Not true in the slightest. It's entirely possible to give people the ability to modify YOUR code (which is the point of open source), without them being able to modify code which you depend on. Furthermore, you don't need to be able to modify all the code to see how the whole program works, and modify it.
People keep saying this, and it has yet to be valid. I've played real guitar. I've played Guitar Hero/Rock Band. They are both enjoyable pursuits, and who enjoys one will not necessarily enjoy the other. This nonsense of insisting that people playing GH/Rock Band should "get real instruments" is so nonsensical... how the hell are you to know if they just don't enjoy playing a real instrument, but enjoy playing the game?
As the RIAA has clearly shown us, not everyone who gets litigation brought against them broke the law. Thus, not everyone who loses a lawsuit really deserves to pay up. Try again.
No, my position is that copyright is not unnatural in the slightest, rather, it is, in fact, the only way to protect an author's natural right to seek compensation for his work.
Further, I hold that a lack of copyright is unethical and unnatural, because it allows someone to use the work of the author without compensating him (assuming he wishes to be compensated, of course), analagous to giving someone materials and forcing him to make you a table, without pay.
The public should have liberty to build upon others' work, but it should in no way be able to profit from said work without putting any effort forth themselves, nor take said work without compensation. I honestly fail to see how you can call these actions "natural", and condone them. They're natural in the same sense that it's natural to kill a man who angers you, and should be condoned to exactly the same extent.
I benefit from the labour of the craftsman who made my chair everyday - without his permission, and without me needing to reward him further. True. And the craftsman was rewarded for his labor, by someone if not you. Your use of the chair is perfectly legitimate, and is under terms agreeable to the craftsman.
I benefit from the labour of coders who developed the GPL software I use everyday. And those coders have agreed that you can use their software free of charge. You benefit from their labor under terms agreeable to them.
Only copyright says you can't copy something that someone else has authored - despite our natural right to do so. Again, no. We have no such natural right. This would infringe upon the natural right of the author to charge a fee for his labor (if he so wishes).
I think you exaggerate by comparing the ability of our governments to enforce copyright with their ability to control the tide. If it's not within their power to enforce copyright, it isn't within their power to enforce any law. In any case, that isn't what we've been debating. We have been debating the ethics of copyright, not whether or not it's feasible.
Ah, I see a problem here. You're laboring under the mistaken idea that copying information is a fundamental right. In fact, such a right would be in direct conflict with the creator's right to make his work available under his terms. Think about it:
I have the right to demand whatever I wish as terms for you to benefit from my labor (obviously).
You can either accept those terms, or not accept them.
If you accept, and benefit from my labor, you are bound to the terms that we agreed upon.
If you do not accept, and benefit from my labor anyway (invoking the supposed right to copy), you are forcing me to work for you under conditions disagreeable to me.
Forcing someone to work for you under conditions disagreeable to them is clearly unethical. Thus, there is no fundamental right to copy... in fact, it's interesting that you bring up slavery, because copying someone's work against their will is rather comparable to slavery: the person is working for you, against their will, without compensation.
If you want to argue the ethics of copyright law you have to base your arguments on something more fundamental, e.g. natural law. I am. It is an person's natural right to make his labor (and, by extension, the fruits of it) available to others under the terms he chooses, with the expectation that a) those terms will be honored, or b) others will not have use of his labor. I'm not using copyright law as a justification for itself in the slightest.
Interesting post, but early on, you touch on a point that explains precisely why copyright is necessary and proper:
to collaborate or trade (honourable exchange of labour or possessions) is listed as being a natural right. This is precisely why copyright is necessary. It is because works such as, say, a poem, are so easily copied. The people have no inherent right to force the author to make his work available to them: it is available to them under the terms he chooses to provide. If the author makes it available under the terms "Pay me $2 for this poem", that is obviously his right. Copyright law exists so that people cannot force the author to work for them against his terms, ie, copying his work without having paid for it.
Current copyright law (in the US, at any rate, I have no idea what other countries' laws are like), has several problems, but the concept of copyright law itself is perfectly fine. In fact, I would say that it is a (as you put it) natural law, much like laws against rape, murder, destruction of property, etc.
This should only happen if the loser is the plaintiff. Otherwise, it's unfair if the defendant loses a suit, and also has to pay the legal fees on top of that... they had no control over whether that suit was brought against them.
Your link doesn't explain in the slightest how copyright is supposedly fundamentally unethical. Got a better link? I'm rather curious to hear what the argument is, as I suspect it doesn't hold water.
The standard of proof is different, but I was definitely under the impression that you were still innocent until proven guilty. Otherwise it'd be a madhouse in which I could sue people and automatically win most of the time (without even making any arguments), just because they didn't have the wherewithal to defend themselves properly.
No it isn't, it's the exact fucking opposite of weasel speak: using precisely defined terms to ensure clear communication. But hey, it's okay, maybe one day you'll grow beyond setting up strawmen and knocking them down.
