Hell, that's what we've been arguing all these years. What comes around in the market will go around in the market.
First, as I said in another post, it is not an indictment of the free market per se, but an idictment of those who view a free market as operating without an ethical or social context, as epitomised by the frequently heard comment "their first duty is to their shareholders, so doing [whatever despicable or harmful action is being discussed] is appropriate and good. The free market will balance things out."
The fact of the matter is that, payback like we are seeing with Adobe is all too uncommon. Far more common are things like Monsanto's poisoning of a southern US town's drinking water, a smoking gun in the form of memos describing PR strategies for if and when they were caught, and not a single person in jail despite the deaths and illnesses caused. Dow Chemical's behavior in India is another example, Microsoft's behavior vis-a-vis countless companies it has destroyed over the years yet another, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum, with hardly a negative consiquence as a result.
A competative free market, as good as it is for producing consumer goods at reasonable prices and performing other economic tasks, is singularly ineffective at providing for the public good when such requires ethical, moral, or wise behavior that is contrary to someone's bottom line.
Re:Live By the Sword, Die By the Sword
on
Adobe Gets Hit By DMCA
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Don't blame this on the free market, blame it on the laws that are put there by politicians and their supports ($$$) not on the free market system.
I am not blaming it on the free market per se.
The free market is a very useful economic tool and system, when applied appropriately. It is an unmitigated disaster when it is applied inappropraitely (think of what things would be like if, in addition to the local telco and power monopolies, there were also the local highway and street monopoly, if you're having trouble imagining an inappropraite application of the free market. Clearly the borders of what is appropriate and what is not are not entirely black and white. Consider, for example, the debate about healthcare, and the supporting arguments pro and con a private, capitalist health care system vs. a socialized healthcare system. Only someone dogmatically in one camp or the other would be unable to see advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.).
I do blame people who constantly spew the "their first responsibility is to their stockholders, so that makes [insert harmful behavior here] not only okay, but correct." There are situations in which the free market is a singularly inappropriate tool for the building and functioning of a working society and culture, and in which the ethic I just paraphrased above in indefensible.
God, your myopia makes a televangelist appear openminded.
Free Marken uber Alles? Hello, flyspeck, it's not the free market that passed the DMCA--it's a hyper-active government that did so.
hyper-active government? Elected government, acting upon the desires its constituency (not the voter, but rather the paying special interest/corporation), in a free market of influence and paid-for legislators, thanks to a 1978 supreme court ruling interpreting corporate finance as equivelent to free speech. If the governmenty is hyper-active, it is because the ever-worshipped 'invisible hand' of the free market of legislative influence has made it so.
Legislation has everything to do with markets, free or otherwise, indeed no market (free or otherwise) can exist in a complete vacuum of legislation and function coherently (if you really need it spelled out for you, consider any number of ungoverned lands as well as the behavior of the black market itself. Lack of regulation means lack of laws for a court to interpret, i.e. a lack of jurisprudence and the rule of the gun, libertarian myths of anarchistic utopia notwithstanding).
But of course, all of that misses the point I originally made entirely (which was, perhaps, your intent). By perusing any number of Ayndroidian posts here on slashdot and elsewhere from people who argue similarly to yourself, the common reply to complaints about corporate malfaescence and misbehavior, be it financial, social, economic, or environmental, is always a handwave toward the mythical 'invisible hand' of the marketplace (which has already been debunked by more recent, and more applicable, economic theory for which a Nobel prise has been granted) with no supporting argument as to how or why a free market would, for example, prevent Monsanto from poisoning the drinking water of a small southern US town than, say, government oversight that would throw such people in jail for doing such a thing.
As I said before, oh thought-challenged reactionary, everything we do is done in an ethical and social context, a fact which libertarian dogma and naive readers of Ayn Rand can't seem to grasp for all its obviousness to the rest of the human population. That goes for Adobe, and is irrevelent with respect to the specifics of the legislation in question, to wit:
Adobe took a social convention (in this case the poorly concieved DMCA, but it might just as well have been copyright law itself, or some other convention) and used it to the detriment of the the society as a whole. Now that another has turned and done a similar thing to them, they are without support. This means that mitigating cirumstances, that might normally have led to a compromise, are likely to fall on deaf ears and evince, at most, an amused chuckle from the common observer.
In other words, now that the tables are turned, the pathetic excuse of "their only responsibility is to their shareholders and it is proper that they do all that is legal, no matter how unethical or reprehensible, to make money" is shown to be the absurdity that most clear thinking people always recognized it to be, namely that, in the end, such behavior undermines not only the society, and hurts not only the victims of the initial misbehavior, but ultimately the very company and stockholders the behavior was purported to benefit.
Alas, the weakness of the free market for determining ethical behavior is that, as often as not, unethical behavior does pay, often with little or no unpleasant consiquence for the corporate wrongdoer. Which of course means if you want to build a society fit for humans to live in, rather than merely one that is designed to service corporate entities at the expense of everyone else, you need more than just a simple, unregulated, free market.
After the Sklyrov debace it is difficult to have any sympathy for Adobe.
Free Market ueber Alles types should take note... this is the kind of karmic returns such ill-considered, anti-social behavior in the name of padding stockholders pockets at the expense of the public good warrent, and perhaps now a little more often will actually receive.
There is a social and ethical context to everything we do, as individuals, as members of corporations, or as corporations themselves. This is but one small aspect of it, and while it is far too seldom to see payback of this sort for wrongdoing within the span of a human life, it is most gratifying one rare occasions like this when poetic justice actually does occur.
Maybe next time Adobe will reconsider, and perhaps even lobby against such draconian and despicable legislation, rather than amorally adding it to their lawyers' arsenal.
damn, didn't realize I'd already posted this (and had it modded down below my browsing level as "flaimbait," go figure[1])
[1] I'd apologize more profously if the moderation system weren't being abused by regional bigots to promote their POV here. Look, I (and a huge chunk of the American public) hate Bush and his "let's fight daddy's war all over again/let's use the American military to avenge the attempt on daddy's life" nonsense as much as everyone else does, but that is no excuse for the sort of region and nation bashing going on in this thread.
