Doesn't that defeat the whole point? Or have I just been trolled?
--Fesh
Re:Lower quality in Scientific American!!!
on
Nostrildamus
·
· Score: 1
I was really upset that they dropped James Burke's column... I got myself a three-year subscription on the hopes that he'd be around for a while... *sigh*
Heh. And to think that the Carpatho-Rusyn people were up to now only known to historians as "those guys who were oppressed by the Czechoslovakians in the 1930s". Well guess what, world? We've made it! Ruthenia forever!
This message brought to you by the Carpatho-Rusyn Liberation Front. Accept no substitutes.
So it's all about finding the crossover point on the profit margin and total profit (as a function of price) graph, eh? *chuckle* Guess that saved me buying an economics book...
Hmmm. But if the web has no boundaries (as I've seen it said here), does the practice of differential pricing based on geographical area really make sense? The real problem I see is that it was differential pricing by individual computer, not by individual consumer.
Basically, I guess I'm trying to ask if dynamic pricing for each individual consumer is unethical if geographic boundaries for all intents and purposes do not exist as a factor in the transaction.
And interestingly enough, from what I see here copies for backup purposes are expressly not protected. Consider:
1. The purpose and character of use is clearly commercial, as it's an attempt to avoid spending money if your original copy is destroyed. "A penny saved is a penny earned," as Ben Franklin said.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work in question is not often a scholarly work, but a commercial entertainment product. So the importance to society at large of being able to make a backup is not all that great. After all, the media companies have spammed the market with the stuff, so it's not like it's not readily available.
3. The amount of the work copied in proportion to the whole is 100%. My reading of this indicates to me that the smaller the portion of the work that is copied, the more protection the copying recieves.
4. The affect of the use on the market is that you don't make an additional purchase, so using the industry's logic, they "lost" money because you made the backup. See point 1.
By looking at these criteria on a point-by point basis, it seems clear to me that making a backup copy is not protected by this description of fair use. Furthermore, I could make the same argument for just about every other "fair use" that we're losing due to these "copy protection" schemes.
At this point, I don't think anything other than a complete overhaul and rewrite of the copyright laws is going to improve the situation. For one thing, the things that we here on Slashdot consider to be "fair use" have to be enumerated in the law in order to be valid. By a strict reading of the law, it would seem that a lot of things we take to be fundamental rights due to the properties of information are not in the least bit supported under law. And in truth, if you don't want the cops breaking down your door, the law is all that matters.
Even better, fill the barrels with pure oxygen and let them go down about 5000 feet or so... Then a depth gauge cuts the rope to which the cinderblocks are attached. Explosive decompression, anyone?
"Godwin's Law" is an observation, not a immutable rule of reality. Just like "Moore's Law". It's an observation that by the time in somebody gets around to comparing someone to Hitler or a group to Nazis, a conversation has usually become an emotional flamefest and isn't worth continuing. If you're trying to have a rational debate with someone who's stuck on the emotional level, the debate is over. They're simply not going to budge no matter how factual your arguments are, and the only way to "win" is to insult them so badly that they give up. (BTW, this is why American politics is so screwed up. Everybody resorts to emotional tactics these days, and reason goes out the window. Do all those party-line votes make sense now? And what about, "We have to save the CHILDREN!")
"Godwin's Law" has been misinterpreted by the masses to man "You can't make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis or you lose", when it actually says "By the time somebody's pissed off enough to make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis, a rational debate has degenerated to name-calling." Not that you're wrong about the above poster misinvoking it, but I don't think it's "Intellectually Bankrupt" either.
I was a grader for a FORTRAN class geared for non-CS students... I was running the submissions to check to see if they compiled and ran (never mind getting the right results) when I noticed something funny... Some of the programs were producing output in exactly the same format. I got suspicious and compared the source code, and sure enough, the only difference between them was capitalization and (get this) variable names. There were six or seven programs like this when all was said and done.
I don't know if I should defend the students or not... The professor was really lousy. I think he was having enough of a problem keeping his job as it was, because he decided not to bother with a major cheating scandal and swept it under the rug. The university didn't invite him back the next year... But I guess you have to wonder about people who think that changing variable names will keep them from being caught. These students obviously had no understanding of what they were doing in that class.
