadvantages...) - just that the distinction between "cyberspace ideas" and "meatspace ideas" is meaningless. It's all just ideas.
additionally i don't know what you mean by "re-re-release it in other digital houses at discount rates"
The basic question is this:
If movie theaters had had the option of buying and showing inexpensive, high-quality bootleg copies of "Avatar" instead of getting the movie through the normal channels, wouldn't that have impacted the movie's profits?
Under current laws this can't work because the theaters in question would pretty likely get nailed to the wall by lawsuits. But if "video piracy" were fully legitimized, the theaters could show whatever they like...
So I think there is a pretty good argument that removing the "intellectual property" protections would prevent people from making profitable massive-budget blockbuster films... Any single target that large would become victim to "piracy".
My personal theory about how something like this would play out is that it would result in diversification of our culture. Huge film budgets would cease to be profitable, so films would be made on more modest budgets - and the number of films would increase. Smaller studios would then have greater access to theaters. I don't know if this is really how it would play out, but it seems like an interesting possibility to me.
Then I think that should be the beginning and end of your advice about parenting.
Hmmm, Are you saying we can no longer learn by observing? Are you saying that we should not pass on info on things we have learned by observing?
That's the thing, you don't gain expertise by observing. You learn by doing. It's easy to be the "armchair quarterback", but if you're not in it yourself, you're not in a position to say what is and isn't a good idea when parenting.
And, actually, someone else mentioned Uwe Boll - I do think this applies to movie directors, too. Not that I feel much sympathy for them when I spend $20+ to see a load of cinematic garbage, but if you're not a filmmaker yourself, you're really not qualified to give advice on film-making.
"Could it be that Linux may soon support this Microsoft API better than Microsoft itself?"
Yes. It seems very likely to me that an open-source implementation of a Microsoft API, and implementation "in its infancy", will soon surpass Microsoft's own offering.
I mean, if you're comparing DX11 support on Linux to DX11 support on XP - well, some support is better than none, right? So, OK, sure.
This story is a complete fantasy. Pratchett has advanced Alzheimer
No, he's got a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's; it's still in it's relatively early stages so he's still quite in control of all his faculties & capable of making a sword - as evidenced by the fact that he had not one, but two books published this very year.
Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that publishing a book was an adequate demonstration of sword-making skill...
Partly correct. The Gladius was favoured by the Legions because it was short enough for the scabbard to be hung on the same side as the wielding hand. This prevents the act of drawing the sword from taking any more room than one man standing upright, maintaining their tight shield wall formation.
Clever buggers, they were.
It's not that they were clever, so much, as the fact that they'd learned from their mistakes.
Prior to adopting the shorter swords, there was a fair chance that each man drawing his sword in the shield wall formation would kill the man to his left... And so the entire formation could be reduced to one man in the space of seconds. This only happened eight or nine times before they decided to rethink their approach.
First rule of making a team of this kind: You don't need a demolitions expert.
I know, you'd think any kind of team like this would need a demo man, but in fact, at least 80% of the time, high explosives are not the correct answer to your IT woes. This is the voice of experience talking.
"I pity the foo' who doesn't encrypt his wireless network with WPA2!"
"I pity the fool" wasn't a B.A. Baracus line. At least, I watched a bunch of the old shows and as far as I know he never said it. It was from Rocky 3. "I don't hate Balboa. I pity the fool."
So Intel is threatening the DMCA, using the ominous threat of the HDCP crack... Got it.
"Intel is apparently threatening to use the DMCA against anyone using the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause."
OK, I see where I went wrong... They're threatening to use the DMCA as a threat... They want to identify the people who are using the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause and threaten them with the DMCA. Got it.
Though it does seem a bit strange that people would be able to use the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause in the first place...
maybe it's not a Republicrat vs Democrin argument, I hate both Kodos AND Krang
Krang is the Evil Brain from Dimension X, the degenerate cartoon counterpart of the TCRI/Utroms, master of the Technodrome, and the Evil Shredder's financier. Kang is the counterpart of Kodos, the aliens on The Simpsons who were named after Klingons.
Dalek's don't navigate stairs. They level the building.
Actually, Daleks were making their way up stairs as early as 1965. In "The Chase" they landed on the Mary Celeste at sea - on the main deck. They didn't show the Daleks climbing the stairs, but somehow one wound up on top of the Poop Deck a short while later...
