Do you suppose they would have bought the album anyway (at current prices)?:-)
I'm certain that not all of them would have, but I'm equally certain that some of them would. For some people, MP3s represent a way to get music that they would never have paid for, for others they represent a way to sample music before they buy it, and for some they represent a way to get music for free instead of paying for it.
Transposing the file or using a IV is essential to preventing known-plaintext attacks.
Maybe I don't fully understand what you're suggesting, but wouldn't that be pretty useless for an open source app since anyone who looked at the source would know you'd transposed the file and adjust their program accordingly?
I don't see how I'm stealing from "artists" when I'm still buying their albums...
You're not. Duh.
But a lot of people (surprise) download songs and then don't buy the albums. That is piracy. And the only way those people would start buying albums instead would be if the cost of an album was worth less to them than the trouble of downloading it.
Re:The public interest is served.
on
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The history is important. It shows that the idea of absolute control and permanent ownership are relatively new ideas that bear little resemblance to the original purpose of copyright.
So basically you're saying the history of copyright is important because it relates (or doesn't relate) to the history of copyright? It still doesn't relate to the larger question of "Should an individual be allowed control of ideas he creates?"
Given that, I think it's time we decide whether we really think that the government should be granting permanent monopolies on information and creative works, nearly all of which will eventually be owned by a corporation of some sort eventually, simply because the creators die.
A monopoly refers to exclusive control by one entity. You can have a monopoly on things you've created, but no one has a monopoly on music, or art, or literature. An analogy can be drawn for physical property: It is OK to have a monopoly on your computer, but not OK to have a monopoly on computers. If it bothers you that your favorite song is owned by someone else, no one is stopping you from writing your own song to listen to instead.
information and creative works, nearly all of which will eventually be owned by a corporation of some sort eventually
I agree with you that in many cases things fall into the vacuum of corporations and never leave. This could be solved in part by putting a time limit on copyrights owned by publicly traded companies, but even then the times would have to vary with each case to be truly fair. Individuals still deserve protection for life and beyond.
Why should the people of this country support it if they will see little to no return for their protection?
Of course you don't understand. You are a leech who contributes nothing. The people of America do not expect anything in return for their protection because they are protecting themselves. Millions of people in America create ideas to share with others, and want those ideas to be protected for a variety of reasons. Some want to make enough money from their ideas to devote their full time to idea creation. Others want to control their ideas and make sure that they are used only in the manner in which they were intended. That's why we support copyright laws. They protect us.
Re:The public interest is served.
on
Napster Wars
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What does it matter why it exists? You base your argument - an argument over a moral point - on the history of copyright law. But the history of copyright law has nothing to do with the morality of control over one's intellectual property. If I only want my music to be heard in a certain way, or by certain people, or not at all, then I should certainly be able to decide that. You have ABSOLUTELY NO MORAL RIGHT to anything anyone else creates. Period. If they decide to allow you to use it in a limited or unlimited fashion, great for you, but don't go thinking you have any right to it.
Domain names need to map (at least somewhat loosely) onto international trademark law so that McDonalds.food and McDonalds.bank don't conflict in any way.
A noble idea, but the only way to achieve it is to completely get rid of the existing structure as you introduce strict regulations. Probably not going to happen.
Re:The public interest is served.
on
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You don't seem to understand that there's more to copyright than just profit. There's also control. If I record a song with the intention that no one be allowed to listen to it except in a special room I've constructed just for that purpose, I should be able to ensure that everyone who listens to it does so in my little room - forever.
Re:You've gotta be kidding...
on
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We can ignore copyrights until it becomes the norm to ignore them and then have the laws changed so that they are once again fair to both sides.
You really don't understand this issue. Of course the law could be changed so that intellectual property would cease to be property, but that would be WRONG. All of the people who work generating intellectual property would not be compensated for their work. A copyright is just a way of acknowledging that the creator of a piece of music, art, or literature should be given control of it. To someone like yourself who has never created anything of value, of course it sounds like a great idea to nullify all copyrights! Great, free stuff for me! But your idea is not only shortsighted and impractical, it's also morally wrong. If a person creates an idea that wasn't there before, that idea should belong to them. You have no right to that idea.
Jesus, I never thought I'd see the day that "geek" was cool, and people would try so desperately to "act like a geek". You're like inverted fratboys. Get over yourselves and stop trying so damned hard.