You really want to bash someone, bash the corporations who run the baseball league who abuse the term 'world' for their own marketing persons, and while your at it, bash the European art show organizers who do the same to promote their events. But don't bash a bunch of amateur war drivers who tried to organize a world event and came up short. Instead, grab your laptop, get into your car, and add a map of your city and country to the list.
WarDriving... Cities from only the western part of North America...
Don't call it "World" if its just North America, and especially don't if its just a region of North America.
So get off your butt and go do some wardriving. Nothing is stopping you, or anyone else in the world, from participating. Indeed, I suspect the organizers would be happier if more countries participated.
Perhaps it will become an annual event, with gradually more countries taking part.
BTW - Where do you draw the line for 'world?' 1 country per continent, x countries per hemisphere? Most 'world' events in Europe and Asia are similarly limited... only a tiny fraction of the world community takes part (e.g. "world" art exhibitions, with all of 4 countries on 4 continents represented out of hundreds is arguably as small a slice of the world as it would be if those 4 countries were on one continent, to cite an example I witnessed more than once while living in Germany).
If 10 people take part in a 'world' event and they happen to be scattered all over the globe, does that somehow add legitimacy over 10,000 people taking part, who happen to be scatterd over just one corner of it? I agree the term is often abused, but your kneejerk reaction is more than a little silly itself.
From snopes urban legend page linked on other comment:
Origins: For nearly a century now, baseball's annual championship, the World Series, has been an essential American ritual...
Snopes is a great resource for debunking Urban Myth's and Legends, but I am curious if there are additional citations available. Why?
Because checks and balances are IMHO very important, and it is entirely possible for one source to be incorrect about this or that fact. Add to that the (possible) temptation to take a particular stance on one or another political issue (like the myth that the United States is the only country to misuse the adjective "world"... I personally saw the term misused in Europe more than once when I lived there).
While I have no reason to believe Snopes is wrong about this (or any of their other points, for that matter) I'd feel more comfortable with a second, corroborating citation.
Got any examples? And don't say the World Cup, it has hundreds of countries including the USA.
You are absolutely correct about the World Cup. Indeed, that is why soccer (football) is the one sport I enjoy watching. Football (soccer) is one of the few areas that is truly worldwide, with Africa as well represented as, say, Asia or Europe.
I'm trying to recall some of the 'world' events I saw while I was living in Germany (mostly art and music events) that represented perhaps 10 countries, out of how many hundred? In any event, a tiny slice of the world, even if the 10 countries in question were widely scattered. If you look around, I'm sure you'll see what I mean.
WarDriving... Cities from only the western part of North America...
Don't call it "World" if its just North America, and especially don't if its just a region of North America.
So get off your ass and do some war driving. Nothing is stopping you, or anyone else in the world, from participating. Indeed, I suspect the organizers would be happier if more countries participated.
Perhaps it will become an annual event, with gradually more countries taking part.
BTW - Where do you draw the line for 'world.' 1 country per continent, x countries per hemisphere? Most 'world' events in Europe and Asia are similarly limited... only a tiny fraction of the world community takes part. If 10 people take part in a 'world' event and they happen to be scattered all over the globe, does that somehow add legitimacy over 10,000 people taking part, who happen to be scatterd over just one corner of it?
But having an online alias which stands in place of your true identity is a single point of failure.
Only if you are the sole person in the ring of trust.
The ring of trust need not include all the thousands of people who subscribe to the USENET list or P2P service, just a core of people who trust each other and the quality of their submissions. Others (the majority who just lurk and occasionally download stuff) could obtain the keyring from a third party (or better yet, several independent third parties.
If your public key is compromised, one of the others can revoke it, and sign any good submissions from you themselves.
For me to earn 'mod points' I would need to keep the same nick/alias. If I do that I'm leaving a solid, airtight case for the Secret Service or the FBI.
Basically putting my thumb print on the buddy glove. Sure, they find the glove - but it fits my hand, millions of times.
Use double blind remailer techniques (USENET) or FreeNet. See the cypherpunks information for details... there are ways to maintain an online identity that is completely decoupled from your real self. It takes a little work, and requires you to be careful (e.g. don't go attaching your.signature file to an anonymous remailing), but it isn't rocket science.
You might not like it, but it's much more ideal (to the company) than GPL, and for most licensees it's just as good. In fact, the only people that don't like it are GPL zealots.
GPL 'zealots' as you so snidely call them (but, of course, its Microsoft entusiasts, isn't it?), and just about anyone who is interested in contributing their time and energy to products.
The communities which form up around Apple, Netscape, Microsoft, and Sun's licenses are positively anemic compared to the communities which have sprung up around both the BSD and GPLed licensed projects. Why? Because they give the users and the volunteer developers the least amount of freedom, and no guarantee that their work won't simply be seized from them (indeed, they generally rather state the opposite).
You are correct, I don't like it. Nor do the vast majority of volunteer developers and users, so much os that Mozilla changed its licensing scheme in order to attract developers (and succeeded by the way), as did Sun with their GPLed release of Open Office.
Does that make me a GPL zealot? Probably by your definition, since your definition appears to imply anyone not actively trying to malign the GPL is by definition a zealot. However, as one who publicly embraces numerous free licenses, including the BSD license and the GPL, I think I, and most free software enthusiasts, fall well outside of what both the dictionary and the average person would define as a "zealot."
I am no MS lover, but your comment was definitly over-rated.
Their statement was actually quite apropos, though it should have contained a little detail.
As an anectdote, a friend of mine used Microsoft Windows Media Player to rip his music collection, and wondered why he couldn't play some of his music (he'd upgraded his video card IIRC). I showed him where to turn off 'digital rights management' and explained to him why DRM was newspeak for 'digital rights denial' and how the default settings of his OS were designed, deliberately, by Microsoft, to fuck him.
He was quite angry, and while he isn't ready to switch to GNU/Linux yet, he did download a free ripper and started reripping the music he could no longer listen to into OggVorbis format.
So yes, Microsoft is deliberately selling extraordinarilly crippled PCs to the average consumer, not only crippled by the limitations, bugs, and design flaws of their software, but deliberately crippled and broken in addition to all of that.
