We are surrounded by intellectual product. All our technologies and products (ALL OF THEM) are merely constructs of pre-existing technologies.
Wheels, incandescent lights, circuits, building materials, plastics, adhesives, machines, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology. Everything we know, understand, and utilize as a culture is all based upon the intellectual developments of preceding generations.
To suggest otherwise is to start history at a convenient point.
The great composers adapted ancient folk songs into their work. Jazz musicians then played wonderful creative games with the works of great composers. And then the Rolling Stones came along and claimed ownership over those jazz standards. Anyone who believes in the right-of-ownership in pop melodies has a very small understanding of music composition.
Can you imagine how stifled creativity and progress would have been if the "wheel" was patented.
The lawyers and the big corporations are attempting to create ownership over our cultural heritage, and ultimately they are trying to maintain in unsustainable business model in the face of new technological developments. It is neither our national responsibility nor our legal right to maintain business models that have been surpassed by technological evolution.
And remember: 99.999999% of musicians in the world are doing it for free because they love music. (Myself included).
We are surrounded by intellectual product. All our technologies and products (ALL OF THEM) are merely constructs of pre-existing technologies.
Wheels, incandescent lights, circuits, building materials, plastics, adhesives, machines, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology. Everything we know, understand, and utilize as a culture is all based upon the intellectual developments of preceding generations.
To suggest otherwise is to start history at a convenient point.
The great composers adapted ancient folk songs into their work. Jazz musicians then played wonderful creative games with the works of great composers. And then the Rolling Stones came along and claimed ownership over those jazz standards. Anyone who believes in the right-of-ownership in pop melodies has a very small understanding of music composition.
Can you imagine how stifled creativity and progress would have been if the "wheel" was patented.
The lawyers and the big corporations are attempting to create ownership over our cultural heritage, and ultimately they are trying to maintain in unsustainable business model in the face of new technological developments. It is neither our national responsibility nor our legal right to maintain business models that have been surpassed by technological evolution.
And remember: 99.999999% of musicians in the world are doing it for free because they love music. (Myself included).
If everyone here donated to the EFF we could stop whining about how mutated copyright laws and corporate machinations of intellectual property laws are destroying creativity (and the future).
I rip a song from my CD so that I can listen to it on my PC. The MP3 file gets stored in a folder that happens to be viewable by p2p networks. I haven't *given* anyone the file.
Later that day someone comes and *takes* the file.
I haven't distributed or published the file to a website. I have kept it on MY personal computer which I own. (I was exercising my right to copy and archive). It just so happens that others have access to my computer.
I actually place things in my shared folder so that I can access them via P2P from my office.
The semantics of "distribution", "publishing" and "copying" simply do not work anymore.
This will not be an easy argument for the RIAA to win and they know it -- hence the written affidavit. Breach of contract is a far easier case for them to win than the legal nightmare of proving who published and who broke the law.
You said "If they [the artists] don't get paid, you get no new music"...
If only that were true.
We as a society are in no danger of 'losing' music. The vast majority of musicians are working for free because they love what they do. (Myself included).
-----
"The 20th century will be remembered as that strange era when musicians made money"
Pardon my ignorance, but how exactly does the RIAA know *who* the fileswappers are? If I use Kazaa (what am I saying, I *do* use Kazaa), how would the RIAA find my real name, and my address?
I use a dynamically assigned IP address, a fake username, and a firewall.
Are the lawsuits being handed out to fileswappers who used less security?
This too is off topic, apologies but the thread was already here...
My two cents: Saying we need to try to "understand" the types of radical prejudice and hate-speak generated by the Arab world, is akin to saying we need to try to "understand" white-supremacy so that we can all get along.
For crying out loud we're talking about a part of the world where women aren't allowed to drive.
It is not "we" who need to understand. We *do* understand.
Interesting story. Given that the power is generated by bacteria, my first question would have to be: Is an optimal temperature required for bacterial function / electrical generation?
Maintaining a warm environment for the sake of the bacteria would certainly rule out plenty of uses from cars to flashlights, and most importantly: that little light that goes on when you open your freezer.
So you're saying that software differs from conentional media in that the "installation" process is in effect "making a copy". Therefore, to install the file one must make a copy.