Hmm... Sounds like somebody's got a touch of I liked it before it was cool so stay the fuck out syndrome. My advice: Wake up and realize that it's "cool" to be a geek now. Just because you got there first doesn't mean you're "the real thing" and other geeks are just "posers". You should shut up and quit whining because right now you sound like a crusty old codger.
While I think the benefits would certainly outweigh the negative aspects of seeing things much more clearly, I agree that there would be certain drawbacks and it would be nice if you could turn it off. Girls look so much prettier when I take off my glasses.
I thought 20/20 just meant that at a distance of 20 feet, an object looks like it's 20 feet away
You are literally correct, but your interpretation is slightly off. What it means is that at 20 feet away, an object looks as clear and sharp as it should for 20 feet away - that is as clear and sharp as a normal person would see it. 30/10 would mean that at 30 feet away you could see things as clearly as a normal person could at 10 feet. Certainly a boost.
This is a perfect example of the danger of assuming that things you make up are correct. Normal is what you get when you test a bunch of people who don't need corrective lenses.
I don't think that's right. Adobe isn't denying that they're working on Photoshop 6, but they don't want everyone to know how advanced it is right now. After all, if you knew that Photoshop 6 existed and was to be released tommorrow, there probably wouldn't be much incentive to buy Photoshop 5.5, would there?
Actually, the truth is that a cartel of companies is maintaining a monopoly and using price fixing to gouge customers.
Nevertheless, they aren't charging more than the market will bear. If they were charging $40,000 for a CD, they probably wouldn't be selling any.
The fact that people would rather download music for free without conscience or guilt rather than pay the prices demanded only supports this.
You are either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid. If the record companies dropped their prices to $1 per CD, people would still continue to download music for free rather than pay for it. In what situation would people not prefer to "download music for free without conscience or guilt"?
Re:You've gotta be kidding...
on
Napster Wars
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So, your point here is that it's OK to steal from artists whose work still belongs to them because some big record companies are trying to extend their copyrights after the artists die?
More importantly than your obvious lack of a point, you seem to believe that all intellectual property should eventually become public domain. Why? What have you, as a member of the public, ever done to earn the right to freely listen to music someone else wrote?
Many things, such as patents that are needed for the good of the country or the world, should certainly be returned to the public domain after a while. But something like music or art, which is used solely for entertainment? Why?
That's absolutely right. But it has nothing to do with Napster.
Cost is not always something that can be measured in dollars. Music has to be written and produced. This takes time - a lot of time - and a lot of hard work. A lot of people love writing and playing music, and even recording it and sharing it with others, but if no one is willing to pay them for it they're probably not going to be able to continue making it.
You've constructed a careful bit of logic so you don't have to feel like you're stealing, but you are. You've never created anything of value. All you've done is taken. You are a leech to society.
If you're going to all the troubles of getting a proprietary and dedicated hardware/software combination, why don't you just get a PC with BeOS ?
Hey, you're right! Geez, why didn't I think of that when I bought my Mac? Everyone who is using a Mac now - or any OS, for that matter - should immediately switch to BeOS! And we should all live in identical houses and do the same job every day! Oh, wait, there could be a problem with that.
Don't be an idiot. The fact that I like to use Mac OS doesn't mean that I want a proprietary operating system, and it certainly doesn't mean I would settle for any (inferior) operating system just because it's proprietary. As it happens I think that in terms of design being proprietary has probably helped Mac OS maintain the system-wide consistency that makes it so easy to use and so pleasant.
I think it's really sad that you place an admittedly better operating system "off limits" solely because "it's proprietary". The whole goal of software not being proprietary is about getting better software in the end right? So if it turns out that the proprietary software that's being developed is actually better, shouldn't you abandon the whole idea and go with what works?
And what do you mean OS X won't run X apps natively?
Don't mistake automation for thought - they aren't the same. Not by a long shot.
Do you think you think? How do you know? Thought is just a very very complex algorythm. There isn't some secret magic box at the center of your brain that houses your conciousness. Your brain is just a computer. A mathematical, information processing computer.
Computers don't exactly think (at least not in the sense in which you use it) yet, but they should. Someday, they will. Even if my computer doesn't actually think about how to execute the loop to open the batch of files, it sure can save me the trouble of thinking about it. Which in terms of my time and trouble, amounts to the same thing.