You might not like it, but it's much more ideal (to the company) than GPL, and for most licensees it's just as good. In fact, the only people that don't like it are GPL zealots.
GPL 'zealots' as you so snidely call them (but, of course, its Microsoft entusiasts, isn't it?), and just about anyone who is interested in contributing their time and energy to products.
The communities which form up around Apple, Netscape, Microsoft, and Sun's licenses are positively anemic compared to the communities which have sprung up around both the BSD and GPLed licensed projects. Why? Because they give the users and the volunteer developers the least amount of freedom, and no guarantee that their work won't simply be seized from them (indeed, they generally rather state the opposite).
You are correct, I don't like it. Nor do the vast majority of volunteer developers and users, so much os that Mozilla changed its licensing scheme in order to attract developers (and succeeded by the way), as did Sun with their GPLed release of Open Office.
Does that make me a GPL zealot? Probably by your definition, since your definition appears to imply anyone not actively trying to malign the GPL is by definition a zealot. However, as one who publicly embraces numerous free licenses, including the BSD license and the GPL, I think I, and most free software enthusiasts, fall well outside of what both the dictionary and the average person would define as a "zealot."
I know that everyone is down on the BSD and up on the GPL, but we owe a tremendous amount to the BSD license.. Companys (like microsoft) took up stuff like the TCP/IP stack, BIND, etc..
The BSD License is an excellent license for some things, just as the GPL is an excellent license for other things.
OggVorbis is one area where the BSD License makes perfect sense, namely, in an effort to get a published, open format implimented as widely as possible.
The GPL is an ideal license for persons and companies that wish to make their code available and participate in a public commons, without unconditionally handing their crown jewels over to a competitor. Indeed, there are many commercially written programs whose source code likely wouldn't have been released at all, or would have been released only under really onerous restrictions, such as Microsoft's so-called open license, Sun's community license, or something along those lines.
Both licenses are excellent. Both philosophies are a positive contribution to the intellectual wealth of humankind, and both have their place. Which one is most applicable to a given set of circumstances depends largely upon those circumstances and the goals in mind.
In this case, the goal is to spread the use of Ogg Vorbis as far and wide as possible, for which the BSD license is ideal. Indeed, even the FSF, which normally has strong reservations with regard to the BSD license, has endorsed the release of OggVorbis under the BSD license.
Anybody called Mohammed Al'whatever is under too much suspicion these days to fart in public. The next big thing will be carried out by a bunch of people with names [possibly changed by deedpole] like Joe White, Billy Bob Bobbit etc.
Nah, their names are much more likely to be more like "John Aschcroft," "Dick Cheney", and "George Bush." Or are jackbooted thugs breaking down your door in the middle of the night and 'detaining' you indefinitely without charges, right to counsel, or the ability to contact your family not something you would consider "terrorizing?"
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but a more accurate metaphore would be something on the order of:
The tools by which a flurishing democracy is turned into a living, authoritarian hell are built from good intentions.
So when the MPAA downloads Star Wars Attack of The Clones they know that I'm the one who ripped it!
Go back and read my comment. The comment, not the title. To wit:
GPG signatures (which BTW include a checksum) of content, with said signatures refering to an online alias rather than a real person (thereby maintaining anonymouty).
There is absolutely nothing about GPG that requires the key to refer to an actual, human identity. If everyone knows that TrustedDude is a trustworthy person, that is sufficient. No one needs to know that TrustedDude is in fact a 15 year old kid in New Jersey who spends his free time violating copyright (or perhaps not, there are all kinds of legitimate uses for P2P networks, not least among them improved accessibility to popular legal content, like free software whose primary ftp servers are often overloaded).
The answer is quite simple, and would be very difficult for the sabateurs to subvert.
GPG signatures (which BTW include a checksum) of content, with said signatures refering to an online alias rather than a real person (thereby maintaining anonymouty).
A web of trust is formed, in which HollywoodDude is known and trusted, and has signed RipperGod's key, who in turn has signed FairUsers key, and so forth.
Provide a separate way of obtaining the keys (e.g. multiple independent websites, multiple independent keyservers, and so forth), and people can simply filter out anything submitted by untrusted users. If something submitted by someone outside of the trust ring, and someone who is trusted sees the item and determines that it is worthwhile/good/whatever and not a decoy, they could sign the item themselves.
Gaining trust would of course take time, probably requiring many worthwile submissions, but that is true in real life anyway, so why should it be any different online.
If someone violates their trusted status (or their private key is stolen, which BTW would be a violation of the law), others in the ring of trust could revoke their trusted access and blacklist their signature.
It isn't as convinient as just being able to share something with little or no thought, but it is emminently doable, and there really is no straightforward way to undermine such an approach.
It doesn't really matter if it was deliberately leaked. The trafficing is illegal, no matter how the content got out into the wild.
It certainly does matter, if public policy is being made as a result in a way that harms the many to protect the few who, it just so happens, are leaking the material.
That an adolescent with a computer and an easy way to download a hot new movie months ahead of release will give into temptation is hardly news, hardly suprising, and doesn't warrent the kinds of policy changes that are being made, snide remarks about tinfoil hats notwithstanding.
That that fact seems to be irrelevant to the policy makers, some of whome appear dead set on making exactly those sorts of changes, is IMHO indicative of just how far our erstwhile democracy has fallen.
That no one seems to care is, I think, the final nail in the coffin of the digital renaissance. There is really only one entity that benefits from this: the MPAA entertainment cartel. It is not inappropriate to question what their role in all this is, given the current political situation, nor is it unreasonable to be suspicious, given the history of their behavior.
Why don't they focus their efforts on finding who leaked it rather than going after the people too anxious to wait till the release (who are likely to go see it when it comes out anyways)?
It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the footage was deliberately released in order to create exactly the kind of stir Hollywood needs to push through legislation and FCC regulatory interpretations designed to take away the last of our digital freedoms and complete the conversion of the internet from an interactive medium of information exchange into a glorified Home Shopping Network.
More likely, the emberrassment of having "one of their own" exposed as the culprit would diminish the MPAA's political efforts, so while they view the breach as unfortunate, the also will use it as a fortuitious political opportunity, and frighten the restless masses back onto the couch where they belong.
