BitTorrent is both a piece of software, and a protocol. And as most of the material offered on TPB can be downloaded through the BitTorrent protocol "BitTorrent site" is a perfectly valid designation. Just like Slashdot is a "web site" even though they've not much to do with CERN.
And what I don't understand, really: why don't they stick to the.org address?
I always use http://thepiratebay.org/ to reach that site and that has always worked just fine. Seconds later it changes the.org to.se, or.is, or now.sx - nothing for me to worry about.
There have been many more people to the moon, than to the deepest parts of the sea. And those that went to the moon could be walking around freely (more or less).
Those flights were more pioneering (first ever manned moon landing), took years if not decades of dedication and training from the astronauts to get there (instead of just getting rich in whatever boring manner), and the flight itself must have been more intersting than a good look from a distance at the earth - not in the least because they had to work so hard to keep the damn thing flying.
And I do think these astronauts got a tad more media and other general interest after they came back to earth. More unique experiences.
But for the rest I agree. I think the view from the window will be totally awesome, but there's not much else you can do up there.
A few hours, half a day. A few orbits. Bring the missus and find out how it is to have sex in zero gravity (and how the space ship's air filters deal with the inevitable mess). But then I'd be done with it.
The view will be great, for sure. But to enjoy the view for days on end? If you're going for vacation, you're not going to stay in your hotel room for two weeks - no matter how great the view is. And a space ship is just that, a flying hotel room, with an exceptional view and some serious inconvenience (the lack of gravity, mainly).
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game
You've actually hit the nail on the head -- there is no natural right of copyright.
There are plenty of rights we enjoy that are not "natural" rights.
Copyrights are not, currently, international.
Under the Berne convention, copyright IS international. As soon as a work is published in any of the signatory countries, which includes the US. And the few countries that did not sign the treaty don't matter much from an economic point of view.
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game, for anyone else to profit of? If I explicitly place it in the public domain or release it with a free license - then they can go ahead.
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it.
Do you care enough to fill out a very simple form and pay a very modest fee?
Yes, I do. I would have to for everything I write - and that sucks big time.
First of all, I'm not in the US, so it'd have to be some institution local to me. Now, copyright is international (this in great contrast to patents, btw). It would suddenly become local - I would register in Hong Kong (where I live and where my creations are made nowadays). Or should I have to register in every single country I want my work protected?
I've published stories on a US based web site. Free to read for anyone; not free for others to take and publish on their own site. That's thanks to automatic copyright protection. Or would I have to register those in the US then? And what if I couldn't speak the local language there?
Also if you would require someone to check "the registry" to see if a work is copyrighted or not, they'd have to check all registries in all countries, one by one. And while matching text is relatively easy, matching images is getting harder and matching video or music is even worse.
Many of the stories mentioned above I published anonymously, and I like it that way. Yet anonymous doesn't mean no copyright - there are ways to contact me (via anonymous e-mail - well with enough effort probably traceable but anonymous enough for me), if someone really wants to use my story elsewhere. And then I may or may not give them permission.
And to come back on you not believing me on less publishing: well these slashdot posts indeed are not influenced by copyright. Photos that I post online, or stories that I post online, source code that I've published on github and sourceforge, even though I don't expect any economic benefit, I like to have copyright protection for. If only to keep my name attached to my work - in future those posts may become a reference for a job. I don't know now, but I'd like to keep the option open.
The current registration system in the US may work nicely for those that register their work - I've no idea how much work that is published, is actually registered. And that includes those huge amounts of holiday pictures posted online, all those web site templates released under CC licences, source code released under GPL or BSD licenses, etc. Or does Linus really updates his copyright registration for te ever changing Linux kernel (if he has this) for every single commit that's added?
Then all five year old software would fall out of copyright. Any version of Linux released >5 years ago would be affected. I don't see that as a good thing, as a five year old piece of software is still very valuable in many ways.
The obvious course should be to look at the companies registry, dig up the old records, and contact the registered directors. They may be able to tell you who the copyright was transferred to.
What is more interesting: if copyright is held by a company, and that company is wound up, without the copyright being legally transferred to someone else (person or company), who ends up owning the copyright?
When a person dies it's easy. A copyright is part of that person's estate, and there are all kinds of legal frameworks on who owns it: usually their next of kin, if no such person alive, it goes to the state. Unless a will indicates otherwise.
But for a company that "dies" (wound up, bankrupted - in the latter case all assets are supposedly sold, including copyrights, but it's easy to imagine that some copyrights are forgotten about), there is no such thing as a legal heir, or is there?
I'm really glad it's automatic, and don't see any harm in that part of copyright, on the contrary. I make it, so I own it, what's harmful there? That you can't take it and use it as you like, unless I actively take precautions?
