I am writing in regards to your decision to withdraw permission for the release of the fan-created film Damnatus, based on your Warhammer 40,000 universe. While I understand the economic necessity of protecting your intellectual property, I also have a difficult time believing there is no acceptable license under which it is possible for a group of such obviously dedicated fans to release a work that has been four years in the making - moreover, four years during which the makers had your approval.
I will admit, though I have fond memories of playing Necromunda and Blood Bowl, and while I dabbled briefly in Battlefleet: Gothic, I have not involved myself to any degree in Warhammer 40,000. However, even as a largely non-fan, the Damnatus project (which I only learned of recently) had piqued my interest enough to begin dusting off my Battlefleet: Gothic miniatures. This move on your part, however, has sapped my enthusiasm.
Prior to this, I was at worst a disinterested party, respectful of the pastime you sell. Given this behavior, however, I have switched from disinterested to evangelically negative. While I will not claim to speak for dozens of people, I can assure you that my gaming group will not be purchasing any of your materials. In addition, I have already secured permission from one of my local gaming stores to post a flyer describing the situation.
From my point of view, what could have been a positive publicity event for you - even if a relatively minor one - has been transformed into an episode which will generate nothing but distrust, resentment, and disappointment among the very people you depend on most: the dedicated fans of your games, your miniatures, and your universe.
Warhammer is a tabletop - ie, using miniatures - tactical war game with role-playing elements. Rather than using a hex map or other grid, all line-of-sight and range measurements are actually taken relative to the actual analog position and facing of the miniatures. The business proposition from Games Workshop is that they sell you the rulebooks for the game. The rules include provisions requiring you to purchase Games Workshop miniatures (eg, if the miniature on the table doesn't have a boltgun in its hand, the character it represents also doesn't have a boltgun in its hand); GW is, first and foremost, a seller of miniatures. Warhammer as a universe encompasses several different game systems and miniature series: Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Battlefleet: Gothic, and Necromunda all spring to mind, though I believe there are others.
In my opinion, the game aspect of it is particularly shallow in comparison to most other similar games (tabletop tactical), with odd and limiting provisions such as only being allowed to fire at the nearest enemy.
One way to look at it is that Games Workshop is the grown up (that is, expensive) version of playing with toy soldiers: you collect your toy soldiers, then get to use them in a game structure.
(Note: I completely understand the attraction of buying and painting miniatures, building up huge collections of them, and getting enjoyment out of deploying them in a structured game format; I don't mean to disparage it as a hobby. I, personally, prefer the game to be more involving than the game pieces, but I'm not much of a collector.)
Well, congrats to GW for taking my general disinterest for their products and elevating it to actual dislike of their organization.
Ignoring my personal purchasing decisions, though, this is still stupid. I mean, it's not like Games Workshop actually sells games. They sell miniatures. They encourage purchase of the miniatures with something like a game structure (so it's a little more advanced than playing with toy soldiers...but not much more advanced than the games I invented for my various little figures when I was 10. Except for Blood Bowl, of course. That game is two shots of high-proof awesome.) that requires you to buy more miniatures if you want to play by the rules and an (admittedly) pretty compelling universe to set your encounters in.
I would, in fact, make the case that the universe is more important to their income than the "games" are. I know plenty of people who play Warhammer with pretty major departures from the rules, but I don't know anyone who plays Warhammer without Orcs.
So when presented with an opportunity to, at no cost, generate fan excitement and greater exposure, you'd think the smart thing to do would be to run with it as far as possible. Squelching it - moreover, squelching it in a way that makes you look like a bully, an ingrate, and general underdog-trampler - would seem to be the worst thing you could do.
I mean, aside from kicking puppies and smogging out rainbows.
(As an aside: the bright spot in all this is, should some miracle of rationality prevail, and GW manage to figure out that blocking this is a bad move, it should generate plenty of publicity for the project)
You can't separate the software from the hardware and get an answer that's very meaningful
I take your point in general, but this statement is somewhat misleading. While you can't separate software from hardware entirely, you can be in a situation where you have a given supply of hardware, and need to know how best to use it - which amounts to much the same thing.
In that situation, knowing how each piece of software performs on a specific platform may be excellent information for you to have.
Oh, I agree. A benchmark of whole systems can be just as (or more) useful as a benchmark of individual pieces of software, depending on what your goals are.