Either way, these thugs have far more incentive to avoid cleaning up their own houses while forcibly breaking into ours.
The first one was, and according to the story, I'm assuming the second will be as well.
The first one was excellent quality (divx) and good sound. I watched it on a 21 LCD at a friend's house and it was better than any rental video, not quite but almost on par with DVD.
That having been said, I too declined a copy when offered and am going to purchase the director's cut DVD when it comes out in December (it will be the first DVD I've bought in two years, and likely the only one, and the only reason I'm buying it at all is because I watched the bootleg and enjoyed it enough that I wish to pay something back to the creators.)
Don't kid yourself, if the quality is on par with the last bootleg I saw, it will be very good indeed.
All my posts got modded down when I wrote that I'm a Mensa member.
People probably did not believe you were a Mensa member when you could not even get the tenses of verbs to match in your sentences. Now go into your profile and edit the sig line so that it reads:
All my posts got modded down when I wrote that I was a Mensa member.
First, language is about communicating first and foremost. Dogma, grammatical or otherwise, should always take last place behind simple, straightforward, interhuman communication.
Second, I find absolutely nothing wrong with the tenses as used in the original.
The sentence communicates the idea that his posts were modded down when he wrote that he is and remains a member of mensa.
This to me actually communites more information, in a more compact form, than your "corrected" setence, which makes no implication as the writer's current status. Indeed, the corrected version could be read to infer that he is no longer a member of mensa.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of mensa, so judge me as you will, but I find the colloqual use of tenses in the original statement to contain more information than the corrected version, however much the original may fail to adhere to the orthodoxy of grammaticians (who, let us not forget, replaced the English gender-neutral use of 'they' and 'their' when it was in common usage with the male dominance promoting HE and HIS to denote gender neutrality in the early 20th century, not out of any love of the language, but to promote a misogonist political agenda at the time. This has since been somewhat reversed, but only somewhat, in common colloqual use and, as yet, remains in place as a grammatical 'rule' in the formal language. In other words, the grammaticians (I wish to avoid the term grammar nazi, though I know any number of women who would feel extraordinarilly justified in using that term) wield far more "authority" over a living, changing language than they should rightfully be entitled to, and I, for one, have no trouble ignoring them when it suits me. I suspect our (erstwhile?) mensa member feels similarly).
We live in a capitalist civilization. If there's a real good out there that can be built that will out do what the other guy is making in all measurements, it will be built.
Not necessarilly. While I agree the person you responded to is a little more cynical about people's motives (particularly the scientists) than reality probably warrants, there is no question that, as a result of the patent system and the ability to 'own' excusive rights to an idea for an extended period of time (previously, 17 years from getting the patent, now 20 years from filing), good ideas do routinely get purchased and suppressed by their entrenched competitors.
Oil companies have bought patents on alternative fuel technologies and sat on them. Indeed, the fact that we now have fuel cells even available for consideration is due in no small part to some of those patents expiring.
Razer companies have bought the patents to self-sharpening razers, and buried them. The consumer will not see that technology until the patent expires, and perhaps not even then as Gillette is likely to patent other aspects of the manufacturing process for another 20 years, processess that may be relatively obvious, but are difficult or impossible to avoid if you want to make the device.
This disgusting habit of purchasing patents and suppressing new innovation is common, quite possibly widespread, and ultimately results in the kinds of things the original poster was ranting about.
Their rant however was misdirected.
It is not the capitalist system that is 'conspiring' to prevent technological innovation, it is the patent system that is facilitating it, and indeed making the practice quite profitable to entrenched corporations. Capitalism is as much a victim of the patent system as the typical inventor[1] and consumer are.
Until the mythical notion that patents somehow 'encourage' innovation rather than stifle it has been thoroughly debunked in the popular mind, and the notion of granting monopolies, which are antithetical to free markets and competition, is replaced with something less destructive to the marketplace of ideas and the deployment of technolgoies, we will continue to see numerous promising improvements like this buried and suppressed.
Until then, your optimism will, I'm afraid, be as off-base as the venom the person you responded to was.
[1]The typical inventor doesn't own his invention, his employer does. The typical inventor has no rights to his work, or his invention, and will suffer civil penalties if he or she goes off and impliments their invention on their own.
Sure there is. Solar power captured in deserts and converted into hydrogen would have much less impact on the environment than any current technology.
ahem. What is your magic sunlight to electricity converter?
If it is the current generation of solar cells, I hate to burst your bubble, but making those cells involves a great deal of dirty chemistry and results in a great deal of toxic material when the process is finished.
Not to mention the amount of energy it requires, which the solar cells will not match in their conversion of sunlight to electricity within their servicable lifetime. Energy that is currently produced from fossile fuels and nuclear reactors for the most part.
There is no free lunch, and there is no 'friendly' energy. Just energy sources that are less destructive than others.
(As an example, your most optimistic, "plant based fuels" means chemicals in the ground a la the mass argriculture we currently practice in growing food (a problem growing more acute the longer we practice these forms of agriculture), nitrate runoff into our drinking water, and numerous other issues, including a decline in food production to make way for energy crops).
If you choose to ignore the batteries, yes. But even a small electric car is a rolling toxic waste dump with current battery technology.
None of that needs to be released into the environment for their operation, and all of it can be recycled.
There reaches a point where the chemicals are no longer capable of storing a charge and cannot be reused for any worthwhile purpose. This point is often reached while the chemicals are still a part of the original battery they are a part of. How exactly do you plan to recycle inert chemicals into useful batteries for the next generation of equipment?
Has that argument been tried in other states, like California? [...]
Of course, you could make the same argument about whatever city Red Hat is in. Maybe it's something only people outside the US can make.
When a Venezuelan can move to the United States as easilly as a Californian can move to Redmond, and visa versa, then the comparison (or its inverse sarcastic corallary) will hold water. Until then, the flow of wealth across international boarders will have a decidedly different economic implication that the flow of wealth across American state lines.
That having been said, the flow of wealth into the pockets of a monopoly is never a good thing, but that has nothing to do with state (or international) boundries.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, that's what we've been arguing all these years. What comes around in the market will go around in the market.