An indicator an entirely different thing. An indicator is not evidence. If I said, "I'm suspicious that this guy might rape my daughter", that's one thing. If I flat-out state, as a fact, "This guy is raping my daughter", that's not allowed unless I have actual evidence to back it up.
No. You mean if we take copyright law as it stands right now off the books. What we have at the moment is a poor implementation of copyright law. Copyright law, in and of itself, is not at all a problem with your proposed "Give everyone the total sum of human knowledge" plan.
Wouldn't that be better than the status quo? No, because this is a matter of principle. The author of a work has the right to try to sell it if he so chooses, and no one has the right to use it without buying it if that's the case. I don't particularly care if an alternative system supports the author better, the ends don't justify the means.
And I've done desktop support for 200ish clueless university faculty for about 3-4 years, and for 600 equally clueless call center employees for the past couple of years. My sample size is limited to myself, because I know that I can be counted on not to do stupid things. As you correctly recognize, clueless users will wreck anything you let them touch. I've seen clueless faculty wreck OS X just as badly as they've wrecked Windows. The mark of a good/bad OS is how it performs when someone knowledgeable is using it, not a layman.
Sorry, you lose. I said what my friend told me, and I said I thought she was probably right. Since when is it "rabid" or "unreasoning" to expect MS to use evil means to push their products? It's SOP for them, has been from the very beginning. That is why MS has a monopoly. It certainly isn't due to the merits of Windows. Making such a judgement with no evidence to support it (and no, past behavior is NOT evidence) is quite unreasonable.
What the hell does any of that have to do with copyright? Copyright is a way of legally enforcing the traditional "you want it, you pay for it" means of exchange for a good which is easily obtained against the wishes of the seller. If I wish to make my scribble drawing only available to someone who has paid me for it (or bought a copy of said scribble drawing from a previous owner), that's my right. Copyright is a way for me to protect that right, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of copying/distributing works. In fact, the cheaper it is to copy, the MORE necessary it is to have legal protection of the creator's rights.
No, you're just exceptionally unlucky (or rather, your friend is). Windows XP is almost rock-solid (from a stability standpoint)... this has been the general consensus for years.
Also, the other poster had every right to call you rabid and unreasoning, considering you said:
She believes MS has "downgraded" XP via updates on purpose because they want to force Vista down everyone's throats, and I'm sure she's right. There is no evidence whatsoever of this, other than paranoia and MS-hate. Furthermore, even if they WERE trying to do that, they're doing a piss-poor job, because as far as I'm aware, the vast majority of XP machines are working just fine.
Either you've been unlucky, or I've been exceptionally lucky, because I can honestly say the only time I reboot my (Windows) machine is for a) Windows updates, b) driver installs, or c) software installation/uninstallation (occasionally). This has been true for years, in my personal use... across two different machines with three different hardware loadouts.
Egocentric? Are you kidding me? Giving credit to someone shouldn't even have to be asked for. You get credit so that, after you do a good job, other people know it was you who did a good job, so they come to you if they need a good job done in the future.
Furthermore, copyright does not in any way "screw things up for the vast majority of us". Poorly done copyright screws things up, not copyright itself.
Oh, and to address your original point, it's complete bs to say that if you want copyright on your work, it's crap and you know it. Not only does that imply that the vast majority of creative works in the past, say, 50 years are crap (and the creators knew it), which is a ludicrous argument, it doesn't even make sense. It's not hard to imagine that someone would want to sustain themselves by selling copies of their work to many people at small prices, than to a few people at high prices. Doing that without copyright is like pounding a nail into a board with your fist instead of a hammer: sure, you can do it, but why the hell don't you use the perfectly good tool available to you?
The trash can was stolen from Apple, but the taskbar wasn't. Taskbar: useful. Bar at the top of Mac OS: the biggest crime in GUI design ever perpetrated, singlehandedly making Mac OS more difficult to use than anything else. They just don't even compare.
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Not true in the slightest. It's entirely possible to give people the ability to modify YOUR code (which is the point of open source), without them being able to modify code which you depend on. Furthermore, you don't need to be able to modify all the code to see how the whole program works, and modify it.
Thankfully, you can just rewrite that idioticness out of the GPL if you want to use it. Chalk up another reason why I wish the GPL would die... :/
People keep saying this, and it has yet to be valid. I've played real guitar. I've played Guitar Hero/Rock Band. They are both enjoyable pursuits, and who enjoys one will not necessarily enjoy the other. This nonsense of insisting that people playing GH/Rock Band should "get real instruments" is so nonsensical... how the hell are you to know if they just don't enjoy playing a real instrument, but enjoy playing the game?
As the RIAA has clearly shown us, not everyone who gets litigation brought against them broke the law. Thus, not everyone who loses a lawsuit really deserves to pay up. Try again.
Further, I hold that a lack of copyright is unethical and unnatural, because it allows someone to use the work of the author without compensating him (assuming he wishes to be compensated, of course), analagous to giving someone materials and forcing him to make you a table, without pay.
