I didn't actually say that I agreed with the US and their approach to intellectual property. For the most part, I don't, and I especially dislike the way it appears your Congress panders to large media companies and their enforcement arms. If you or I truly believe that China is the new US, and the US is the new Europe, then we can agree that Europe's strategy is grandly flawed and destined for a second-place finish.
On the other hand, intellectual property is important. Even you must agree with that. The Free Software Foundation believes it: witness the GPL, which boils down to just a different way to protect that property.
Mostly, we need to ask what we are protecting this property from, and whether that strategy will ultimately be successful.
They should expire because what was created by the people belongs to the people.
More to the point, everything belongs in the public domain, except for that to which your constitution grants the privilege of not being in the public domain for a certain period of time. At which point the public owns the publics' works once again.
I think the framers of your constitution viewed so-called intellectual property rights as a necessary evil. Necessary to foster innovation, necessary to give impetus to new creation, but evil in that the public does not have the same access to those works as it otherwise would.
It really makes you wonder what the framers would have thought of the Berne Convention, doesn't it?
Your government believes that intellectual property is important, and for the most part, they're exactly on the money. Part of America's progress as a world power (if not hegemony) is its exports in information.
Imagine, if you will, that you are leading America in an age where manufacturing has become either trivial and moved offshore, or incredibly complex with the use of robotics and other such things developing nations are not yet good at. What would you do? Intellectual property, even if you don't agree with the term, is important; and although we primarily see lawmakers' views on the issue extending to DRM, audio, and video piracy, I don't think that's their only consideration.
America's cultural exports are powerful and at least worth protecting in some way. But it's more than that. It's about maintaining a leading role in research, development, technology, infrastructure, information technology, and a host of other things. And even though I think the US could use a hell of a lot better implementation to achieve these ideals (especially in regards to the next generation and their schooling), I have to agree that IP infringement is an important issue, and a complex issue.
This is the reality we live in now, as artists. I do a little bit of singer/songwriter type stuff, and though I've never received a red cent for it (and never asked, as I'm pretty much just a hobbyist), but when I do get mail or whatever, I respond. It's good PR, it keeps people in the loop, and you know what? People like people, not just brands masquerading as people.
On a more tangential note, the internet is spelling the end of the traditional fanclub. Now you have widely available software that's capable of creating good, if not great music. And the people interested in your music probably have access to that. Music is an interactive thing now -- like it used to be before labels existed, I might add -- and people who enjoy music sometimes enjoy doing things with that music.
I multi-track my music, as it's pretty much the only way I can cost-effectively produce it. One thing I found is that if I say, "Here are the tracks, the vocals, the instruments, the effect, whatever," and add that I like people remixing or redoing the song, people actually do it. One guy (I assume a guy, but who knows) actually took a soft guitar and voice song I did and made it into a dance track. A pretty good one at that.
I like the fact that he did that. It validates my art. He likes the fact that he could do that. It validates his interest in me. And it's the sort of feedback loop that only becomes more exponential as time goes one, the sort of thing labels are unable or unwilling to do. And also the sort of massive opportunity they miss because of it.
Clearly, solving this clock problem isn't going to be as simple as removing the clock. That's not even an option! No, your stove needs to be wireless-enabled so it can connect to a time server. You get the best of both worlds: futuristic blinkenlichter, and futuristic IP addresses.
On the other hand, I'm starting to sound like a 1960s Popular Science issue.
No, the biggest reason not to do touchscreens for most devices is the lack of tactile feedback.
The idea of having the face of an iPod, for instance, as a full touchscreen was dead on arrival in that there's no good way to navigate without looking at the device. Navigation on the back, display on the front solves this to some degree but negates the need for having a touchscreen at all.
And can you imagine a touchscreen instead of a keyboard? Touch typing would be awful, not to mention the glaring accessibility problem inherent in that approach.
What I didn't see from the article was whether or not this is a bootable OS type thing, or just a collection of portable applications. Which already exist, though most of them are open source, and thus not particularly suited to Microsoft's vision of the future, I suppose.
If there was a way to dump a select bit of your desktop data and sync it back up with your home comp, that would be cool. I'd want one of those, even if it wasn't bootable.
See, as a Canadian, this is what seems strange to me about the American government: your constitution is supposed to be the highest law in the land, correct? And the only way to change the highest law is to basically have your Congress or States jump through all kinds of flaming hoops.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does not your Fourth Amendment rule out blanket wiretapping of your own citizens without a warrant? Making this wiretapping illegal?
Perhaps I'm reading this too simplistically or something. Are there some sort of "wartime" rules that rise above this Fourth Amendment?
Part of the difficulty in reading text over the internet is that web designers -- not trained in the art of selecting actual readable fonts, and without the knowledge of and capability of kerning -- have decided we shall read in sans serif fonts.
Whether we arrange the sentences like a poem or like a newspaper largely doesn't matter, as far as I can tell.
The science, complex at is it, must be at least somewhat clear to have convinced the army of scientists who've bought in. I, for one, would love to see a healthy debate on these issues, not just a majority opinion. Is global warming really so clear, so concrete a fact that we must all believe it?