I think as long as these people still think that the computer is a "thinking machine", we'll have to have dumbed-down UIs, to accomodate the users who don't want to think.
You are completely, utterly incorrect.
A computer is a thinking machine. It computes. The sole reason we build computers is to do some of our thinking for us. If your computers don't think, what do they do?
As for user interfaces, you have your priorities backwards. The goal of a perfect user interface is to allow the user to instruct the computer to accomplish the task the user has in mind with the list interaction. That is, a perfect user interface would know what the user wanted done - and do it - without the user having to instruct it. A good user interface should make it very easy for a stupid user to do simple things, but also relatively easy for a more advanced user to do complex things. Those of us who think of computers as machines to assist us in thinking don't want dumber interfaces; we want smarter interfaces so that we don't have to spend as much time telling them what to do or trying to figure out what they mean when they report back to us.
Mac users: just another arm of the apple marketing machine.
Are you trying to imply that there's something wrong with selecting an operating system you enjoy using? Are you trying to say that we should seek out clumsy, impractical systems that we hate? I knew there must be a reason all those people were using Windows and Linux!
Funny, I own a computer so that it can do some of my work for me. Thinking, however, I prefer to leave to me, as I am much better at it than the computer.
I don't know what kind of work you do, but thinking is just about all most computers can do. They can't build a wall or dig a ditch, they can't drive things from one place to another, and they can't lift heavy objects. A printer can save some work by allowing you to write instead of type, but even that isn't much.
I don't know how quick you are at adding or how fast you can alphabetize a list, but I'd wager your computer can do it faster.
A simple script is a good way to save time and energy (not to mention boredom).
You missed the point. I have a graphical interface so that I don't need a script. Instead of wasting time deciding what scripting language to use and thinking through the logic of a loop, I just select the icons I want opened and double-click one of them. This way the computer has to waste its time figuring out how to do it instead of me having to waste my time.
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Do you suppose they would have bought the album anyway (at current prices)? :-)
I'm certain that not all of them would have, but I'm equally certain that some of them would. For some people, MP3s represent a way to get music that they would never have paid for, for others they represent a way to sample music before they buy it, and for some they represent a way to get music for free instead of paying for it.
Transposing the file or using a IV is essential to preventing known-plaintext attacks.
Maybe I don't fully understand what you're suggesting, but wouldn't that be pretty useless for an open source app since anyone who looked at the source would know you'd transposed the file and adjust their program accordingly?
I don't see how I'm stealing from "artists" when I'm still buying their albums...
You're not. Duh.
But a lot of people (surprise) download songs and then don't buy the albums. That is piracy. And the only way those people would start buying albums instead would be if the cost of an album was worth less to them than the trouble of downloading it.
The history is important. It shows that the idea of absolute control and permanent ownership are relatively new ideas that bear little resemblance to the original purpose of copyright.
So basically you're saying the history of copyright is important because it relates (or doesn't relate) to the history of copyright? It still doesn't relate to the larger question of "Should an individual be allowed control of ideas he creates?"
Given that, I think it's time we decide whether we really think that the government should be granting permanent monopolies on information and creative works, nearly all of which will eventually be owned by a corporation of some sort eventually, simply because the creators die.
A monopoly refers to exclusive control by one entity. You can have a monopoly on things you've created, but no one has a monopoly on music, or art, or literature. An analogy can be drawn for physical property: It is OK to have a monopoly on your computer, but not OK to have a monopoly on computers. If it bothers you that your favorite song is owned by someone else, no one is stopping you from writing your own song to listen to instead.
information and creative works, nearly all of which will eventually be owned by a corporation of some sort eventually
I agree with you that in many cases things fall into the vacuum of corporations and never leave. This could be solved in part by putting a time limit on copyrights owned by publicly traded companies, but even then the times would have to vary with each case to be truly fair. Individuals still deserve protection for life and beyond.
Why should the people of this country support it if they will see little to no return for their protection?
Of course you don't understand. You are a leech who contributes nothing. The people of America do not expect anything in return for their protection because they are protecting themselves. Millions of people in America create ideas to share with others, and want those ideas to be protected for a variety of reasons. Some want to make enough money from their ideas to devote their full time to idea creation. Others want to control their ideas and make sure that they are used only in the manner in which they were intended. That's why we support copyright laws. They protect us.
