If the Russian government won't recognize and grapple with the huge, nearly China-like, economy-wide house of cards that is their disregard for intellectual property rights, it's sure as hell a good sign that we don't want to recognize them as economic peers.
What's with the "we"? You aren't talking about recognizing them as economic peers, you're talking about making them economic slaves. I certainly don't care if some poor Russian who only makes $100 a month buys a movie he would otherwise be unable to see for a buck.
Why? You've heard the old saying "give a man a fish...?" Part of the point there is that the knowledge of fishing is more valuable than the actual fish, or the actual fishing is.
Yes, but once you teach that man to fish he will naturally want to share that knowledge with his community to end their hunger too. There is nothing worse than watching another human being die when you have the power to save him within your grasp.
It's extremely true -- intellectual property is one of the US's biggest exports. This is quite clear to people who've left the US and seen the impact of US culture. American movies are popular worldwide, American pop stars are popular all over, and Windows is the #1 operating system worldwide. The taxes paid on the revenue earned by US producers of intellectual property are a major reason that we enjoy the quality of life that we do.
Well we better start preparing for less quality lives then because there is no way this model can be maintained without strongarming the rest of the world and, in case you haven't noticed, we aren't making many friends at our attempts to do that thus far.
Biggest Losers: The average consumer who has to deal with excessive DRM because of the "winners" above.
No the biggest loser so far is democracy but I still hold out hope for a big win in the end. You see, the Constitution says many things about the rights guaranteed to the citizens of the US. Things such as freedom of speech, baring arms, fair trails, and protection against unreasonable searches, are written in stone. Copyrights and patents are not, they are just an option that Congress may excercise.
Ummm, sure, except casual marajuans use still supports drug dealers. Perhaps not hurting anybody directly, but most certinaly directly helping somebody who is on the wrong side of the law.
Pick another example. One that is not just plain wrong.
By the way, we have had 6 marijuana related mureders here this year, and I live in the boonies.
Perhaps if using marijuana wasn't on the wrong side of the law you wouldn't have had those six murders out there in the boonies.
The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree.
I like to think of it more as glimpse of the future the music and movie industries will face if they keep treating all thier customers as potential theives. Eventually they'll piss off so many people that no amount of money will protect them.
Does this mean that Maxtor drives will stop sucking, or that Seagate drives will start to?
Want to know something funny? I've never had a drive from either, nor any other company, fail. Maybe it's because I use only open source software and invest the money I save in hardware, but I must say in the decade since I switched to Linux I can't recall having any component fail.
...but I wonder just what it is they have patented? According to the article:
New Standard Keyboards (NSK) of Santa Maria, California will introduce a new line of patented USB-interface computer keyboards at CES, which have just 53-keys and offer several advances over standard keyboard designs for businesses, home users, gamers and assistive technology users.
Now certainly even the USPTO wouldn't allow a patent on alphabetical arrangement, so I'm guessing it must be with the USB interface. Anybody have any info has to what they are doing that is original and non-obvious?
hahah, you lefties are so out of touch with the rest of america:
A new CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll finds that only 34 percent of the public thinks that the Patriot Act goes too far. Sixty-two percent approve of it (44 percent) or think it doesn't go far enough (18 percent).
62 PERCENT OF AMERICANS EITHER FULLY APPROVE OF THE PATRIOT ACT OR THINK IT DOESNT GO FAR ENOUGH
Keep on keepin' on, lefties, keep showing the country how much you are out of the mainstream, keep showing how you care about the liberties of terrorists and less about protecting the country. Yep '06 should be a real humdinger, better stock up on asprin because there is gonna be a hell of a hangover the night after the elections for the dems(again that is).
Wasn't the approval ratings for the then currently ruling party's policies something like 75% in 1936 in Germany?
This is in honest question. I run a Debian box, I track 'testing' and upgrade about weekly. What would (K)Ubuntu offer me at this time? I think if I were building a new machine, I'd definitely try this "Ubuntu thing" out. Would there be any reason to switch though?
Probably not. (K)Ubuntu's philosophy of being "Linux for the people" is what makes it so attractive because it serves as a buffer between developers and users.