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it. And that's what automatic copyright allows me to require without hassle. It allows me to post my stuff online knowing there is at least some basic legal protection active. Having to register copyright for everything I post online just to get credit for it in case someone wants to re-use my photos or my ramblings, is a chore at best. It'd stop me from posting as much as I do. And that likely accounts for many many more people.
Thinking about it, I more and more wonder what works are really orphaned.
When posted on Facebook, I'd say the account that posted it should be the one contacted: can't say this work is totally orphaned. All photos on Facebook, as on Flickr and many other photo sites, are linked to an account. Then of course the obvious course of action is to contact that account.
And then there is no reply. How long to wait for a reply? Maybe the person is on holiday. Maybe account holder is active but registered e-mail is invalid, so they don't get the enquiry mail. What else to do to contact this person? How much effort to put in it?
It's really tricky. While I understand the idea - and basically support it for truly orphaned works, where the copyright holder died without leaving an heir, for example - it's not easy to implement properly.
Use their country's TLD of course. Like the US should have their own TLD, and use it too. that's what they are for.
Now my company also has a.com while I'm really local.hk but that's to do with cost (.com is much cheaper) and ease of registration (back then it wasn't that easy to get a.hk domain as it is now -.com was dead easy though).
Great opportunity for squatters/scammers. With all its drawbacks I still prefer the current system over your proposal. It's just that much more reliable.
Sorry to pop your myth but over the past decade I've registered several domains, and so far haven't even had to modify my name a little bit to find an available name. There are plenty of names available - unless you insist on <generic word>.com instead of <your company name>.com - replace.com by your own country's tld and you've got even more options.
Just now I'm building up a new site, planning to register a name for it, and again: no problem. The name that I wanted is available. And this time it's a simple combination of two generic words.
By nature of the beast you have TLDs. Whether these are.com or.amazon - the last part of the domain name is a TLD. There is no way around it. Just like area codes and country codes on telephone numbers (but written the other way around), they help in sorting out some of the mess.
The problem of course lies in how these TLDs are organised and managed. Having a few world-wide domains (.com,.org,.net, etc) plus national domains that can also basically be assigned world-wide is the big issue. Ditching these generic TLDs and requiring that only people or companies that actually are present in a certain area can get the area-specific TLD would solve a lot of that mess.
Your comment would be true if they were really pumping around 3.7 TB every day. However, they don't (or at least: they shouldn't have to):
By the nature of the dataset nothing is ever removed or changed just new files added.
This is why I was thinking of rsync. Only transfer the changed bits. Now indeed one could use a combination of a diff tool (check what's new) plus torrent to distribute the updates... whether that extra effort is worth it depends of course on the total amount of data to transfer.
Wow, dozens of comments and then finally this. It was the first thought of mine: "unacceptable sites" sounds very political, and reeks of plain old censorship.
And while I know the sentiments against porn as such, there is a lot more perversion on the internet - and definitely far worse stuff than a beautiful naked lady.
Defragging on any modern FS is easy: just copy the file to itself. That should do the trick to get a nicely defragmented file (assuming you have a long enough chunk of free space on your disk, of course).
Very, very bad analogy as the concept of copyright is a good thing, the concept of racism is not.
Remember that only thanks to the existence of copyright the GPL and all those other FOSS licenses can exist. Without copyright it'd all be public domain.
It is the current implementation of copyright laws (primarily: too long terms) and all the other laws that surround it (e.g. DMCA blocking reverse engineering and circumvention of DRM) that is the problem.
We must be grateful to Amazon for this kind of issues, really.
It annoys the hell out of many people - and that's a good thing here. More and more people learn the dangers of DRM. Now even people with legitimately purchased content are blocked from watching their stuff; and I think that's a good thing.
The only thing that can stop and really overcome the DRM cancer from growing is this. People getting burned, and getting burned badly. They get angry, they talk about it to their friends, who may also have gotten burned. The anger spreads, and friends talk to friends and mention what happens and warn about the dangers of DRM. Content buyers start to look more critical at content vendors: do they sell it with or without DRM? If with DRM, should I take the risk of losing my money? Is there an alternative, another vendor that sells it, without DRM? And in that case I just have to hope for the content providers that these people don't resort to using The Pirate Bay.
Slashdot Mirror
BitTorrent is both a piece of software, and a protocol. And as most of the material offered on TPB can be downloaded through the BitTorrent protocol "BitTorrent site" is a perfectly valid designation. Just like Slashdot is a "web site" even though they've not much to do with CERN.
And what I don't understand, really: why don't they stick to the .org address?