So even though the "Daleks don't climb stairs" thing has been a popular Doctor Who meme over the years, even used in the show, and specifically debunked, first in the Seventh Doctor era and then later with the Ninth... Most of the time it wasn't true.:)
Slashdot Mirror
This is good for when info about aliens goes public - In the mean time, first contact will continue to be conducted under the auspices of UNIT...
not because i say so out of some "information wants to be free man" bullshit, but because the tollbooths you seek to build are simply impossible to enforce. in pther words, i am not describing an alternative ideology to you, i am describing simple reality that pre-internet culture and laws that have to do with policing now defunct distribution media need to catch up to
I think your understanding of the phrase "information wants to be free" is a little incorrect.
It was never about what information wants - it was a way of characterizing a natural tendency of information in an economic sense. It "wants to be expensive" because of the investment that goes into creating that information. It "wants to be free" because, as you say, the costs of distribution and copying are practically zero.
adapt to the new reality, or die
It's not quite that simple. The "new reality" is decided by people. The nature of the internet is not guaranteed to remain the same ten years from now - and with money at stake, I think you will find, ultimately, that the internet can be "policed" by people seeking to protect their copyrights.
Basically, I think your position isn't quite sound enough to consider it a "reality" that these old, antiquated media companies must "adapt to..., or die". These companies have a stake in the future, too, and the resources to impact the course the internet takes in the future. There is already a fight going on to determine this course... The inherently free nature of the internet you believe in is by no means assured.
meanwhile i can give you copy of the movie avatar. the simple pattern of bits that make up the movie rquires no real world involvement, the bits can be enjoyed in and of themselves on a computer monitor. this is a different kind of "intellectual property" because the idea itself is also the product
Suppose it weren't an actual copy of the film "Avatar" - let's say it was just the script.
Now, as people seem to be very fond of pointing out - there's not a lot to it. Basic premise, rehashed story, Mulan/Ferngully/yada yada. What makes the movie is its presentation... The quality of the graphics and how well they're animated, the voice, sound, and music work, and so on. All of these things together represent a tremendous amount of "real world" work, and it's that real world work that's made this "simple" pattern of bits valuable. That sequence of bits could have been pounded out on the keyboard by monkeys, by random chance - but the point is, it wasn't.
There are other ways the same story could be presented - a talented storyteller could make it into a good campfire story, people could perform it onstage, it could be a musical - whatever - but the point is that in any case, that basic idea isn't good for much without all that work that goes into the presentation.
In other words, it isn't the idea that's the product, it's the product that's the product. The only difference is how convenient it is to replicate the product.
Put it the other way: ripping off someone else's motor design requires a bit of effort, expertise, and money. Not as much as making a new motor design, but enough to fit your argument that this is a fundamentally "real world" thing. So why should that idea then get extra protection that other ideas don't? What's the justification?
cyberspace is not meatspace
anything in the real world can, and should be controlled
anything in cyberspace cannot, and should not
Regardless of how I feel about that issue, the point of my post was to clarify someone else's point, which you seemed to be having trouble understanding.
But personally I think that your distinction is a little silly. "cyberspace" vs. "meatspace"? What's the difference?
Basically, what is patented or copyrighted in any case is an idea. It's not the new type of electric motor that gets patented, it's the idea for how it works. But information, once known, can be passed freely. Protecting ideas on the basis of who came up with them is entirely an artificial construct. This doesn't really speak to whether that's a good thing (water and sewer systems, for instance, are also "artificial constructs", with benefits and, I expect, disadvantages...) - just that the distinction between "cyberspace ideas" and "meatspace ideas" is meaningless. It's all just ideas.
additionally i don't know what you mean by "re-re-release it in other digital houses at discount rates"
The basic question is this:
If movie theaters had had the option of buying and showing inexpensive, high-quality bootleg copies of "Avatar" instead of getting the movie through the normal channels, wouldn't that have impacted the movie's profits?
Under current laws this can't work because the theaters in question would pretty likely get nailed to the wall by lawsuits. But if "video piracy" were fully legitimized, the theaters could show whatever they like...
So I think there is a pretty good argument that removing the "intellectual property" protections would prevent people from making profitable massive-budget blockbuster films... Any single target that large would become victim to "piracy".
My personal theory about how something like this would play out is that it would result in diversification of our culture. Huge film budgets would cease to be profitable, so films would be made on more modest budgets - and the number of films would increase. Smaller studios would then have greater access to theaters. I don't know if this is really how it would play out, but it seems like an interesting possibility to me.
No, not like the bugs on your arm because those bugs don't exist.
Interesting. Not knowing the fellow myself I wasn't prepared to assume he didn't actually have bugs crawling on his arm...