INTERJECTION: Sir, the one area of the world do you refer to then? How have those casualties in that area defended by nuclear deterrence? Namely Europe. Not one of those 30 million lived in Europe.
European wars have a tendency to become global in scope, and you will note that between just the US and the USSR three continents would have become embroiled in conflict.
You're right. But you forget the assumption you made - that the Russians also had nukes. They have nukes, you have nukes - instead, they don't, you don't. Which one would help you sleep better?
I don't know...another total war would've been a pretty nightmarish scenario for Europeans.
The thing about the GPL is that not only does it protect the rights of developers it also protects the rights of users. I understand that some of those who depend on writing software for living have a problem with it but for those of us who use a hell of a lot more software than we will ever write it is the perfect license.
Here's something that I hope should make the light bulb click on for you, since once you really get this, it should make you a better technologist:
Some light bulbs turn on with the click of a switch, others with the turn of a knob, and still others with the pull of a string. Interestingly enough people find all the above methods to illuminate their environment usable.
This seems to be a criticism often levelled at KDE but I can't understand it. KDE is configurable enough to behave like anything you want - I can make my desktop pretty much indistinguishable from BeOS if I want. It defaults to looking like windows because a dumb user who can't change the config most probably wants it to look like windows.
The configurability is what the "experts" criticize, and I'm with you as to not understanding the logic of hiding or taking away options that are useful to some because they may confuse others. Really, what is wrong with an "Advanced" settings option that allows users to decide for themselves how their desktop should behave?
That would be pretty evil of us. How are you meant to feed and clothe yourselves? You certainly don't want to do it by producing food and clothing of your own, you import most of it.
Certainly a boycott against the US would have an economic impact on not only us but also those with which we trade but as long as our arrogance has no negative repurcussions we will remain being so.
...who wonder why you have a reputation for being arrogant, this is a perfect example. Your government has "rejected" a decision by a Korean court about Korean law. An American company has said that the Korean court didn't "properly apply" Korean law. Perhaps it escaped your attention, but if South Korea want laws to work in a certain way, it's not your place to say whether that is okay or not. Other countries don't need your approval if they want to enforce their own laws in their own terroritory.
Though I do agree some of your post it must be noted that the article summary is trolling because the article it links to states that the "Bush administration on Wednesday protested", not "rejected", the decision. Protest is a form of free speech as in I approve your right to say what you say but that doesn't mean I approve of what you are saying. As for our laws affecting other countries I think the rest of the world should just totally boycott us. Don't sell us anything and don't buy anything from us.
- We (= the distro guys) don't like proprietary software so its not our problem.
And you can't see why? Proprietary software is a security nightmare because if you can't see the sources then you can't be sure of what the binaries are doing. Closed source stuff belongs in one place and one place only,/opt, and it should never be given access to system resources that compromise the users machine.
Why? Does being a divorced mother of five make you immune from having to obey the law?
No, but this is the "banks foreclosing on the family farm", "Mr. Smith versus the corrupt Taylor machine", "my husband died from cancer caused by smoking big tobacco's cigarettes" kind of stuff that make juries want to side with the little guy.
I think that falls under pursuit of happiness, or do you think it fair that people should not be able to live by making music or writing books?
Actually I was using "inalienable" for rights guaranteed in the Constitution and "legislated" for rights granted by Congress. The former has to be, the later does not.
For example, "Freedom of Speech" and "The Right to Bear Arms" are rights guaranteed in the Constitution itself, but "the power to declare war" and "the power to to promote the progress of science and useful arts" are at the discretion of Congress.
As for whether I think making music and writing books should be compensated, yes I do. But I also think Congress should not be making wars or copyright laws that are not supported by the people who elected it.
It's probably not necessary to even bother listening to more objections. No matter what they do, the various Christian extremist groups will be against it. No solution will be acceptable to them, except perhaps a complete ban on pornography, erotica, and any such material.
WTF? I'm all for porn (except child) and think.xxx is really stupid idea. There are just too many people with too many definitions of what is obscene to make it work.
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If the Russian government won't recognize and grapple with the huge, nearly China-like, economy-wide house of cards that is their disregard for intellectual property rights, it's sure as hell a good sign that we don't want to recognize them as economic peers.