First, as I said in another post, it is not an indictment of the free market per se, but an idictment of those who view a free market as operating without an ethical or social context, as epitomised by the frequently heard comment "their first duty is to their shareholders, so doing [whatever despicable or harmful action is being discussed] is appropriate and good. The free market will balance things out."
The fact of the matter is that, payback like we are seeing with Adobe is all too uncommon. Far more common are things like Monsanto's poisoning of a southern US town's drinking water, a smoking gun in the form of memos describing PR strategies for if and when they were caught, and not a single person in jail despite the deaths and illnesses caused. Dow Chemical's behavior in India is another example, Microsoft's behavior vis-a-vis countless companies it has destroyed over the years yet another, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum, with hardly a negative consiquence as a result.
A competative free market, as good as it is for producing consumer goods at reasonable prices and performing other economic tasks, is singularly ineffective at providing for the public good when such requires ethical, moral, or wise behavior that is contrary to someone's bottom line.
Don't blame this on the free market, blame it on the laws that are put there by politicians and their supports ($$$) not on the free market system.
I am not blaming it on the free market per se.
The free market is a very useful economic tool and system, when applied appropriately. It is an unmitigated disaster when it is applied inappropraitely (think of what things would be like if, in addition to the local telco and power monopolies, there were also the local highway and street monopoly, if you're having trouble imagining an inappropraite application of the free market. Clearly the borders of what is appropriate and what is not are not entirely black and white. Consider, for example, the debate about healthcare, and the supporting arguments pro and con a private, capitalist health care system vs. a socialized healthcare system. Only someone dogmatically in one camp or the other would be unable to see advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.).
I do blame people who constantly spew the "their first responsibility is to their stockholders, so that makes [insert harmful behavior here] not only okay, but correct." There are situations in which the free market is a singularly inappropriate tool for the building and functioning of a working society and culture, and in which the ethic I just paraphrased above in indefensible.
The fact that it is inconvenient to your argument to admit that the DMCA is an act of government does not make it a "social convention".
It isn't in the least bit inconvinient to my argument. Social conventions take many forms: formal legislation is one of them.
Wow, you're an amazing dullard.
God, your myopia makes a televangelist appear openminded.
Free Marken uber Alles? Hello, flyspeck, it's not the free market that passed the DMCA--it's a hyper-active government that did so.
hyper-active government? Elected government, acting upon the desires its constituency (not the voter, but rather the paying special interest/corporation), in a free market of influence and paid-for legislators, thanks to a 1978 supreme court ruling interpreting corporate finance as equivelent to free speech. If the governmenty is hyper-active, it is because the ever-worshipped 'invisible hand' of the free market of legislative influence has made it so.
Legislation has everything to do with markets, free or otherwise, indeed no market (free or otherwise) can exist in a complete vacuum of legislation and function coherently (if you really need it spelled out for you, consider any number of ungoverned lands as well as the behavior of the black market itself. Lack of regulation means lack of laws for a court to interpret, i.e. a lack of jurisprudence and the rule of the gun, libertarian myths of anarchistic utopia notwithstanding).
But of course, all of that misses the point I originally made entirely (which was, perhaps, your intent). By perusing any number of Ayndroidian posts here on slashdot and elsewhere from people who argue similarly to yourself, the common reply to complaints about corporate malfaescence and misbehavior, be it financial, social, economic, or environmental, is always a handwave toward the mythical 'invisible hand' of the marketplace (which has already been debunked by more recent, and more applicable, economic theory for which a Nobel prise has been granted) with no supporting argument as to how or why a free market would, for example, prevent Monsanto from poisoning the drinking water of a small southern US town than, say, government oversight that would throw such people in jail for doing such a thing.
As I said before, oh thought-challenged reactionary, everything we do is done in an ethical and social context, a fact which libertarian dogma and naive readers of Ayn Rand can't seem to grasp for all its obviousness to the rest of the human population. That goes for Adobe, and is irrevelent with respect to the specifics of the legislation in question, to wit:
Adobe took a social convention (in this case the poorly concieved DMCA, but it might just as well have been copyright law itself, or some other convention) and used it to the detriment of the the society as a whole. Now that another has turned and done a similar thing to them, they are without support. This means that mitigating cirumstances, that might normally have led to a compromise, are likely to fall on deaf ears and evince, at most, an amused chuckle from the common observer.
In other words, now that the tables are turned, the pathetic excuse of "their only responsibility is to their shareholders and it is proper that they do all that is legal, no matter how unethical or reprehensible, to make money" is shown to be the absurdity that most clear thinking people always recognized it to be, namely that, in the end, such behavior undermines not only the society, and hurts not only the victims of the initial misbehavior, but ultimately the very company and stockholders the behavior was purported to benefit.
Alas, the weakness of the free market for determining ethical behavior is that, as often as not, unethical behavior does pay, often with little or no unpleasant consiquence for the corporate wrongdoer. Which of course means if you want to build a society fit for humans to live in, rather than merely one that is designed to service corporate entities at the expense of everyone else, you need more than just a simple, unregulated, free market.
After the Sklyrov debace it is difficult to have any sympathy for Adobe.
... this is the kind of karmic returns such ill-considered, anti-social behavior in the name of padding stockholders pockets at the expense of the public good warrent, and perhaps now a little more often will actually receive.
Free Market ueber Alles types should take note
There is a social and ethical context to everything we do, as individuals, as members of corporations, or as corporations themselves. This is but one small aspect of it, and while it is far too seldom to see payback of this sort for wrongdoing within the span of a human life, it is most gratifying one rare occasions like this when poetic justice actually does occur.
Maybe next time Adobe will reconsider, and perhaps even lobby against such draconian and despicable legislation, rather than amorally adding it to their lawyers' arsenal.
damn, didn't realize I'd already posted this (and had it modded down below my browsing level as "flaimbait," go figure[1])
[1] I'd apologize more profously if the moderation system weren't being abused by regional bigots to promote their POV here. Look, I (and a huge chunk of the American public) hate Bush and his "let's fight daddy's war all over again/let's use the American military to avenge the attempt on daddy's life" nonsense as much as everyone else does, but that is no excuse for the sort of region and nation bashing going on in this thread.