What does it matter why it exists? You base your argument - an argument over a moral point - on the history of copyright law. But the history of copyright law has nothing to do with the morality of control over one's intellectual property. If I only want my music to be heard in a certain way, or by certain people, or not at all, then I should certainly be able to decide that. You have ABSOLUTELY NO MORAL RIGHT to anything anyone else creates. Period. If they decide to allow you to use it in a limited or unlimited fashion, great for you, but don't go thinking you have any right to it.
"fsck" meaning "fuck" is freaking lame. It's dorky as hell, and just doesn't mesh well.
I think you misunderstood. I am absolutely not in favor of "fsck", but I think the guy who complained was a moron.
maybe im wrong and well have new tdls soon
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What an idiot! You spelled "TLDs" wrong! Ha! You must feel like a moron!
Domain names need to map (at least somewhat loosely) onto international trademark law so that McDonalds.food and McDonalds.bank don't conflict in any way.
A noble idea, but the only way to achieve it is to completely get rid of the existing structure as you introduce strict regulations. Probably not going to happen.
You don't seem to understand that there's more to copyright than just profit. There's also control. If I record a song with the intention that no one be allowed to listen to it except in a special room I've constructed just for that purpose, I should be able to ensure that everyone who listens to it does so in my little room - forever.
We can ignore copyrights until it becomes the norm to ignore them and then have the laws changed so that they are once again fair to both sides.
You really don't understand this issue. Of course the law could be changed so that intellectual property would cease to be property, but that would be WRONG. All of the people who work generating intellectual property would not be compensated for their work. A copyright is just a way of acknowledging that the creator of a piece of music, art, or literature should be given control of it. To someone like yourself who has never created anything of value, of course it sounds like a great idea to nullify all copyrights! Great, free stuff for me! But your idea is not only shortsighted and impractical, it's also morally wrong. If a person creates an idea that wasn't there before, that idea should belong to them. You have no right to that idea.
Jesus, I never thought I'd see the day that "geek" was cool, and people would try so desperately to "act like a geek". You're like inverted fratboys. Get over yourselves and stop trying so damned hard.
Hmm... Sounds like somebody's got a touch of I liked it before it was cool so stay the fuck out syndrome. My advice: Wake up and realize that it's "cool" to be a geek now. Just because you got there first doesn't mean you're "the real thing" and other geeks are just "posers". You should shut up and quit whining because right now you sound like a crusty old codger.
While I think the benefits would certainly outweigh the negative aspects of seeing things much more clearly, I agree that there would be certain drawbacks and it would be nice if you could turn it off. Girls look so much prettier when I take off my glasses.
I thought 20/20 just meant that at a distance of 20 feet, an object looks like it's 20 feet away
You are literally correct, but your interpretation is slightly off. What it means is that at 20 feet away, an object looks as clear and sharp as it should for 20 feet away - that is as clear and sharp as a normal person would see it. 30/10 would mean that at 30 feet away you could see things as clearly as a normal person could at 10 feet. Certainly a boost.
I thought it was 20 point font at 20 feet.
This is a perfect example of the danger of assuming that things you make up are correct. Normal is what you get when you test a bunch of people who don't need corrective lenses.
I don't think that's right. Adobe isn't denying that they're working on Photoshop 6, but they don't want everyone to know how advanced it is right now. After all, if you knew that Photoshop 6 existed and was to be released tommorrow, there probably wouldn't be much incentive to buy Photoshop 5.5, would there?
Actually, the truth is that a cartel of companies is maintaining a monopoly and using price fixing to gouge customers.
Nevertheless, they aren't charging more than the market will bear. If they were charging $40,000 for a CD, they probably wouldn't be selling any.
The fact that people would rather download music for free without conscience or guilt rather than pay the prices demanded only supports this.
You are either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid. If the record companies dropped their prices to $1 per CD, people would still continue to download music for free rather than pay for it. In what situation would people not prefer to "download music for free without conscience or guilt"?
So, your point here is that it's OK to steal from artists whose work still belongs to them because some big record companies are trying to extend their copyrights after the artists die?
More importantly than your obvious lack of a point, you seem to believe that all intellectual property should eventually become public domain. Why? What have you, as a member of the public, ever done to earn the right to freely listen to music someone else wrote?