But what's been presented here isn't even that. Links #1 takes us to a SPEC benchmark of PostgreSQL. It doesn't provide any information about anything else; there isn't anything to compare the benchmark to. Link #2 provides an unreferenced statement about Oracle's marginally superior performance on much more expensive equipment.
So, perhaps, one can begin to draw conclusions about PostgreSQL vs Oracle in the contexts of full systems. But neither link #1 nor link #2 provide any information about MySQL (except the quote: "[t]his publication shows that a properly tuned PostgreSQL is not only as fast or faster than MySQL").
Really, my criticism isn't of the benchmark (the data are the data, after all) or of the blog (one expects a vested PostgreSQL interest to comment on such a benchmark), but of the blurb here that either a) draws totally unwarranted conclusions, or b) depends on information it doesn't bother sharing.
however the test-hardwares of the other DB systems are somewhat different
Which makes the results pretty much useless. But, being the intrepid slashdotter I am, I went ahead and R'ed the FA anyway, in case I could glean some useful information from it.
Which revealed that the linked article doesn't actually contain any information whatsoever about Oracle* or MySQL, much less benchmarks on named hardware.
So...what am I supposed to get out of this, again? Or is this just supposed to be some kind of PostgreSQL love-in, so I should take my wet blanket elsewhere?
*Well, the second link contains someone claiming that Oracle is only 15% faster...but without providing any actual data.
It didn't look real good as I typed it, to be honest, but I couldn't be bothered to look up the keycode for the actual pound symbol (or the euro, for that matter), so I just let it slide.
Although if it really were 5 pounds (force) per 1 kg (mass), I imagine the US would adopt metric much faster than we are. I mean, a woman could say her weight was 30 instead of 150. That'd have to be a hit.
Except, of course, that low cost comes with other prices.
Baggage fees, for example - at 5 pounds/kg over weight for checked luggage, if you're traveling for more than a couple days, you're going to be hosed on that one.
More importantly, perhaps, Ryan Air saves costs at all levels. I was recently in Bristol International for a Ryan Air flight to Shannon. It was cheap - ~70 euro for myself and my wife (not counting the overweight baggage fees). We were scheduled to leave at 1805, and we even boarded a little early. But a warning light came on, and the flight crew couldn't fix it.
So we deboarded and sat in the terminal. The board indicated "more information" at 2215. Upon asking, we found out the delay was that Ryan Air wouldn't pay Bristol International for the on-site engineer to look at the plane; they had to fly out one of their engineers from Dublin. On a flight which was delayed. We eventually got into Shannon at 0130.
Not that delays are peculiar to Ryan Air by any stretch, but it's not like it's the same thing only cheaper. Their cost savings can come back to bite you.
I will say that the flight itself was comfortable, and their service otherwise impeccable; the flight from Dublin to Edinburgh was in all ways satsifactory.
No. In fact, I haven't seen a single post saying that (note: I'm browsing at +2, so I may have missed some). Moreover, I've seen several posts (like this one) reiterating that it isn't stealing.
So, frankly, I think your hypocrisy meter needs recalibration. Or are you calling it hypocrisy because Consumerist calls it stealing, while Slashdot (often, perhaps even generally) doesn't? 'Cause that strikes me as a sort of weird definition of hypocrisy. I mean, I wouldn't normally call my boss hypocritical for not giving me a raise when my wife thinks I deserve one.
For the record: copyright infringement isn't stealing, though it may be unethical. Copying people's porn stashes off their hard drives isn't stealing, though it may be unethical (due primarily to the - naive - presumption of privacy that consumers likely have).
And with their infallible logic they conclude that closed source means you cannot remove restrictions, transmit on forbidden channels/power levels and bypass broadcast flags
Don't make the mistake of thinking people who disagree with you are stupid. They're not.
Of course they don't conclude that closed source means you cannot remove restrictions etc., etc. They conclude that closed source means you cannot legally do so.
Your post is so wrong, it's tempting to think you must be joking. But in case you're not:
It is acknowledged by the entire security industry - the FCC notwithstanding - that obscuring the method by which you secure something is not an effective way to increase the security of that thing. As an example: a well-design ATM system doesn't depend on whether the attacker knows what's on the ATM card, how the reader works, how the system is programmed, or anything else about the mechanisms. It depends entirely on whether the attacker knows the PIN associated with the card.