This needs to be modded up. It's an almost perfect isomorphism to the sort of crap that's happening today in the software and information world, based on real-world objects that a non-techie can easily wrap their heads around. If our message isn't getting out because what we're worried about is too abstract for common consumption, this is a very good example we can use to bring things home.
I grant the point, because not everybody has the skills and equipment to discover new drugs. The point with software today is that you can buy a few books, twiddle around a bit, and if you're not dense as a brick, you can pick up the skills. The equipment is avaliable for less than $1000. There is nothing stopping some person or group of people from recreating everything MS has done to date given the time and the will. Nothing except outdated IP Laws, that is.
What intellectual property is about in the software arena is maintaining a high barrier to entry (remember that fun little phrase from Penfield Jackson's FoF?). Otherwise, MS and others are vulnerable to sheer market force. Prices go down as supply goes up. And if the barriers keeping people from supplying the market become lower due to wider dissemination of skills and tools, companies who have gotten fat because it was hard to enter the market suddenly realize that they can't run as fast as they have to to compete.
Microsoft may have been more agile than its competitors in the proprietary arena, but it simply cannot keep up with an army of people armed with skills and a PC who crank out code to deal with their own needs and then release the solutions for free. That is the threat they're facing, and that's why they're trying so hard to keep the sheep in line. Once people's expectations for software quality are raised, they won't be satisfied with the pitiful drek that MS pushes on them. And they know that they can't (for whatever reasons) provide that quality.
Well, the thing that struck me immediately is that the phrase "...the clear failure of newer firms..." is a logical fallacy. It's an appeal to authority. It's like saying "It's a well-established fact that Linux sucks" without giving any support for the statement. A common rhetorical tactic, and it seems to me that most people never catch on to the fact that it means absolutely nothing. However, the simple fact of the matter is that it is not clear to me at all that these firms are failures, and he certainly didn't give me any supporting evidence to back up his claim.
Microsoft might not go out of business, but they'd be seriously hurt if they don't have anything other than their name to offer.
This brings to mind the definition for success in a free market economy: whoever provides the best quality for the lowest price gets the dough. Are you saying that it's unfair to make MS compete on the basis of product quality? Make no mistake, if the source code for Windows was out there in the wild, users would gravitate towards the fork that worked the best for what they needed. If MS refuses to provide a version that works better than those of competing distributors, whose fault is it when they fall by the wayside?
We're seeing the same thing with the different Linux distros. The Linux companies are competing with each other to come with a more compelling product (in terms of price, quality, or both) than their competitors. This is the sort of competition that MS hasn't has to face since they locked up 90% of the PC market, and now they're shitting bricks over the fact that they might actually have to work to compete in terms of quality and price. Nobody gets a free ride, not even monopolistic corporations.
Whoever has in possession any device, explosive, or other instrumentality with intent to use or permit the use of the same to commit burglary or theft may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than three years or to payment of a fine of not more than $5,000, or both.
Notice the bold bit. Why is it, do you think, that they phrased it that way? It's what we've been saying all along, posession should never be the sole argument for applying criminal penalties to a person. The FLAA's would rather just toss you in jail for having things like DeCSS because it's just the teeniest bit harder to prove intent.
Wow. The DMCA is overly broad because the FLAA's are lazy. Who'd have thought?
So let's outlaw DivX as well. It's obviously a digital canvas sack that a digital burglar puts the loot in after breaking and entering with the digital crowbar.
When we start talking about the distinction between what's legal and what's done in practice, we're already swimming in eel-infested waters, are we not?
Why, oh why, did they have to word it like that? Is it just me, or is the phrase "PERMISSIBLE ACTS OF...RESEARCH" inherently sickening? Yes, I had to add an ellipsis in there to make my point, but can anybody look at that phrase in that light and not be nauseated by the fact that an entire branch of research is pursuable only at the sufferance of large corporate interests?
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--Fesh
--Fesh
This message brought to you by the Carpatho-Rusyn Liberation Front. Accept no substitutes.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Basically, I guess I'm trying to ask if dynamic pricing for each individual consumer is unethical if geographic boundaries for all intents and purposes do not exist as a factor in the transaction.