Therefore, if I download music, and then give that music to someone else, whether or not I have deleted the original, I have made an unauthorized copy.
But how about this work-around: What if I download directly to some removable media? Then would re-sale of that media be legal?
And if re-sale of recordable media becomes legalized, we're going to see a whole lot of CD-R's being sold on eBay with claims that they are legitimate "directly-downloaded-to-CD" recordings.
This is actually a major hit for Sony. With a huge portion of their revenues coming from PS2 licensing dollars, piracy could put a huge dent in their hide.
What's really incredible is that this doesn't happen more often. How many times have I bought things on eBay from "New" mercants? (ie: merchants with no reputation score). Most frequently its for low-dollar items -- so its no big deal anyway. But for all I know its a scammer creating his latest false-ID.
I've yet to be ripped off though.
But even if all buyers diligently checked the reputation of their sellers, how easy is it to have multiple logins and create a "false reputation" for yourself as a seller?
I'm always amazed that eBay works as well as it does...
The problem is that even with Flash MX's great JPG compression and vector graphics, the technique used by most flash animators is to apply a series of animation techniques to a small set of images.
In other words, the animation is a set of instructions, and the downloaded data is kept to a minimum.
The upshot of this is that while there's a lot of movement on the screen, it gets pretty repetitive. For example, during the intro, we see the same artwork (various faces) used over and over again using a variety of different animation effects.
Whereas film uses a separate image for every frame, flash can use 3 or 4 images and a set of instructions. But these 3 or 4 images (flashed, panned, faded and moved around the screen), hardly approach the immersive experience of thousands of frames used in film.
In an era of digital video and truly fantastic compression technologies, this approach seems dated. True, the potential audience for flash movies may be larger, but that seems like a business decision and not a creative one.
They've done a great job with the medium, but unfortunately this medium, as with so many others online, is extremely limited.
The article does a pretty crappy job of demonstrating causality.
While the findings may indeed be true that those who are married exhibit a decrease in creative output, the study doesn't say whether or not "Creative men who's creativity is beginning to wane may suddenly get married" --or -- "Consistently creative men are less likely to marry", or in fact as the article suggests: "Marriage decreases creativity".
While the mass media has latched on to Hydrogen as being the solution to our dependence on OPEC and foreign oil, anyone who's got a basic understanding of science will tell you that shifting to a hydrogen economy will likely cause greater damage to the environment by *vastly* accelerating the greenhouse-effect.
Hydrogen is a solution to a political problem, not an environmental one!!!
The article states that all spam mail sent via the new Outlook/Hotmail automation exploit will include the text "with DAV" in the header info of the message.
Well, why can't any stupid mailfilter just block the messages carrying the "with DAV" text?
While this is certainly pretty cool, its sort of a shame that the hard work of the Bungie folks is being capitalized on by screenwriters.
The idea and script may be novel, but they're a dim light compared to the beauty of the Halo engine, architecture and graphics.
(and quit saying Microsoft b/c they had all of nothing to do with this development... Anyone who followed the dev stages of Halo knows it was around for years before MS got its paws on it).
What's the legality of sending this off to festivals?
Not this makes the granting of this patent any easier to swallow, but...
It should be noted that the patent which was granted seems to apply specifically to sales-content which is tailored towards specific users. "individualized sales presentations created from various textual and graphical information data sources to match customer profiles" -- USPTO #5,576,951
Since most small e-commerce sites using GPL'd commerce software like Agora.cgi don't even support customer login, they'd be less affected by this than the big boys like Amazon and Ebay. (Not that this will ever hold up anyway).
Slashdot Mirror
We are surrounded by intellectual product. All our technologies and products (ALL OF THEM) are merely constructs of pre-existing technologies.
Wheels, incandescent lights, circuits, building materials, plastics, adhesives, machines, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology. Everything we know, understand, and utilize as a culture is all based upon the intellectual developments of preceding generations.
To suggest otherwise is to start history at a convenient point.
The great composers adapted ancient folk songs into their work. Jazz musicians then played wonderful creative games with the works of great composers. And then the Rolling Stones came along and claimed ownership over those jazz standards. Anyone who believes in the right-of-ownership in pop melodies has a very small understanding of music composition.