As another example, the most secure form of encryption possible - by which I mean it is literally impossible to break without the key - is the one-time-pad cipher. The mechanism for that is trivially simple: take the message you want to encrypt, and begin generating random integers from 1 through 26, one integer per character in the message. Then go through the message, adding each number in sequence to each character in sequence (A + 3 = D, X + 3 = A, etc.). The resulting encrypted text is perfectly resistant to decryption without the key.
The fact that I just told you how to generate and use a OTP cipher doesn't change the fact that it's perfectly unbreakable. The security is in the key, not the mechanism.
MS may be late to acknowledge the issue - no later than I'd expect any major corp to be, but late regardless - but if retroactively extending the 90-day warranty to three years isn't a move to earn customer good will, I don't know what they could do that would.
I mean, aside from shipping free 360s to every gamer on the planet...which seems a little unreasonable.
I'm not one to throw out accusations of spin too often, but trying to present this as some sort of disrespect, slam, or screw job by MS seems a little unwarranted.
It's important to note that the minutes are counted (or not) based solely on how the call originated, not on how it's transmitting now.
You can use this to your advantage, of course, by starting a call within range of your WAP, then continuing it for your half hour commute in your car. Or you can be screwed by it if you take a "quick" call in your car, then get home in three minutes...and talk for another 45 via your wireless network.
Not necessarily a deal-breaker, since it does work both ways - but certainly something to be aware of.
I wasn't indicting a particular administration - I was attempting to indict the political environment of the current world, and a trend towards corporations increasingly being the "power behind the throne" - or at least, seeming to be.
I recommend reading the whole discussion before you post next time. In this case, you don't need to go any further than the "parent" link attached to the post you replied to.
I'm just sayin' - because right now, you've got a serious case of "I don't get it" going on.
**AA are trying to make it less convenient to download, instead of making it more convenient to rip or otherwise buy legitimately. They are foolish, but they are within their rights -- however clumsy they are in enforcing them
Within their legal rights, yes; whether those legal rights are themselves right is the question at hand. Lobbying - successfully - for retroactive extensions to copyright protection, for criminalizing security research, for making the exercise of a protected right illegal (though not the right itself), all call into question how well the legal "right" matches up with the ethical "right."
Then there is a vocal (on this site) minority of people, who justify "sticking it" to "the system" -- the usual childish claptrap -- who get more and more vocal with every rightful-but-clumsy step by the **AA.
"Sticking it" to "the system" can be characterized as childish claptrap, or it can be characterized as civil disobedience. If a crime is so widespread that it is more common to commit it than to not, you can come to one of two conclusions: either the majority of your citizenry is made up of criminals, or it shouldn't be a crime. Clearly, music piracy isn't at that point, but it's approaching it. One consequence of a representative government is that if enough of the represented don't think something's a crime, it isn't one, regardless of who might want to make money off it being so.
According to them, it is not quite stealing, and therefor is completely justified to produce unlimited copies of somebody else's intellectual property against the owner's will...
That is a mischaracterization of the argument. Copyright infringement is not, in fact, stealing, insofar as those terms have specific meanings which do not match. Copyright infringement is also not high treason, murder, or barratry. This has no bearing on whether copyright infringement is illegal, unethical, or immoral. It has bearing on the framing of the debate - calling copyright infringement stealing is an appeal to emotion; an attempt to pre-emptively frame the debate about the ethics of the act by identifying it with an act that is universally agreed to be unethical. It's a classic straw man argument; claiming that the other side is trying to justify stealing, then aguing that stealing is unethical. If we want to have a debate about whether it's ethical to tear apart a Robo Sapien for fun, it's not a legitimate tactic to use the term "murder" to frame the debate.
In fact, the debate centers precisely around to what extent it is right for creators to control the dissemination of their creative efforts (whether the current system actually protects or aids the creators is a completely different debate, and irrelevant to this point; you're quite correct about that). On what grounds do I, as a photographer, derive the right to absolutely control who can see, copy, manipulate, or sell a photograph I have taken? What justification do I have for imposing an artificial scarcity on a naturally abundant good?
I do not intend these question to imply that no such right exists, simply to pose the questions that form the heart of the matter.
Besides, "effectively control the legal system" in the context of RUSSIA? That's a legal system in need of MAJOR work. Frankly, I'd rather the RIAA give a helping hand with getting it up to snuff than most of the local talent.