You really want to bash someone, bash the corporations who run the baseball league who abuse the term 'world' for their own marketing persons, and while your at it, bash the European art show organizers who do the same to promote their events. But don't bash a bunch of amateur war drivers who tried to organize a world event and came up short. Instead, grab your laptop, get into your car, and add a map of your city and country to the list.
WarDriving... Cities from only the western part of North America...
... only a tiny fraction of the world community takes part (e.g. "world" art exhibitions, with all of 4 countries on 4 continents represented out of hundreds is arguably as small a slice of the world as it would be if those 4 countries were on one continent, to cite an example I witnessed more than once while living in Germany).
Don't call it "World" if its just North America, and especially don't if its just a region of North America.
So get off your butt and go do some wardriving. Nothing is stopping you, or anyone else in the world, from participating. Indeed, I suspect the organizers would be happier if more countries participated.
Perhaps it will become an annual event, with gradually more countries taking part.
BTW - Where do you draw the line for 'world?' 1 country per continent, x countries per hemisphere? Most 'world' events in Europe and Asia are similarly limited
If 10 people take part in a 'world' event and they happen to be scattered all over the globe, does that somehow add legitimacy over 10,000 people taking part, who happen to be scatterd over just one corner of it? I agree the term is often abused, but your kneejerk reaction is more than a little silly itself.
Wrong, apparently....
... I personally saw the term misused in Europe more than once when I lived there).
From snopes urban legend page linked on other comment:
Origins: For nearly a century now, baseball's annual championship, the World Series, has been an essential American ritual...
Snopes is a great resource for debunking Urban Myth's and Legends, but I am curious if there are additional citations available. Why?
Because checks and balances are IMHO very important, and it is entirely possible for one source to be incorrect about this or that fact. Add to that the (possible) temptation to take a particular stance on one or another political issue (like the myth that the United States is the only country to misuse the adjective "world"
While I have no reason to believe Snopes is wrong about this (or any of their other points, for that matter) I'd feel more comfortable with a second, corroborating citation.
Got any examples? And don't say the World Cup, it has hundreds of countries including the USA.
You are absolutely correct about the World Cup. Indeed, that is why soccer (football) is the one sport I enjoy watching. Football (soccer) is one of the few areas that is truly worldwide, with Africa as well represented as, say, Asia or Europe.
I'm trying to recall some of the 'world' events I saw while I was living in Germany (mostly art and music events) that represented perhaps 10 countries, out of how many hundred? In any event, a tiny slice of the world, even if the 10 countries in question were widely scattered. If you look around, I'm sure you'll see what I mean.
WarDriving... Cities from only the western part of North America...
... only a tiny fraction of the world community takes part. If 10 people take part in a 'world' event and they happen to be scattered all over the globe, does that somehow add legitimacy over 10,000 people taking part, who happen to be scatterd over just one corner of it?
Don't call it "World" if its just North America, and especially don't if its just a region of North America.
So get off your ass and do some war driving. Nothing is stopping you, or anyone else in the world, from participating. Indeed, I suspect the organizers would be happier if more countries participated.
Perhaps it will become an annual event, with gradually more countries taking part.
BTW - Where do you draw the line for 'world.' 1 country per continent, x countries per hemisphere? Most 'world' events in Europe and Asia are similarly limited
But having an online alias which stands in place of your true identity is a single point of failure.
... there are ways to maintain an online identity that is completely decoupled from your real self. It takes a little work, and requires you to be careful (e.g. don't go attaching your .signature file to an anonymous remailing), but it isn't rocket science.
Only if you are the sole person in the ring of trust.
The ring of trust need not include all the thousands of people who subscribe to the USENET list or P2P service, just a core of people who trust each other and the quality of their submissions. Others (the majority who just lurk and occasionally download stuff) could obtain the keyring from a third party (or better yet, several independent third parties.
If your public key is compromised, one of the others can revoke it, and sign any good submissions from you themselves.
For me to earn 'mod points' I would need to keep the same nick/alias. If I do that I'm leaving a solid, airtight case for the Secret Service or the FBI.
Basically putting my thumb print on the buddy glove. Sure, they find the glove - but it fits my hand, millions of times.
Use double blind remailer techniques (USENET) or FreeNet. See the cypherpunks information for details
You might not like it, but it's much more ideal (to the company) than GPL, and for most licensees it's just as good. In fact, the only people that don't like it are GPL zealots.
GPL 'zealots' as you so snidely call them (but, of course, its Microsoft entusiasts, isn't it?), and just about anyone who is interested in contributing their time and energy to products.
The communities which form up around Apple, Netscape, Microsoft, and Sun's licenses are positively anemic compared to the communities which have sprung up around both the BSD and GPLed licensed projects. Why? Because they give the users and the volunteer developers the least amount of freedom, and no guarantee that their work won't simply be seized from them (indeed, they generally rather state the opposite).
You are correct, I don't like it. Nor do the vast majority of volunteer developers and users, so much os that Mozilla changed its licensing scheme in order to attract developers (and succeeded by the way), as did Sun with their GPLed release of Open Office.
Does that make me a GPL zealot? Probably by your definition, since your definition appears to imply anyone not actively trying to malign the GPL is by definition a zealot. However, as one who publicly embraces numerous free licenses, including the BSD license and the GPL, I think I, and most free software enthusiasts, fall well outside of what both the dictionary and the average person would define as a "zealot."
Easy use of your computer.
I am no MS lover, but your comment was definitly over-rated.
Their statement was actually quite apropos, though it should have contained a little detail.
As an anectdote, a friend of mine used Microsoft Windows Media Player to rip his music collection, and wondered why he couldn't play some of his music (he'd upgraded his video card IIRC). I showed him where to turn off 'digital rights management' and explained to him why DRM was newspeak for 'digital rights denial' and how the default settings of his OS were designed, deliberately, by Microsoft, to fuck him.
He was quite angry, and while he isn't ready to switch to GNU/Linux yet, he did download a free ripper and started reripping the music he could no longer listen to into OggVorbis format.