Many things, such as patents that are needed for the good of the country or the world, should certainly be returned to the public domain after a while. But something like music or art, which is used solely for entertainment? Why?
Without cost, there's no need for payment.
That's absolutely right. But it has nothing to do with Napster.
Cost is not always something that can be measured in dollars. Music has to be written and produced. This takes time - a lot of time - and a lot of hard work. A lot of people love writing and playing music, and even recording it and sharing it with others, but if no one is willing to pay them for it they're probably not going to be able to continue making it.
You've constructed a careful bit of logic so you don't have to feel like you're stealing, but you are. You've never created anything of value. All you've done is taken. You are a leech to society.
This one had me thinking about an idea I've been playing with for a while - a completely configurable UI.
Oh, that's brilliant. A user interface that you have to spend hours and hours customizing before it becomes usable. Everyone will want that.
If you're going to all the troubles of getting a proprietary and dedicated hardware/software combination, why don't you just get a PC with BeOS ?
Hey, you're right! Geez, why didn't I think of that when I bought my Mac? Everyone who is using a Mac now - or any OS, for that matter - should immediately switch to BeOS! And we should all live in identical houses and do the same job every day! Oh, wait, there could be a problem with that.
Don't be an idiot. The fact that I like to use Mac OS doesn't mean that I want a proprietary operating system, and it certainly doesn't mean I would settle for any (inferior) operating system just because it's proprietary. As it happens I think that in terms of design being proprietary has probably helped Mac OS maintain the system-wide consistency that makes it so easy to use and so pleasant.
I think it's really sad that you place an admittedly better operating system "off limits" solely because "it's proprietary". The whole goal of software not being proprietary is about getting better software in the end right? So if it turns out that the proprietary software that's being developed is actually better, shouldn't you abandon the whole idea and go with what works?
And what do you mean OS X won't run X apps natively?
Don't mistake automation for thought - they aren't the same. Not by a long shot.
Do you think you think? How do you know? Thought is just a very very complex algorythm. There isn't some secret magic box at the center of your brain that houses your conciousness. Your brain is just a computer. A mathematical, information processing computer.
Computers don't exactly think (at least not in the sense in which you use it) yet, but they should. Someday, they will. Even if my computer doesn't actually think about how to execute the loop to open the batch of files, it sure can save me the trouble of thinking about it. Which in terms of my time and trouble, amounts to the same thing.
I think as long as these people still think that the computer is a "thinking machine", we'll have to have dumbed-down UIs, to accomodate the users who don't want to think.
You are completely, utterly incorrect.
A computer is a thinking machine. It computes. The sole reason we build computers is to do some of our thinking for us. If your computers don't think, what do they do?
As for user interfaces, you have your priorities backwards. The goal of a perfect user interface is to allow the user to instruct the computer to accomplish the task the user has in mind with the list interaction. That is, a perfect user interface would know what the user wanted done - and do it - without the user having to instruct it. A good user interface should make it very easy for a stupid user to do simple things, but also relatively easy for a more advanced user to do complex things. Those of us who think of computers as machines to assist us in thinking don't want dumber interfaces; we want smarter interfaces so that we don't have to spend as much time telling them what to do or trying to figure out what they mean when they report back to us.
Mac users: just another arm of the apple marketing machine.
Are you trying to imply that there's something wrong with selecting an operating system you enjoy using? Are you trying to say that we should seek out clumsy, impractical systems that we hate? I knew there must be a reason all those people were using Windows and Linux!
Funny, I own a computer so that it can do some of my work for me. Thinking, however, I prefer to leave to me, as I am much better at it than the computer.
I don't know what kind of work you do, but thinking is just about all most computers can do. They can't build a wall or dig a ditch, they can't drive things from one place to another, and they can't lift heavy objects. A printer can save some work by allowing you to write instead of type, but even that isn't much.
I don't know how quick you are at adding or how fast you can alphabetize a list, but I'd wager your computer can do it faster.
A simple script is a good way to save time and energy (not to mention boredom).
You missed the point. I have a graphical interface so that I don't need a script. Instead of wasting time deciding what scripting language to use and thinking through the logic of a loop, I just select the icons I want opened and double-click one of them. This way the computer has to waste its time figuring out how to do it instead of me having to waste my time.