What's with the "we"? You aren't talking about recognizing them as economic peers, you're talking about making them economic slaves. I certainly don't care if some poor Russian who only makes $100 a month buys a movie he would otherwise be unable to see for a buck.
Because they signed the Berne Convention. All the signatories pledged to mutual;y respect the IP of other member nations.
If the majority of Russians want to ignore copyrights then it wouldn't be very democratic for their governemnt to enforce them.
Why? You've heard the old saying "give a man a fish...?" Part of the point there is that the knowledge of fishing is more valuable than the actual fish, or the actual fishing is.
Yes, but once you teach that man to fish he will naturally want to share that knowledge with his community to end their hunger too. There is nothing worse than watching another human being die when you have the power to save him within your grasp.
It's extremely true -- intellectual property is one of the US's biggest exports. This is quite clear to people who've left the US and seen the impact of US culture. American movies are popular worldwide, American pop stars are popular all over, and Windows is the #1 operating system worldwide. The taxes paid on the revenue earned by US producers of intellectual property are a major reason that we enjoy the quality of life that we do.
Well we better start preparing for less quality lives then because there is no way this model can be maintained without strongarming the rest of the world and, in case you haven't noticed, we aren't making many friends at our attempts to do that thus far.
Biggest Losers: The average consumer who has to deal with excessive DRM because of the "winners" above.
No the biggest loser so far is democracy but I still hold out hope for a big win in the end. You see, the Constitution says many things about the rights guaranteed to the citizens of the US. Things such as freedom of speech, baring arms, fair trails, and protection against unreasonable searches, are written in stone. Copyrights and patents are not, they are just an option that Congress may excercise.
Ummm, sure, except casual marajuans use still supports drug dealers. Perhaps not hurting anybody directly, but most certinaly directly helping somebody who is on the wrong side of the law.
Pick another example. One that is not just plain wrong.
By the way, we have had 6 marijuana related mureders here this year, and I live in the boonies.
Perhaps if using marijuana wasn't on the wrong side of the law you wouldn't have had those six murders out there in the boonies.
The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree.
I like to think of it more as glimpse of the future the music and movie industries will face if they keep treating all thier customers as potential theives. Eventually they'll piss off so many people that no amount of money will protect them.
Does this mean that Maxtor drives will stop sucking, or that Seagate drives will start to?
Want to know something funny? I've never had a drive from either, nor any other company, fail. Maybe it's because I use only open source software and invest the money I save in hardware, but I must say in the decade since I switched to Linux I can't recall having any component fail.
According to the patent this is what is unique and unobvious about his keyboard design:
an improvement wherein
said beginning portion of said alphabet is in said left zone of said keyboard and
said ending portion of said alphabet is in said right zone of said keyboard.
Yep, that certainly seems to shut out anybody who divides the alphabet in two.
...but I wonder just what it is they have patented? According to the article:
New Standard Keyboards (NSK) of Santa Maria, California will introduce a new line of patented USB-interface computer keyboards at CES, which have just 53-keys and offer several advances over standard keyboard designs for businesses, home users, gamers and assistive technology users.
Now certainly even the USPTO wouldn't allow a patent on alphabetical arrangement, so I'm guessing it must be with the USB interface. Anybody have any info has to what they are doing that is original and non-obvious?
hahah, you lefties are so out of touch with the rest of america:
A new CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll finds that only 34 percent of the public thinks that the Patriot Act goes too far. Sixty-two percent approve of it (44 percent) or think it doesn't go far enough (18 percent).
62 PERCENT OF AMERICANS EITHER FULLY APPROVE OF THE PATRIOT ACT OR THINK IT DOESNT GO FAR ENOUGH
Keep on keepin' on, lefties, keep showing the country how much you are out of the mainstream, keep showing how you care about the liberties of terrorists and less about protecting the country. Yep '06 should be a real humdinger, better stock up on asprin because there is gonna be a hell of a hangover the night after the elections for the dems(again that is).
Wasn't the approval ratings for the then currently ruling party's policies something like 75% in 1936 in Germany?