So yes, Microsoft is deliberately selling extraordinarilly crippled PCs to the average consumer, not only crippled by the limitations, bugs, and design flaws of their software, but deliberately crippled and broken in addition to all of that.
You might not like it, but it's much more ideal (to the company) than GPL, and for most licensees it's just as good. In fact, the only people that don't like it are GPL zealots.
GPL 'zealots' as you so snidely call them (but, of course, its Microsoft entusiasts, isn't it?), and just about anyone who is interested in contributing their time and energy to products.
The communities which form up around Apple, Netscape, Microsoft, and Sun's licenses are positively anemic compared to the communities which have sprung up around both the BSD and GPLed licensed projects. Why? Because they give the users and the volunteer developers the least amount of freedom, and no guarantee that their work won't simply be seized from them (indeed, they generally rather state the opposite).
You are correct, I don't like it. Nor do the vast majority of volunteer developers and users, so much os that Mozilla changed its licensing scheme in order to attract developers (and succeeded by the way), as did Sun with their GPLed release of Open Office.
Does that make me a GPL zealot? Probably by your definition, since your definition appears to imply anyone not actively trying to malign the GPL is by definition a zealot. However, as one who publicly embraces numerous free licenses, including the BSD license and the GPL, I think I, and most free software enthusiasts, fall well outside of what both the dictionary and the average person would define as a "zealot."
I know that everyone is down on the BSD and up on the GPL, but we owe a tremendous amount to the BSD license.. Companys (like microsoft) took up stuff like the TCP/IP stack, BIND, etc..
The BSD License is an excellent license for some things, just as the GPL is an excellent license for other things.
OggVorbis is one area where the BSD License makes perfect sense, namely, in an effort to get a published, open format implimented as widely as possible.
The GPL is an ideal license for persons and companies that wish to make their code available and participate in a public commons, without unconditionally handing their crown jewels over to a competitor. Indeed, there are many commercially written programs whose source code likely wouldn't have been released at all, or would have been released only under really onerous restrictions, such as Microsoft's so-called open license, Sun's community license, or something along those lines.
Both licenses are excellent. Both philosophies are a positive contribution to the intellectual wealth of humankind, and both have their place. Which one is most applicable to a given set of circumstances depends largely upon those circumstances and the goals in mind.
In this case, the goal is to spread the use of Ogg Vorbis as far and wide as possible, for which the BSD license is ideal. Indeed, even the FSF, which normally has strong reservations with regard to the BSD license, has endorsed the release of OggVorbis under the BSD license.
Anybody called Mohammed Al'whatever is under too much suspicion these days to fart in public. The next big thing will be carried out by a bunch of people with names [possibly changed by deedpole] like Joe White, Billy Bob Bobbit etc.
Nah, their names are much more likely to be more like "John Aschcroft," "Dick Cheney", and "George Bush." Or are jackbooted thugs breaking down your door in the middle of the night and 'detaining' you indefinitely without charges, right to counsel, or the ability to contact your family not something you would consider "terrorizing?"
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but a more accurate metaphore would be something on the order of:
The tools by which a flurishing democracy is turned into a living, authoritarian hell are built from good intentions.
So when the MPAA downloads Star Wars Attack of The Clones they know that I'm the one who ripped it!
Go back and read my comment. The comment, not the title. To wit:
There is absolutely nothing about GPG that requires the key to refer to an actual, human identity. If everyone knows that TrustedDude is a trustworthy person, that is sufficient. No one needs to know that TrustedDude is in fact a 15 year old kid in New Jersey who spends his free time violating copyright (or perhaps not, there are all kinds of legitimate uses for P2P networks, not least among them improved accessibility to popular legal content, like free software whose primary ftp servers are often overloaded).
The answer is quite simple, and would be very difficult for the sabateurs to subvert.
GPG signatures (which BTW include a checksum) of content, with said signatures refering to an online alias rather than a real person (thereby maintaining anonymouty).
A web of trust is formed, in which HollywoodDude is known and trusted, and has signed RipperGod's key, who in turn has signed FairUsers key, and so forth.
Provide a separate way of obtaining the keys (e.g. multiple independent websites, multiple independent keyservers, and so forth), and people can simply filter out anything submitted by untrusted users. If something submitted by someone outside of the trust ring, and someone who is trusted sees the item and determines that it is worthwhile/good/whatever and not a decoy, they could sign the item themselves.
Gaining trust would of course take time, probably requiring many worthwile submissions, but that is true in real life anyway, so why should it be any different online.
If someone violates their trusted status (or their private key is stolen, which BTW would be a violation of the law), others in the ring of trust could revoke their trusted access and blacklist their signature.
It isn't as convinient as just being able to share something with little or no thought, but it is emminently doable, and there really is no straightforward way to undermine such an approach.
It doesn't really matter if it was deliberately leaked. The trafficing is illegal, no matter how the content got out into the wild.
It certainly does matter, if public policy is being made as a result in a way that harms the many to protect the few who, it just so happens, are leaking the material.
That an adolescent with a computer and an easy way to download a hot new movie months ahead of release will give into temptation is hardly news, hardly suprising, and doesn't warrent the kinds of policy changes that are being made, snide remarks about tinfoil hats notwithstanding.
That that fact seems to be irrelevant to the policy makers, some of whome appear dead set on making exactly those sorts of changes, is IMHO indicative of just how far our erstwhile democracy has fallen.
That no one seems to care is, I think, the final nail in the coffin of the digital renaissance. There is really only one entity that benefits from this: the MPAA entertainment cartel. It is not inappropriate to question what their role in all this is, given the current political situation, nor is it unreasonable to be suspicious, given the history of their behavior.
Why don't they focus their efforts on finding who leaked it rather than going after the people too anxious to wait till the release (who are likely to go see it when it comes out anyways)?
It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the footage was deliberately released in order to create exactly the kind of stir Hollywood needs to push through legislation and FCC regulatory interpretations designed to take away the last of our digital freedoms and complete the conversion of the internet from an interactive medium of information exchange into a glorified Home Shopping Network.
More likely, the emberrassment of having "one of their own" exposed as the culprit would diminish the MPAA's political efforts, so while they view the breach as unfortunate, the also will use it as a fortuitious political opportunity, and frighten the restless masses back onto the couch where they belong.