I always use http://thepiratebay.org/ to reach that site and that has always worked just fine. Seconds later it changes the .org to .se, or .is, or now .sx - nothing for me to worry about.
The first I can totally imagine - it could be really hard without the help of gravity.
The second is more of a surprise, makes me wonder what happened really. Or how they actually did it.
There have been many more people to the moon, than to the deepest parts of the sea. And those that went to the moon could be walking around freely (more or less).
Maybe they will include carbon credits as free gift with the ticket. At least that way you're not blasting the environment when blasting off.
Those flights were more pioneering (first ever manned moon landing), took years if not decades of dedication and training from the astronauts to get there (instead of just getting rich in whatever boring manner), and the flight itself must have been more intersting than a good look from a distance at the earth - not in the least because they had to work so hard to keep the damn thing flying.
And I do think these astronauts got a tad more media and other general interest after they came back to earth. More unique experiences.
But for the rest I agree. I think the view from the window will be totally awesome, but there's not much else you can do up there.
I for one wouldn't want to go for weeks.
A few hours, half a day. A few orbits. Bring the missus and find out how it is to have sex in zero gravity (and how the space ship's air filters deal with the inevitable mess). But then I'd be done with it.
The view will be great, for sure. But to enjoy the view for days on end? If you're going for vacation, you're not going to stay in your hotel room for two weeks - no matter how great the view is. And a space ship is just that, a flying hotel room, with an exceptional view and some serious inconvenience (the lack of gravity, mainly).
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game
You've actually hit the nail on the head -- there is no natural right of copyright.
There are plenty of rights we enjoy that are not "natural" rights.
Copyrights are not, currently, international.
Under the Berne convention, copyright IS international. As soon as a work is published in any of the signatory countries, which includes the US. And the few countries that did not sign the treaty don't matter much from an economic point of view.
I make it, so I own it
That's not a good enough reason.
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game, for anyone else to profit of? If I explicitly place it in the public domain or release it with a free license - then they can go ahead.
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it.
Do you care enough to fill out a very simple form and pay a very modest fee?
Yes, I do. I would have to for everything I write - and that sucks big time.
First of all, I'm not in the US, so it'd have to be some institution local to me. Now, copyright is international (this in great contrast to patents, btw). It would suddenly become local - I would register in Hong Kong (where I live and where my creations are made nowadays). Or should I have to register in every single country I want my work protected?
I've published stories on a US based web site. Free to read for anyone; not free for others to take and publish on their own site. That's thanks to automatic copyright protection. Or would I have to register those in the US then? And what if I couldn't speak the local language there?
Also if you would require someone to check "the registry" to see if a work is copyrighted or not, they'd have to check all registries in all countries, one by one. And while matching text is relatively easy, matching images is getting harder and matching video or music is even worse.
Many of the stories mentioned above I published anonymously, and I like it that way. Yet anonymous doesn't mean no copyright - there are ways to contact me (via anonymous e-mail - well with enough effort probably traceable but anonymous enough for me), if someone really wants to use my story elsewhere. And then I may or may not give them permission.
And to come back on you not believing me on less publishing: well these slashdot posts indeed are not influenced by copyright. Photos that I post online, or stories that I post online, source code that I've published on github and sourceforge, even though I don't expect any economic benefit, I like to have copyright protection for. If only to keep my name attached to my work - in future those posts may become a reference for a job. I don't know now, but I'd like to keep the option open.
The current registration system in the US may work nicely for those that register their work - I've no idea how much work that is published, is actually registered. And that includes those huge amounts of holiday pictures posted online, all those web site templates released under CC licences, source code released under GPL or BSD licenses, etc. Or does Linus really updates his copyright registration for te ever changing Linux kernel (if he has this) for every single commit that's added?
Then all five year old software would fall out of copyright. Any version of Linux released >5 years ago would be affected. I don't see that as a good thing, as a five year old piece of software is still very valuable in many ways.
Tricky.
The obvious course should be to look at the companies registry, dig up the old records, and contact the registered directors. They may be able to tell you who the copyright was transferred to.
What is more interesting: if copyright is held by a company, and that company is wound up, without the copyright being legally transferred to someone else (person or company), who ends up owning the copyright?
When a person dies it's easy. A copyright is part of that person's estate, and there are all kinds of legal frameworks on who owns it: usually their next of kin, if no such person alive, it goes to the state. Unless a will indicates otherwise.
But for a company that "dies" (wound up, bankrupted - in the latter case all assets are supposedly sold, including copyrights, but it's easy to imagine that some copyrights are forgotten about), there is no such thing as a legal heir, or is there?
I'm really glad it's automatic, and don't see any harm in that part of copyright, on the contrary. I make it, so I own it, what's harmful there? That you can't take it and use it as you like, unless I actively take precautions?