Can you imagine how stifled creativity and progress would have been if the "wheel" was patented.
The lawyers and the big corporations are attempting to create ownership over our cultural heritage, and ultimately they are trying to maintain in unsustainable business model in the face of new technological developments. It is neither our national responsibility nor our legal right to maintain business models that have been surpassed by technological evolution.
And remember: 99.999999% of musicians in the world are doing it for free because they love music. (Myself included).
Peace.
We are surrounded by intellectual product. All our technologies and products (ALL OF THEM) are merely constructs of pre-existing technologies.
Wheels, incandescent lights, circuits, building materials, plastics, adhesives, machines, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology. Everything we know, understand, and utilize as a culture is all based upon the intellectual developments of preceding generations.
To suggest otherwise is to start history at a convenient point.
The great composers adapted ancient folk songs into their work. Jazz musicians then played wonderful creative games with the works of great composers. And then the Rolling Stones came along and claimed ownership over those jazz standards. Anyone who believes in the right-of-ownership in pop melodies has a very small understanding of music composition.
Can you imagine how stifled creativity and progress would have been if the "wheel" was patented.
The lawyers and the big corporations are attempting to create ownership over our cultural heritage, and ultimately they are trying to maintain in unsustainable business model in the face of new technological developments. It is neither our national responsibility nor our legal right to maintain business models that have been surpassed by technological evolution.
And remember: 99.999999% of musicians in the world are doing it for free because they love music. (Myself included).
Peace.
If everyone here donated to the EFF we could stop whining about how mutated copyright laws and corporate machinations of intellectual property laws are destroying creativity (and the future).
Even the best arguments need dollars.
Lessig has it right.
Ok but now take this analogy.
I rip a song from my CD so that I can listen to it on my PC. The MP3 file gets stored in a folder that happens to be viewable by p2p networks. I haven't *given* anyone the file.
Later that day someone comes and *takes* the file.
I haven't distributed or published the file to a website. I have kept it on MY personal computer which I own. (I was exercising my right to copy and archive). It just so happens that others have access to my computer.
I actually place things in my shared folder so that I can access them via P2P from my office.
The semantics of "distribution", "publishing" and "copying" simply do not work anymore.
This will not be an easy argument for the RIAA to win and they know it -- hence the written affidavit. Breach of contract is a far easier case for them to win than the legal nightmare of proving who published and who broke the law.
You said "If they [the artists] don't get paid, you get no new music"...
If only that were true.
We as a society are in no danger of 'losing' music. The vast majority of musicians are working for free because they love what they do. (Myself included).
-----
"The 20th century will be remembered as that strange era when musicians made money"
This interesting piece comes from the EFF.org site and discusses how to avoid the long arm of the RIAA.
Its a good read.
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/howto-notgetsued.php
https://secure.eff.org
Your donation to the EFF will help prevent all those headaches.
Basically I just reached my personal tipping point and donated $70 to the EFF.
If anyone else is interested:
https://secure.eff.org/
Peace.
I'll send you a casette.
Pardon my ignorance, but how exactly does the RIAA know *who* the fileswappers are? If I use Kazaa (what am I saying, I *do* use Kazaa), how would the RIAA find my real name, and my address?
I use a dynamically assigned IP address, a fake username, and a firewall.
Are the lawsuits being handed out to fileswappers who used less security?
This too is off topic, apologies but the thread was already here...
My two cents: Saying we need to try to "understand" the types of radical prejudice and hate-speak generated by the Arab world, is akin to saying we need to try to "understand" white-supremacy so that we can all get along.
For crying out loud we're talking about a part of the world where women aren't allowed to drive.
It is not "we" who need to understand. We *do* understand.
Can't anyone just Kazaa all the Church of Scientology "teachings" these days?
Interesting story. Given that the power is generated by bacteria, my first question would have to be: Is an optimal temperature required for bacterial function / electrical generation?
Maintaining a warm environment for the sake of the bacteria would certainly rule out plenty of uses from cars to flashlights, and most importantly: that little light that goes on when you open your freezer.
However, creating copies for archival and personal use purposes *is* protected under copyright law.