You're presuming that our legal system represents being "up to snuff" from the point of view of the citizens of Russia. Which calls into question the whole notion of national sovereignty.
While I agree with you that the legal system in Russia isn't one I'd like to live with - and, I suspect, isn't one the people of Russia like to live with - that doesn't mean that it's my right (or that of my country, much less that of some corporations with absolutely zero political accountability to anyone involved) to decide for them how it should be run.
That kind of interventionist thinking has gotten the US government in plenty of trouble. I can't imagine it's better when it's being executed by the RIAA.
Well, if randomness is not random, we're rapidly coming into an area where all we're discussing is definitions of terms, rather than any reality.
When discussing free will, though, the dead end I always end up in is that it's a moot point, because it's untestable. The premise of free will is that a given person can choose either A or B - but all we ever get to know is whether that person did choose A or B. Since the brain is a one-directional, feedback-driven state machine (making the assumption that the brain can only be in one of a finite number of states...which seems a safe assumption, given that there are a finite number of atoms in the brain), each test is non-repeatable. That is, the act of making the decision between A and B becomes an input into whether to make that same decision next time, which means that without actually reversing local time, you can never know whether the person chose A because he couldn't choose B, whether he would choose A or B according to some probability distribution, or whether he could have consciously decided via some non-deterministic, non-random mechanism to choose B.
I suspect it's unknowable. Which leaves us in the position of having to accept free will because, as you say, it seems to exist, without being able to be certain that it does.
Whether or not you believe what AllOfMp3.com was doing was illegal or unethical, it has got to be at least a little worrisome that a group of American corporations can effectively control the legal system of another major nation.
In my more paranoid moments, I might consider this evidence for an upcoming shift from nation-state to corporation-state as the global political unit. Then again, I'm also prepared for the inevitable zombie outbreak, so perhaps you oughtn't listen to me.
Slashdot Mirror
(sent to custserv@games-workshop.com):
Dear Sir or Ma'am,
I am writing in regards to your decision to withdraw permission for the release of the fan-created film Damnatus, based on your Warhammer 40,000 universe. While I understand the economic necessity of protecting your intellectual property, I also have a difficult time believing there is no acceptable license under which it is possible for a group of such obviously dedicated fans to release a work that has been four years in the making - moreover, four years during which the makers had your approval.
I will admit, though I have fond memories of playing Necromunda and Blood Bowl, and while I dabbled briefly in Battlefleet: Gothic, I have not involved myself to any degree in Warhammer 40,000. However, even as a largely non-fan, the Damnatus project (which I only learned of recently) had piqued my interest enough to begin dusting off my Battlefleet: Gothic miniatures. This move on your part, however, has sapped my enthusiasm.
Prior to this, I was at worst a disinterested party, respectful of the pastime you sell. Given this behavior, however, I have switched from disinterested to evangelically negative. While I will not claim to speak for dozens of people, I can assure you that my gaming group will not be purchasing any of your materials. In addition, I have already secured permission from one of my local gaming stores to post a flyer describing the situation.
From my point of view, what could have been a positive publicity event for you - even if a relatively minor one - has been transformed into an episode which will generate nothing but distrust, resentment, and disappointment among the very people you depend on most: the dedicated fans of your games, your miniatures, and your universe.
Sincerely,
Matt R. Cherwin
Warhammer is a tabletop - ie, using miniatures - tactical war game with role-playing elements. Rather than using a hex map or other grid, all line-of-sight and range measurements are actually taken relative to the actual analog position and facing of the miniatures. The business proposition from Games Workshop is that they sell you the rulebooks for the game. The rules include provisions requiring you to purchase Games Workshop miniatures (eg, if the miniature on the table doesn't have a boltgun in its hand, the character it represents also doesn't have a boltgun in its hand); GW is, first and foremost, a seller of miniatures. Warhammer as a universe encompasses several different game systems and miniature series: Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Battlefleet: Gothic, and Necromunda all spring to mind, though I believe there are others.
In my opinion, the game aspect of it is particularly shallow in comparison to most other similar games (tabletop tactical), with odd and limiting provisions such as only being allowed to fire at the nearest enemy.
One way to look at it is that Games Workshop is the grown up (that is, expensive) version of playing with toy soldiers: you collect your toy soldiers, then get to use them in a game structure.