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it. And that's what automatic copyright allows me to require without hassle. It allows me to post my stuff online knowing there is at least some basic legal protection active. Having to register copyright for everything I post online just to get credit for it in case someone wants to re-use my photos or my ramblings, is a chore at best. It'd stop me from posting as much as I do. And that likely accounts for many many more people.
Thinking about it, I more and more wonder what works are really orphaned.
When posted on Facebook, I'd say the account that posted it should be the one contacted: can't say this work is totally orphaned. All photos on Facebook, as on Flickr and many other photo sites, are linked to an account. Then of course the obvious course of action is to contact that account.
And then there is no reply. How long to wait for a reply? Maybe the person is on holiday. Maybe account holder is active but registered e-mail is invalid, so they don't get the enquiry mail. What else to do to contact this person? How much effort to put in it?
It's really tricky. While I understand the idea - and basically support it for truly orphaned works, where the copyright holder died without leaving an heir, for example - it's not easy to implement properly.
Use their country's TLD of course. Like the US should have their own TLD, and use it too. that's what they are for.
Now my company also has a .com while I'm really local .hk but that's to do with cost (.com is much cheaper) and ease of registration (back then it wasn't that easy to get a .hk domain as it is now - .com was dead easy though).
Great opportunity for squatters/scammers. With all its drawbacks I still prefer the current system over your proposal. It's just that much more reliable.
Sorry to pop your myth but over the past decade I've registered several domains, and so far haven't even had to modify my name a little bit to find an available name. There are plenty of names available - unless you insist on <generic word>.com instead of <your company name>.com - replace .com by your own country's tld and you've got even more options.
Just now I'm building up a new site, planning to register a name for it, and again: no problem. The name that I wanted is available. And this time it's a simple combination of two generic words.
By nature of the beast you have TLDs. Whether these are .com or .amazon - the last part of the domain name is a TLD. There is no way around it. Just like area codes and country codes on telephone numbers (but written the other way around), they help in sorting out some of the mess.
The problem of course lies in how these TLDs are organised and managed. Having a few world-wide domains (.com, .org, .net, etc) plus national domains that can also basically be assigned world-wide is the big issue. Ditching these generic TLDs and requiring that only people or companies that actually are present in a certain area can get the area-specific TLD would solve a lot of that mess.
And rivers.amazon will send you to a site selling books about rivers.
Remember: the .amazon tld is, when it's issued, controlled by the book selling company Amazon, Inc. It's effectively shorthand for amazon.com.
Your comment would be true if they were really pumping around 3.7 TB every day. However, they don't (or at least: they shouldn't have to):
By the nature of the dataset nothing is ever removed or changed just new files added.
This is why I was thinking of rsync. Only transfer the changed bits. Now indeed one could use a combination of a diff tool (check what's new) plus torrent to distribute the updates... whether that extra effort is worth it depends of course on the total amount of data to transfer.
That the page is requested by someone in the UK doesn't mean the lady can not be from Japan or so.
Wow, dozens of comments and then finally this. It was the first thought of mine: "unacceptable sites" sounds very political, and reeks of plain old censorship.
And while I know the sentiments against porn as such, there is a lot more perversion on the internet - and definitely far worse stuff than a beautiful naked lady.
Defragging on any modern FS is easy: just copy the file to itself. That should do the trick to get a nicely defragmented file (assuming you have a long enough chunk of free space on your disk, of course).
I may miss something, but isn't this the ultimate job for rsync, to copy only the new bits? Or do you take a diff and distribute only that?
Very, very bad analogy as the concept of copyright is a good thing, the concept of racism is not.
Remember that only thanks to the existence of copyright the GPL and all those other FOSS licenses can exist. Without copyright it'd all be public domain.
It is the current implementation of copyright laws (primarily: too long terms) and all the other laws that surround it (e.g. DMCA blocking reverse engineering and circumvention of DRM) that is the problem.
We must be grateful to Amazon for this kind of issues, really.
It annoys the hell out of many people - and that's a good thing here. More and more people learn the dangers of DRM. Now even people with legitimately purchased content are blocked from watching their stuff; and I think that's a good thing.
The only thing that can stop and really overcome the DRM cancer from growing is this. People getting burned, and getting burned badly. They get angry, they talk about it to their friends, who may also have gotten burned. The anger spreads, and friends talk to friends and mention what happens and warn about the dangers of DRM. Content buyers start to look more critical at content vendors: do they sell it with or without DRM? If with DRM, should I take the risk of losing my money? Is there an alternative, another vendor that sells it, without DRM? And in that case I just have to hope for the content providers that these people don't resort to using The Pirate Bay.