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I didn't actually say that I agreed with the US and their approach to intellectual property. For the most part, I don't, and I especially dislike the way it appears your Congress panders to large media companies and their enforcement arms. If you or I truly believe that China is the new US, and the US is the new Europe, then we can agree that Europe's strategy is grandly flawed and destined for a second-place finish.
On the other hand, intellectual property is important. Even you must agree with that. The Free Software Foundation believes it: witness the GPL, which boils down to just a different way to protect that property.
Mostly, we need to ask what we are protecting this property from, and whether that strategy will ultimately be successful.
They should expire because what was created by the people belongs to the people.
More to the point, everything belongs in the public domain, except for that to which your constitution grants the privilege of not being in the public domain for a certain period of time. At which point the public owns the publics' works once again.
I think the framers of your constitution viewed so-called intellectual property rights as a necessary evil. Necessary to foster innovation, necessary to give impetus to new creation, but evil in that the public does not have the same access to those works as it otherwise would.
It really makes you wonder what the framers would have thought of the Berne Convention, doesn't it?
Your government believes that intellectual property is important, and for the most part, they're exactly on the money. Part of America's progress as a world power (if not hegemony) is its exports in information.
Imagine, if you will, that you are leading America in an age where manufacturing has become either trivial and moved offshore, or incredibly complex with the use of robotics and other such things developing nations are not yet good at. What would you do? Intellectual property, even if you don't agree with the term, is important; and although we primarily see lawmakers' views on the issue extending to DRM, audio, and video piracy, I don't think that's their only consideration.
America's cultural exports are powerful and at least worth protecting in some way. But it's more than that. It's about maintaining a leading role in research, development, technology, infrastructure, information technology, and a host of other things. And even though I think the US could use a hell of a lot better implementation to achieve these ideals (especially in regards to the next generation and their schooling), I have to agree that IP infringement is an important issue, and a complex issue.
This is the reality we live in now, as artists. I do a little bit of singer/songwriter type stuff, and though I've never received a red cent for it (and never asked, as I'm pretty much just a hobbyist), but when I do get mail or whatever, I respond. It's good PR, it keeps people in the loop, and you know what? People like people, not just brands masquerading as people.
On a more tangential note, the internet is spelling the end of the traditional fanclub. Now you have widely available software that's capable of creating good, if not great music. And the people interested in your music probably have access to that. Music is an interactive thing now -- like it used to be before labels existed, I might add -- and people who enjoy music sometimes enjoy doing things with that music.
I multi-track my music, as it's pretty much the only way I can cost-effectively produce it. One thing I found is that if I say, "Here are the tracks, the vocals, the instruments, the effect, whatever," and add that I like people remixing or redoing the song, people actually do it. One guy (I assume a guy, but who knows) actually took a soft guitar and voice song I did and made it into a dance track. A pretty good one at that.
I like the fact that he did that. It validates my art. He likes the fact that he could do that. It validates his interest in me. And it's the sort of feedback loop that only becomes more exponential as time goes one, the sort of thing labels are unable or unwilling to do. And also the sort of massive opportunity they miss because of it.
Clearly, solving this clock problem isn't going to be as simple as removing the clock. That's not even an option! No, your stove needs to be wireless-enabled so it can connect to a time server. You get the best of both worlds: futuristic blinkenlichter, and futuristic IP addresses.
On the other hand, I'm starting to sound like a 1960s Popular Science issue.
My father got sick of cutting his hair. One day he just shaved it all off.
He didn't paint his head, though. I should tell him about that. He could get the entire Qur'an stenciled on that noggin.
No, the biggest reason not to do touchscreens for most devices is the lack of tactile feedback. The idea of having the face of an iPod, for instance, as a full touchscreen was dead on arrival in that there's no good way to navigate without looking at the device. Navigation on the back, display on the front solves this to some degree but negates the need for having a touchscreen at all.
And can you imagine a touchscreen instead of a keyboard? Touch typing would be awful, not to mention the glaring accessibility problem inherent in that approach.
What I didn't see from the article was whether or not this is a bootable OS type thing, or just a collection of portable applications. Which already exist, though most of them are open source, and thus not particularly suited to Microsoft's vision of the future, I suppose.
If there was a way to dump a select bit of your desktop data and sync it back up with your home comp, that would be cool. I'd want one of those, even if it wasn't bootable.
See, as a Canadian, this is what seems strange to me about the American government: your constitution is supposed to be the highest law in the land, correct? And the only way to change the highest law is to basically have your Congress or States jump through all kinds of flaming hoops.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does not your Fourth Amendment rule out blanket wiretapping of your own citizens without a warrant? Making this wiretapping illegal?
Perhaps I'm reading this too simplistically or something. Are there some sort of "wartime" rules that rise above this Fourth Amendment?
Forget different colours. What we should do is genetically modify cows to produce blood instead of milk. How awesome would that be?
Although it would give a whole new meaning to "clotted cream".
Part of the difficulty in reading text over the internet is that web designers -- not trained in the art of selecting actual readable fonts, and without the knowledge of and capability of kerning -- have decided we shall read in sans serif fonts.
Whether we arrange the sentences like a poem or like a newspaper largely doesn't matter, as far as I can tell.
The science, complex at is it, must be at least somewhat clear to have convinced the army of scientists who've bought in. I, for one, would love to see a healthy debate on these issues, not just a majority opinion. Is global warming really so clear, so concrete a fact that we must all believe it?