The public should have liberty to build upon others' work, but it should in no way be able to profit from said work without putting any effort forth themselves, nor take said work without compensation. I honestly fail to see how you can call these actions "natural", and condone them. They're natural in the same sense that it's natural to kill a man who angers you, and should be condoned to exactly the same extent.
I think you exaggerate by comparing the ability of our governments to enforce copyright with their ability to control the tide. If it's not within their power to enforce copyright, it isn't within their power to enforce any law. In any case, that isn't what we've been debating. We have been debating the ethics of copyright, not whether or not it's feasible.
I have the right to demand whatever I wish as terms for you to benefit from my labor (obviously).
You can either accept those terms, or not accept them.
If you accept, and benefit from my labor, you are bound to the terms that we agreed upon.
If you do not accept, and benefit from my labor anyway (invoking the supposed right to copy), you are forcing me to work for you under conditions disagreeable to me.
Forcing someone to work for you under conditions disagreeable to them is clearly unethical. Thus, there is no fundamental right to copy... in fact, it's interesting that you bring up slavery, because copying someone's work against their will is rather comparable to slavery: the person is working for you, against their will, without compensation.
Current copyright law (in the US, at any rate, I have no idea what other countries' laws are like), has several problems, but the concept of copyright law itself is perfectly fine. In fact, I would say that it is a (as you put it) natural law, much like laws against rape, murder, destruction of property, etc.
This should only happen if the loser is the plaintiff. Otherwise, it's unfair if the defendant loses a suit, and also has to pay the legal fees on top of that... they had no control over whether that suit was brought against them.
Your link doesn't explain in the slightest how copyright is supposedly fundamentally unethical. Got a better link? I'm rather curious to hear what the argument is, as I suspect it doesn't hold water.
The standard of proof is different, but I was definitely under the impression that you were still innocent until proven guilty. Otherwise it'd be a madhouse in which I could sue people and automatically win most of the time (without even making any arguments), just because they didn't have the wherewithal to defend themselves properly.
No it isn't, it's the exact fucking opposite of weasel speak: using precisely defined terms to ensure clear communication. But hey, it's okay, maybe one day you'll grow beyond setting up strawmen and knocking them down.
You're missing a key distinction here.
And I've done desktop support for 200ish clueless university faculty for about 3-4 years, and for 600 equally clueless call center employees for the past couple of years. My sample size is limited to myself, because I know that I can be counted on not to do stupid things. As you correctly recognize, clueless users will wreck anything you let them touch. I've seen clueless faculty wreck OS X just as badly as they've wrecked Windows. The mark of a good/bad OS is how it performs when someone knowledgeable is using it, not a layman.
What the hell does any of that have to do with copyright? Copyright is a way of legally enforcing the traditional "you want it, you pay for it" means of exchange for a good which is easily obtained against the wishes of the seller. If I wish to make my scribble drawing only available to someone who has paid me for it (or bought a copy of said scribble drawing from a previous owner), that's my right. Copyright is a way for me to protect that right, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of copying/distributing works. In fact, the cheaper it is to copy, the MORE necessary it is to have legal protection of the creator's rights.
Also, the other poster had every right to call you rabid and unreasoning, considering you said:
She believes MS has "downgraded" XP via updates on purpose because they want to force Vista down everyone's throats, and I'm sure she's right. There is no evidence whatsoever of this, other than paranoia and MS-hate. Furthermore, even if they WERE trying to do that, they're doing a piss-poor job, because as far as I'm aware, the vast majority of XP machines are working just fine.Either you've been unlucky, or I've been exceptionally lucky, because I can honestly say the only time I reboot my (Windows) machine is for a) Windows updates, b) driver installs, or c) software installation/uninstallation (occasionally). This has been true for years, in my personal use... across two different machines with three different hardware loadouts.
No, Vista is solid too. It's far better than anyone gives it credit for, really. And I say this from first-hand experience.
Furthermore, copyright does not in any way "screw things up for the vast majority of us". Poorly done copyright screws things up, not copyright itself.
Oh, and to address your original point, it's complete bs to say that if you want copyright on your work, it's crap and you know it. Not only does that imply that the vast majority of creative works in the past, say, 50 years are crap (and the creators knew it), which is a ludicrous argument, it doesn't even make sense. It's not hard to imagine that someone would want to sustain themselves by selling copies of their work to many people at small prices, than to a few people at high prices. Doing that without copyright is like pounding a nail into a board with your fist instead of a hammer: sure, you can do it, but why the hell don't you use the perfectly good tool available to you?
Also, I use my Print Screen/SysReq key all the time. Don't you ever need to take screen shots?
The trash can was stolen from Apple, but the taskbar wasn't. Taskbar: useful. Bar at the top of Mac OS: the biggest crime in GUI design ever perpetrated, singlehandedly making Mac OS more difficult to use than anything else. They just don't even compare.