--Fesh
--Fesh
--Fesh
--Fesh
--Fesh
Probably why I've heard them described as "the masters of guerilla litigation"... *sigh*
--Fesh
--Fesh
1. The purpose and character of use is clearly commercial, as it's an attempt to avoid spending money if your original copy is destroyed. "A penny saved is a penny earned," as Ben Franklin said.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work in question is not often a scholarly work, but a commercial entertainment product. So the importance to society at large of being able to make a backup is not all that great. After all, the media companies have spammed the market with the stuff, so it's not like it's not readily available.
3. The amount of the work copied in proportion to the whole is 100%. My reading of this indicates to me that the smaller the portion of the work that is copied, the more protection the copying recieves.
4. The affect of the use on the market is that you don't make an additional purchase, so using the industry's logic, they "lost" money because you made the backup. See point 1.
By looking at these criteria on a point-by point basis, it seems clear to me that making a backup copy is not protected by this description of fair use. Furthermore, I could make the same argument for just about every other "fair use" that we're losing due to these "copy protection" schemes.
At this point, I don't think anything other than a complete overhaul and rewrite of the copyright laws is going to improve the situation. For one thing, the things that we here on Slashdot consider to be "fair use" have to be enumerated in the law in order to be valid. By a strict reading of the law, it would seem that a lot of things we take to be fundamental rights due to the properties of information are not in the least bit supported under law. And in truth, if you don't want the cops breaking down your door, the law is all that matters.
--Fesh
--Fesh
--Fesh
--Fesh
"Godwin's Law" has been misinterpreted by the masses to man "You can't make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis or you lose", when it actually says "By the time somebody's pissed off enough to make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis, a rational debate has degenerated to name-calling." Not that you're wrong about the above poster misinvoking it, but I don't think it's "Intellectually Bankrupt" either.
--Fesh
I don't know if I should defend the students or not... The professor was really lousy. I think he was having enough of a problem keeping his job as it was, because he decided not to bother with a major cheating scandal and swept it under the rug. The university didn't invite him back the next year... But I guess you have to wonder about people who think that changing variable names will keep them from being caught. These students obviously had no understanding of what they were doing in that class.
--Fesh
--Fesh
What intellectual property is about in the software arena is maintaining a high barrier to entry (remember that fun little phrase from Penfield Jackson's FoF?). Otherwise, MS and others are vulnerable to sheer market force. Prices go down as supply goes up. And if the barriers keeping people from supplying the market become lower due to wider dissemination of skills and tools, companies who have gotten fat because it was hard to enter the market suddenly realize that they can't run as fast as they have to to compete.
Microsoft may have been more agile than its competitors in the proprietary arena, but it simply cannot keep up with an army of people armed with skills and a PC who crank out code to deal with their own needs and then release the solutions for free. That is the threat they're facing, and that's why they're trying so hard to keep the sheep in line. Once people's expectations for software quality are raised, they won't be satisfied with the pitiful drek that MS pushes on them. And they know that they can't (for whatever reasons) provide that quality.
--Fesh
--Fesh
This brings to mind the definition for success in a free market economy: whoever provides the best quality for the lowest price gets the dough. Are you saying that it's unfair to make MS compete on the basis of product quality? Make no mistake, if the source code for Windows was out there in the wild, users would gravitate towards the fork that worked the best for what they needed. If MS refuses to provide a version that works better than those of competing distributors, whose fault is it when they fall by the wayside?
We're seeing the same thing with the different Linux distros. The Linux companies are competing with each other to come with a more compelling product (in terms of price, quality, or both) than their competitors. This is the sort of competition that MS hasn't has to face since they locked up 90% of the PC market, and now they're shitting bricks over the fact that they might actually have to work to compete in terms of quality and price. Nobody gets a free ride, not even monopolistic corporations.
--Fesh
Notice the bold bit. Why is it, do you think, that they phrased it that way? It's what we've been saying all along, posession should never be the sole argument for applying criminal penalties to a person. The FLAA's would rather just toss you in jail for having things like DeCSS because it's just the teeniest bit harder to prove intent.
Wow. The DMCA is overly broad because the FLAA's are lazy. Who'd have thought?
--Fesh
*shakes head*
--Fesh
--Fesh
--Fesh