This is in honest question. I run a Debian box, I track 'testing' and upgrade about weekly. What would (K)Ubuntu offer me at this time? I think if I were building a new machine, I'd definitely try this "Ubuntu thing" out. Would there be any reason to switch though?
Probably not. (K)Ubuntu's philosophy of being "Linux for the people" is what makes it so attractive because it serves as a buffer between developers and users.
How is Google any simpliar than Lycos, Webcrawler, Yahoo, altavista... the search engines that came before it?
How about no frigging "shock the monkey" ads for starters?
INTERJECTION: Sir, the one area of the world do you refer to then? How have those casualties in that area defended by nuclear deterrence? Namely Europe. Not one of those 30 million lived in Europe.
European wars have a tendency to become global in scope, and you will note that between just the US and the USSR three continents would have become embroiled in conflict.
You're right. But you forget the assumption you made - that the Russians also had nukes. They have nukes, you have nukes - instead, they don't, you don't. Which one would help you sleep better?
I don't know...another total war would've been a pretty nightmarish scenario for Europeans.
The thing about the GPL is that not only does it protect the rights of developers it also protects the rights of users. I understand that some of those who depend on writing software for living have a problem with it but for those of us who use a hell of a lot more software than we will ever write it is the perfect license.
Here's something that I hope should make the light bulb click on for you, since once you really get this, it should make you a better technologist:
Some light bulbs turn on with the click of a switch, others with the turn of a knob, and still others with the pull of a string. Interestingly enough people find all the above methods to illuminate their environment usable.
This seems to be a criticism often levelled at KDE but I can't understand it. KDE is configurable enough to behave like anything you want - I can make my desktop pretty much indistinguishable from BeOS if I want. It defaults to looking like windows because a dumb user who can't change the config most probably wants it to look like windows.
The configurability is what the "experts" criticize, and I'm with you as to not understanding the logic of hiding or taking away options that are useful to some because they may confuse others. Really, what is wrong with an "Advanced" settings option that allows users to decide for themselves how their desktop should behave?
That would be pretty evil of us. How are you meant to feed and clothe yourselves? You certainly don't want to do it by producing food and clothing of your own, you import most of it.
Certainly a boycott against the US would have an economic impact on not only us but also those with which we trade but as long as our arrogance has no negative repurcussions we will remain being so.
Though I do agree some of your post it must be noted that the article summary is trolling because the article it links to states that the "Bush administration on Wednesday protested", not "rejected", the decision. Protest is a form of free speech as in I approve your right to say what you say but that doesn't mean I approve of what you are saying. As for our laws affecting other countries I think the rest of the world should just totally boycott us. Don't sell us anything and don't buy anything from us.
- We (= the distro guys) don't like proprietary software so its not our problem.
And you can't see why? Proprietary software is a security nightmare because if you can't see the sources then you can't be sure of what the binaries are doing. Closed source stuff belongs in one place and one place only,
Sorry but the DCMA has already stood up in court, and it will continue to do so. Best to fight for amendments and such...
No, it's best to fight to kick the bastards who support the DMCA out of office and elect representatives who are willing to represent the people.
Why? Does being a divorced mother of five make you immune from having to obey the law?
No, but this is the "banks foreclosing on the family farm", "Mr. Smith versus the corrupt Taylor machine", "my husband died from cancer caused by smoking big tobacco's cigarettes" kind of stuff that make juries want to side with the little guy.
I think that falls under pursuit of happiness, or do you think it fair that people should not be able to live by making music or writing books?
Actually I was using "inalienable" for rights guaranteed in the Constitution and "legislated" for rights granted by Congress. The former has to be, the later does not.
For example, "Freedom of Speech" and "The Right to Bear Arms" are rights guaranteed in the Constitution itself, but "the power to declare war" and "the power to to promote the progress of science and useful arts" are at the discretion of Congress.
As for whether I think making music and writing books should be compensated, yes I do. But I also think Congress should not be making wars or copyright laws that are not supported by the people who elected it.
It's probably not necessary to even bother listening to more objections. No matter what they do, the various Christian extremist groups will be against it. No solution will be acceptable to them, except perhaps a complete ban on pornography, erotica, and any such material.
WTF? I'm all for porn (except child) and think