Hmmm, Are you saying we can no longer learn by observing?
Are you saying that we should not pass on info on things we have learned by observing?
That's the thing, you don't gain expertise by observing. You learn by doing. It's easy to be the "armchair quarterback", but if you're not in it yourself, you're not in a position to say what is and isn't a good idea when parenting.
And, actually, someone else mentioned Uwe Boll - I do think this applies to movie directors, too. Not that I feel much sympathy for them when I spend $20+ to see a load of cinematic garbage, but if you're not a filmmaker yourself, you're really not qualified to give advice on film-making.
Then I think that should be the beginning and end of your advice about cool.
But it's not: we can't forget the fez!
Fezzes are cool.
Look at you, with your head full of eyeballs...
"Could it be that Linux may soon support this Microsoft API better than Microsoft itself?"
Yes. It seems very likely to me that an open-source implementation of a Microsoft API, and implementation "in its infancy", will soon surpass Microsoft's own offering.
I mean, if you're comparing DX11 support on Linux to DX11 support on XP - well, some support is better than none, right? So, OK, sure.
I'm not a parent
Then I think that should be the beginning and end of your advice about parenting.
He didn't make the sword; He contacted a swordsmith. He did smelt the unrefined ore into bars himself, though
He who smelt it, dealt it...
This story is a complete fantasy. Pratchett has advanced Alzheimer
No, he's got a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's; it's still in it's relatively early stages so he's still quite in control of all his faculties & capable of making a sword - as evidenced by the fact that he had not one, but two books published this very year.
Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that publishing a book was an adequate demonstration of sword-making skill...
Partly correct. The Gladius was favoured by the Legions because it was short enough for the scabbard to be hung on the same side as the wielding hand. This prevents the act of drawing the sword from taking any more room than one man standing upright, maintaining their tight shield wall formation.
Clever buggers, they were.
It's not that they were clever, so much, as the fact that they'd learned from their mistakes.
Prior to adopting the shorter swords, there was a fair chance that each man drawing his sword in the shield wall formation would kill the man to his left... And so the entire formation could be reduced to one man in the space of seconds. This only happened eight or nine times before they decided to rethink their approach.
First rule of making a team of this kind: You don't need a demolitions expert.
I know, you'd think any kind of team like this would need a demo man, but in fact, at least 80% of the time, high explosives are not the correct answer to your IT woes. This is the voice of experience talking.
"I pity the foo' who doesn't encrypt his wireless network with WPA2!"
"I pity the fool" wasn't a B.A. Baracus line. At least, I watched a bunch of the old shows and as far as I know he never said it. It was from Rocky 3. "I don't hate Balboa. I pity the fool."
I thought racism was over :(
Ever been to 4chan?
Badgers? Badgers?
Mushroom! Mushroom!
Kang was a Klingon, but Kodos was a leader of a Federation colony who sent thousands to their death.
Aw, dang... I blew it! :)
"Intel Threatens DMCA Using HDCP Crack"
So Intel is threatening the DMCA, using the ominous threat of the HDCP crack... Got it.
"Intel is apparently threatening to use the DMCA against anyone using the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause."
OK, I see where I went wrong... They're threatening to use the DMCA as a threat... They want to identify the people who are using the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause and threaten them with the DMCA. Got it.
Though it does seem a bit strange that people would be able to use the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause in the first place...
RABBLE!
RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!
Nice... XD
God-damn motherfucking lameness filter. I am not the one who used "so many caps"...
/. needs a "+1: Fact-based Ownage" mod for posts like this.
In theory that's what "Informative" should mean - but I think "Fact-based Ownage" sounds a lot more fun. :)
maybe it's not a Republicrat vs Democrin argument, I hate both Kodos AND Krang
Krang is the Evil Brain from Dimension X, the degenerate cartoon counterpart of the TCRI/Utroms, master of the Technodrome, and the Evil Shredder's financier.
Kang is the counterpart of Kodos, the aliens on The Simpsons who were named after Klingons.
Dalek's don't navigate stairs. They level the building.
Actually, Daleks were making their way up stairs as early as 1965. In "The Chase" they landed on the Mary Celeste at sea - on the main deck. They didn't show the Daleks climbing the stairs, but somehow one wound up on top of the Poop Deck a short while later...
So even though the "Daleks don't climb stairs" thing has been a popular Doctor Who meme over the years, even used in the show, and specifically debunked, first in the Seventh Doctor era and then later with the Ninth... Most of the time it wasn't true. :)
That man in the golden suit just takes things too far, I tell you! But he's sly like a fox...