(Note: I completely understand the attraction of buying and painting miniatures, building up huge collections of them, and getting enjoyment out of deploying them in a structured game format; I don't mean to disparage it as a hobby. I, personally, prefer the game to be more involving than the game pieces, but I'm not much of a collector.)
Well, congrats to GW for taking my general disinterest for their products and elevating it to actual dislike of their organization.
Ignoring my personal purchasing decisions, though, this is still stupid. I mean, it's not like Games Workshop actually sells games. They sell miniatures. They encourage purchase of the miniatures with something like a game structure (so it's a little more advanced than playing with toy soldiers...but not much more advanced than the games I invented for my various little figures when I was 10. Except for Blood Bowl, of course. That game is two shots of high-proof awesome.) that requires you to buy more miniatures if you want to play by the rules and an (admittedly) pretty compelling universe to set your encounters in.
I would, in fact, make the case that the universe is more important to their income than the "games" are. I know plenty of people who play Warhammer with pretty major departures from the rules, but I don't know anyone who plays Warhammer without Orcs.
So when presented with an opportunity to, at no cost, generate fan excitement and greater exposure, you'd think the smart thing to do would be to run with it as far as possible. Squelching it - moreover, squelching it in a way that makes you look like a bully, an ingrate, and general underdog-trampler - would seem to be the worst thing you could do.
I mean, aside from kicking puppies and smogging out rainbows.
(As an aside: the bright spot in all this is, should some miracle of rationality prevail, and GW manage to figure out that blocking this is a bad move, it should generate plenty of publicity for the project)
Ah, yes. Security through obscurity.
Always a winning strategy.
Take 2 vows to try and eke some income out of a product they've already spent money on!
You can't separate the software from the hardware and get an answer that's very meaningful
I take your point in general, but this statement is somewhat misleading. While you can't separate software from hardware entirely, you can be in a situation where you have a given supply of hardware, and need to know how best to use it - which amounts to much the same thing.
In that situation, knowing how each piece of software performs on a specific platform may be excellent information for you to have.
Oh, I agree. A benchmark of whole systems can be just as (or more) useful as a benchmark of individual pieces of software, depending on what your goals are.
But what's been presented here isn't even that. Links #1 takes us to a SPEC benchmark of PostgreSQL. It doesn't provide any information about anything else; there isn't anything to compare the benchmark to. Link #2 provides an unreferenced statement about Oracle's marginally superior performance on much more expensive equipment.
So, perhaps, one can begin to draw conclusions about PostgreSQL vs Oracle in the contexts of full systems. But neither link #1 nor link #2 provide any information about MySQL (except the quote: "[t]his publication shows that a properly tuned PostgreSQL is not only as fast or faster than MySQL").
Really, my criticism isn't of the benchmark (the data are the data, after all) or of the blog (one expects a vested PostgreSQL interest to comment on such a benchmark), but of the blurb here that either a) draws totally unwarranted conclusions, or b) depends on information it doesn't bother sharing.
however the test-hardwares of the other DB systems are somewhat different
Which makes the results pretty much useless. But, being the intrepid slashdotter I am, I went ahead and R'ed the FA anyway, in case I could glean some useful information from it.
Which revealed that the linked article doesn't actually contain any information whatsoever about Oracle* or MySQL, much less benchmarks on named hardware.
So...what am I supposed to get out of this, again? Or is this just supposed to be some kind of PostgreSQL love-in, so I should take my wet blanket elsewhere?
*Well, the second link contains someone claiming that Oracle is only 15% faster...but without providing any actual data.
It didn't look real good as I typed it, to be honest, but I couldn't be bothered to look up the keycode for the actual pound symbol (or the euro, for that matter), so I just let it slide.
Although if it really were 5 pounds (force) per 1 kg (mass), I imagine the US would adopt metric much faster than we are. I mean, a woman could say her weight was 30 instead of 150. That'd have to be a hit.
Except, of course, that low cost comes with other prices.
Baggage fees, for example - at 5 pounds/kg over weight for checked luggage, if you're traveling for more than a couple days, you're going to be hosed on that one.
More importantly, perhaps, Ryan Air saves costs at all levels. I was recently in Bristol International for a Ryan Air flight to Shannon. It was cheap - ~70 euro for myself and my wife (not counting the overweight baggage fees). We were scheduled to leave at 1805, and we even boarded a little early. But a warning light came on, and the flight crew couldn't fix it.