Either way, these thugs have far more incentive to avoid cleaning up their own houses while forcibly breaking into ours.
The first one was, and according to the story, I'm assuming the second will be as well.
The first one was excellent quality (divx) and good sound. I watched it on a 21 LCD at a friend's house and it was better than any rental video, not quite but almost on par with DVD.
That having been said, I too declined a copy when offered and am going to purchase the director's cut DVD when it comes out in December (it will be the first DVD I've bought in two years, and likely the only one, and the only reason I'm buying it at all is because I watched the bootleg and enjoyed it enough that I wish to pay something back to the creators.)
Don't kid yourself, if the quality is on par with the last bootleg I saw, it will be very good indeed.
All my posts got modded down when I wrote that I'm a Mensa member.
People probably did not believe you were a Mensa member when you could not even get the tenses of verbs to match in your sentences. Now go into your profile and edit the sig line so that it reads:
All my posts got modded down when I wrote that I was a Mensa member.
First, language is about communicating first and foremost. Dogma, grammatical or otherwise, should always take last place behind simple, straightforward, interhuman communication.
Second, I find absolutely nothing wrong with the tenses as used in the original.
The sentence communicates the idea that his posts were modded down when he wrote that he is and remains a member of mensa.
This to me actually communites more information, in a more compact form, than your "corrected" setence, which makes no implication as the writer's current status. Indeed, the corrected version could be read to infer that he is no longer a member of mensa.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of mensa, so judge me as you will, but I find the colloqual use of tenses in the original statement to contain more information than the corrected version, however much the original may fail to adhere to the orthodoxy of grammaticians (who, let us not forget, replaced the English gender-neutral use of 'they' and 'their' when it was in common usage with the male dominance promoting HE and HIS to denote gender neutrality in the early 20th century, not out of any love of the language, but to promote a misogonist political agenda at the time. This has since been somewhat reversed, but only somewhat, in common colloqual use and, as yet, remains in place as a grammatical 'rule' in the formal language. In other words, the grammaticians (I wish to avoid the term grammar nazi, though I know any number of women who would feel extraordinarilly justified in using that term) wield far more "authority" over a living, changing language than they should rightfully be entitled to, and I, for one, have no trouble ignoring them when it suits me. I suspect our (erstwhile?) mensa member feels similarly).
We live in a capitalist civilization. If there's a real good out there that can be built that will out do what the other guy is making in all measurements, it will be built.
Not necessarilly. While I agree the person you responded to is a little more cynical about people's motives (particularly the scientists) than reality probably warrants, there is no question that, as a result of the patent system and the ability to 'own' excusive rights to an idea for an extended period of time (previously, 17 years from getting the patent, now 20 years from filing), good ideas do routinely get purchased and suppressed by their entrenched competitors.
Oil companies have bought patents on alternative fuel technologies and sat on them. Indeed, the fact that we now have fuel cells even available for consideration is due in no small part to some of those patents expiring.
Razer companies have bought the patents to self-sharpening razers, and buried them. The consumer will not see that technology until the patent expires, and perhaps not even then as Gillette is likely to patent other aspects of the manufacturing process for another 20 years, processess that may be relatively obvious, but are difficult or impossible to avoid if you want to make the device.
This disgusting habit of purchasing patents and suppressing new innovation is common, quite possibly widespread, and ultimately results in the kinds of things the original poster was ranting about.
Their rant however was misdirected.
It is not the capitalist system that is 'conspiring' to prevent technological innovation, it is the patent system that is facilitating it, and indeed making the practice quite profitable to entrenched corporations. Capitalism is as much a victim of the patent system as the typical inventor[1] and consumer are.
Until the mythical notion that patents somehow 'encourage' innovation rather than stifle it has been thoroughly debunked in the popular mind, and the notion of granting monopolies, which are antithetical to free markets and competition, is replaced with something less destructive to the marketplace of ideas and the deployment of technolgoies, we will continue to see numerous promising improvements like this buried and suppressed.
Until then, your optimism will, I'm afraid, be as off-base as the venom the person you responded to was.
[1]The typical inventor doesn't own his invention, his employer does. The typical inventor has no rights to his work, or his invention, and will suffer civil penalties if he or she goes off and impliments their invention on their own.
Sure there is. Solar power captured in deserts and converted into hydrogen would have much less impact on the environment than any current technology.
ahem. What is your magic sunlight to electricity converter?
If it is the current generation of solar cells, I hate to burst your bubble, but making those cells involves a great deal of dirty chemistry and results in a great deal of toxic material when the process is finished.
Not to mention the amount of energy it requires, which the solar cells will not match in their conversion of sunlight to electricity within their servicable lifetime. Energy that is currently produced from fossile fuels and nuclear reactors for the most part.
There is no free lunch, and there is no 'friendly' energy. Just energy sources that are less destructive than others.
(As an example, your most optimistic, "plant based fuels" means chemicals in the ground a la the mass argriculture we currently practice in growing food (a problem growing more acute the longer we practice these forms of agriculture), nitrate runoff into our drinking water, and numerous other issues, including a decline in food production to make way for energy crops).
If you choose to ignore the batteries, yes. But even a small electric car is a rolling toxic waste dump with current battery technology.
None of that needs to be released into the environment for their operation, and all of it can be recycled.
There reaches a point where the chemicals are no longer capable of storing a charge and cannot be reused for any worthwhile purpose. This point is often reached while the chemicals are still a part of the original battery they are a part of. How exactly do you plan to recycle inert chemicals into useful batteries for the next generation of equipment?
Has that argument been tried in other states, like California? [...]
Of course, you could make the same argument about whatever city Red Hat is in. Maybe it's something only people outside the US can make.
When a Venezuelan can move to the United States as easilly as a Californian can move to Redmond, and visa versa, then the comparison (or its inverse sarcastic corallary) will hold water. Until then, the flow of wealth across international boarders will have a decidedly different economic implication that the flow of wealth across American state lines.
That having been said, the flow of wealth into the pockets of a monopoly is never a good thing, but that has nothing to do with state (or international) boundries.