The bottom line is, if you can play (or view) something, you can record it.
Ultimately, the goods/services combo amounts to internet-connected copy-protection which will be hilariously easy to circumvent.
The RIAA will undoubtedly hope to quash such archiving under "reverse engineering" laws, but that's another argument for another day.
So you're saying that software differs from conentional media in that the "installation" process is in effect "making a copy". Therefore, to install the file one must make a copy.
Therefore, if I download music, and then give that music to someone else, whether or not I have deleted the original, I have made an unauthorized copy.
But how about this work-around: What if I download directly to some removable media? Then would re-sale of that media be legal?
And if re-sale of recordable media becomes legalized, we're going to see a whole lot of CD-R's being sold on eBay with claims that they are legitimate "directly-downloaded-to-CD" recordings.
Oh this is going to be messy...
This is actually a major hit for Sony. With a huge portion of their revenues coming from PS2 licensing dollars, piracy could put a huge dent in their hide.
The good news?
Now they'll bump up the release date on the PS3.
The nuclear powered craft will be called "Shiva".
Anyone afraid yet?
What's really incredible is that this doesn't happen more often. How many times have I bought things on eBay from "New" mercants? (ie: merchants with no reputation score). Most frequently its for low-dollar items -- so its no big deal anyway. But for all I know its a scammer creating his latest false-ID.
I've yet to be ripped off though.
But even if all buyers diligently checked the reputation of their sellers, how easy is it to have multiple logins and create a "false reputation" for yourself as a seller?
I'm always amazed that eBay works as well as it does...
The problem is that even with Flash MX's great JPG compression and vector graphics, the technique used by most flash animators is to apply a series of animation techniques to a small set of images.
In other words, the animation is a set of instructions, and the downloaded data is kept to a minimum.
The upshot of this is that while there's a lot of movement on the screen, it gets pretty repetitive. For example, during the intro, we see the same artwork (various faces) used over and over again using a variety of different animation effects.
Whereas film uses a separate image for every frame, flash can use 3 or 4 images and a set of instructions. But these 3 or 4 images (flashed, panned, faded and moved around the screen), hardly approach the immersive experience of thousands of frames used in film.
In an era of digital video and truly fantastic compression technologies, this approach seems dated. True, the potential audience for flash movies may be larger, but that seems like a business decision and not a creative one.
They've done a great job with the medium, but unfortunately this medium, as with so many others online, is extremely limited.
The article does a pretty crappy job of demonstrating causality.
While the findings may indeed be true that those who are married exhibit a decrease in creative output, the study doesn't say whether or not "Creative men who's creativity is beginning to wane may suddenly get married" --or -- "Consistently creative men are less likely to marry", or in fact as the article suggests: "Marriage decreases creativity".
While the mass media has latched on to Hydrogen as being the solution to our dependence on OPEC and foreign oil, anyone who's got a basic understanding of science will tell you that shifting to a hydrogen economy will likely cause greater damage to the environment by *vastly* accelerating the greenhouse-effect.
Hydrogen is a solution to a political problem, not an environmental one!!!
The article states that all spam mail sent via the new Outlook/Hotmail automation exploit will include the text "with DAV" in the header info of the message.
Well, why can't any stupid mailfilter just block the messages carrying the "with DAV" text?
While this is certainly pretty cool, its sort
of a shame that the hard work of the Bungie folks
is being capitalized on by screenwriters.
The idea and script may be novel, but they're
a dim light compared to the beauty of the
Halo engine, architecture and graphics.
(and quit saying Microsoft b/c they had all of
nothing to do with this development... Anyone
who followed the dev stages of Halo knows it was
around for years before MS got its paws on it).
What's the legality of sending this off to
festivals?
Anyone?
Is that us?
Not this makes the granting of this patent any easier to swallow, but...
It should be noted that the patent which was granted seems to apply specifically to sales-content which is tailored towards specific users.
"individualized sales presentations created from various textual and graphical information data sources to match customer profiles" -- USPTO #5,576,951
Since most small e-commerce sites using GPL'd commerce software like Agora.cgi don't even support customer login, they'd be less affected by this than the big boys like Amazon and Ebay. (Not that this will ever hold up anyway).