So we deboarded and sat in the terminal. The board indicated "more information" at 2215. Upon asking, we found out the delay was that Ryan Air wouldn't pay Bristol International for the on-site engineer to look at the plane; they had to fly out one of their engineers from Dublin. On a flight which was delayed. We eventually got into Shannon at 0130.
Not that delays are peculiar to Ryan Air by any stretch, but it's not like it's the same thing only cheaper. Their cost savings can come back to bite you.
I will say that the flight itself was comfortable, and their service otherwise impeccable; the flight from Dublin to Edinburgh was in all ways satsifactory.
Also they've got super hot stewardesses.
No. In fact, I haven't seen a single post saying that (note: I'm browsing at +2, so I may have missed some). Moreover, I've seen several posts (like this one) reiterating that it isn't stealing.
So, frankly, I think your hypocrisy meter needs recalibration. Or are you calling it hypocrisy because Consumerist calls it stealing, while Slashdot (often, perhaps even generally) doesn't? 'Cause that strikes me as a sort of weird definition of hypocrisy. I mean, I wouldn't normally call my boss hypocritical for not giving me a raise when my wife thinks I deserve one.
For the record: copyright infringement isn't stealing, though it may be unethical. Copying people's porn stashes off their hard drives isn't stealing, though it may be unethical (due primarily to the - naive - presumption of privacy that consumers likely have).
So...did you miscount? Are you making a slantwise crack about zero-indexing? Or do Stephenson and Simak only count as half an SF author each?
And with their infallible logic they conclude that closed source means you cannot remove restrictions, transmit on forbidden channels/power levels and bypass broadcast flags
Don't make the mistake of thinking people who disagree with you are stupid. They're not.
Of course they don't conclude that closed source means you cannot remove restrictions etc., etc. They conclude that closed source means you cannot legally do so.
And they're right.
Your post is so wrong, it's tempting to think you must be joking. But in case you're not:
It is acknowledged by the entire security industry - the FCC notwithstanding - that obscuring the method by which you secure something is not an effective way to increase the security of that thing. As an example: a well-design ATM system doesn't depend on whether the attacker knows what's on the ATM card, how the reader works, how the system is programmed, or anything else about the mechanisms. It depends entirely on whether the attacker knows the PIN associated with the card.
As another example, the most secure form of encryption possible - by which I mean it is literally impossible to break without the key - is the one-time-pad cipher. The mechanism for that is trivially simple: take the message you want to encrypt, and begin generating random integers from 1 through 26, one integer per character in the message. Then go through the message, adding each number in sequence to each character in sequence (A + 3 = D, X + 3 = A, etc.). The resulting encrypted text is perfectly resistant to decryption without the key.
The fact that I just told you how to generate and use a OTP cipher doesn't change the fact that it's perfectly unbreakable. The security is in the key, not the mechanism.
No matter how you shake or how you dance, the final drop goes in your pants.
(Actually, I'm 30...why do you ask?)
Simple, problem solved. Buy electricity by Amps.
MS may be late to acknowledge the issue - no later than I'd expect any major corp to be, but late regardless - but if retroactively extending the 90-day warranty to three years isn't a move to earn customer good will, I don't know what they could do that would.
I mean, aside from shipping free 360s to every gamer on the planet...which seems a little unreasonable.
I'm not one to throw out accusations of spin too often, but trying to present this as some sort of disrespect, slam, or screw job by MS seems a little unwarranted.
It's important to note that the minutes are counted (or not) based solely on how the call originated, not on how it's transmitting now.
You can use this to your advantage, of course, by starting a call within range of your WAP, then continuing it for your half hour commute in your car. Or you can be screwed by it if you take a "quick" call in your car, then get home in three minutes...and talk for another 45 via your wireless network.
Not necessarily a deal-breaker, since it does work both ways - but certainly something to be aware of.
I wasn't indicting a particular administration - I was attempting to indict the political environment of the current world, and a trend towards corporations increasingly being the "power behind the throne" - or at least, seeming to be.
I recommend reading the whole discussion before you post next time. In this case, you don't need to go any further than the "parent" link attached to the post you replied to.
I'm just sayin' - because right now, you've got a serious case of "I don't get it" going on.
**AA are trying to make it less convenient to download, instead of making it more convenient to rip or otherwise buy legitimately. They are foolish, but they are within their rights -- however clumsy they are in enforcing them
Within their legal rights, yes; whether those legal rights are themselves right is the question at hand. Lobbying - successfully - for retroactive extensions to copyright protection, for criminalizing security research, for making the exercise of a protected right illegal (though not the right itself), all call into question how well the legal "right" matches up with the ethical "right."
Then there is a vocal (on this site) minority of people, who justify "sticking it" to "the system" -- the usual childish claptrap -- who get more and more vocal with every rightful-but-clumsy step by the **AA.
"Sticking it" to "the system" can be characterized as childish claptrap, or it can be characterized as civil disobedience. If a crime is so widespread that it is more common to commit it than to not, you can come to one of two conclusions: either the majority of your citizenry is made up of criminals, or it shouldn't be a crime. Clearly, music piracy isn't at that point, but it's approaching it. One consequence of a representative government is that if enough of the represented don't think something's a crime, it isn't one, regardless of who might want to make money off it being so.
According to them, it is not quite stealing, and therefor is completely justified to produce unlimited copies of somebody else's intellectual property against the owner's will...
That is a mischaracterization of the argument. Copyright infringement is not, in fact, stealing, insofar as those terms have specific meanings which do not match. Copyright infringement is also not high treason, murder, or barratry. This has no bearing on whether copyright infringement is illegal, unethical, or immoral. It has bearing on the framing of the debate - calling copyright infringement stealing is an appeal to emotion; an attempt to pre-emptively frame the debate about the ethics of the act by identifying it with an act that is universally agreed to be unethical. It's a classic straw man argument; claiming that the other side is trying to justify stealing, then aguing that stealing is unethical. If we want to have a debate about whether it's ethical to tear apart a Robo Sapien for fun, it's not a legitimate tactic to use the term "murder" to frame the debate.
In fact, the debate centers precisely around to what extent it is right for creators to control the dissemination of their creative efforts (whether the current system actually protects or aids the creators is a completely different debate, and irrelevant to this point; you're quite correct about that). On what grounds do I, as a photographer, derive the right to absolutely control who can see, copy, manipulate, or sell a photograph I have taken? What justification do I have for imposing an artificial scarcity on a naturally abundant good?
I do not intend these question to imply that no such right exists, simply to pose the questions that form the heart of the matter.
Besides, "effectively control the legal system" in the context of RUSSIA? That's a legal system in need of MAJOR work. Frankly, I'd rather the RIAA give a helping hand with getting it up to snuff than most of the local talent.
You're presuming that our legal system represents being "up to snuff" from the point of view of the citizens of Russia. Which calls into question the whole notion of national sovereignty.
While I agree with you that the legal system in Russia isn't one I'd like to live with - and, I suspect, isn't one the people of Russia like to live with - that doesn't mean that it's my right (or that of my country, much less that of some corporations with absolutely zero political accountability to anyone involved) to decide for them how it should be run.
That kind of interventionist thinking has gotten the US government in plenty of trouble. I can't imagine it's better when it's being executed by the RIAA.
Well, if randomness is not random, we're rapidly coming into an area where all we're discussing is definitions of terms, rather than any reality.
When discussing free will, though, the dead end I always end up in is that it's a moot point, because it's untestable. The premise of free will is that a given person can choose either A or B - but all we ever get to know is whether that person did choose A or B. Since the brain is a one-directional, feedback-driven state machine (making the assumption that the brain can only be in one of a finite number of states...which seems a safe assumption, given that there are a finite number of atoms in the brain), each test is non-repeatable. That is, the act of making the decision between A and B becomes an input into whether to make that same decision next time, which means that without actually reversing local time, you can never know whether the person chose A because he couldn't choose B, whether he would choose A or B according to some probability distribution, or whether he could have consciously decided via some non-deterministic, non-random mechanism to choose B.
I suspect it's unknowable. Which leaves us in the position of having to accept free will because, as you say, it seems to exist, without being able to be certain that it does.
Well played. I applaud you.
Whether or not you believe what AllOfMp3.com was doing was illegal or unethical, it has got to be at least a little worrisome that a group of American corporations can effectively control the legal system of another major nation.
In my more paranoid moments, I might consider this evidence for an upcoming shift from nation-state to corporation-state as the global political unit. Then again, I'm also prepared for the inevitable zombie outbreak, so perhaps you oughtn't listen to me.