What you fail to take into account is that no French law is really ever used. To anybody. Unless of course you are a criminal, terrorist or foreigner. French laws are essentially a bunch of guidelines to stear you in the right way, but if you break them tastefully, you may very well get away with it. And being the President de la Republique means you can get away with murder....
I haven't yet been on trial, although I have, most unfortunately, been personally involved in a trial: a few years ago I was beaten up by some guys the cops caught and dragged to court.
As for questions like "Do you believe in God?"I would answer it honestly, but can't see any situation in which the question would be relevant.
My intention was not to let the jury do all the interrogation of witnesses and fact-finding on their own, but rather as a compliment to what the prosecution and defence do. Would it be useful? Quite honestly, I have no clue.
There is an easy way around this: let the jurors ask questions to any witness they like, and demand clarification of any facts they need explained in more detail. And let them do this at any time before delivering their verdict, be it while the witness is still in the stand or much later.
Since both the DA and defence council are obviously biased one way or the other, letting the jury do some fact-finding of their own seems reasonable to me. (Caveat: I live in a country that does not use a jury system, so my proposal might entail problems I cannot forsee. Instead of a jury, Sweden has a system in which volunteers are elected to serve in four year periods. All courts are presided over by a judge, who obviously has legal training, but the other people needn't have it).
Apart from the obvious "Linux is a threat to us and therefore we are not a monopoly" I think Microsoft may very well percieve Linux as a threat to them, but for slightly less obvious reasons.
The major reason that Linux is a threat to Microsoft is that it is (usually) free, and nobody can compete with free in the long run. Given enough time, Linux would eventually conquer the desktop. But it would be decades, if not centuries. If nothing else, Linux's small presence on the market means that Microsoft cannot raise it's prices too much, or people will start seriously looking at the alternatives. And if they discover the alternatives are good enough (or better then Windows) for no money (or very little money) the game will be up for Microsoft.
There is a more threatening aspect of Linux though. It is not one that matters every day, but in the long run Microsoft must deal with the fact that a lot of "Linux" is a community. A community of users and developers spread around the globe cannot be purchased and shut down as if it were a competing company. Suppose Microsoft purchased Cannonical and shut it down. They have not really gained anything, since they can't stop the individual developers from continuing their work, even if it is in their spare time.
Even if Microsoft started buying all companies that released a Linux distro, they cannot win: once it becomes obvious that to become a millionaire you just have to release a Linux distro, new distros will be popping up so fast that rabbits will reproduce slowly, by comparison.
I think the only way for Microsoft to keep "winning the game" against Linux is to constantly produce better and better software for lower and lower prices. Since Linux's market share seems to be growing, Microsoft is already under pressure to not raise their prices too high, and this pressure will increase several times over with increasing market share for Linux.
Like so often before, the devil is in the details.
While I have no major principal objections to copyright infringers being kicked off internet (if they use internet for the infringement), I would want to know more of the details before making my mind up.
For starters, I would want everybody to be given a fair trial, and only when they have been found guilty three times should they be kicked off internet. I get the impression that with the present suggestion it's enough to be accused of copyright infringement three times to be kicked off. That is taking other people's right too easily: it should require a trial according to the country's requirements.
Secondly, I think there should be a time limit to how long you are banned from internet. I see no reason why a mere copyright infringer should be banned from internet for life. It's not like you can use copyright infringement to kill someone...
Thirdly, I would like to know what provisions the law provides to protect the technically challenged. Suppose my neighbour hacks into my WLAN, and starts sharing files. I suppose the recording industry would like to hold me responsible, but should they be able to do so? In my opinion, no. Granted, the recording industry will not like the "I am an idiot with technology"-defence, but this kind of trial should be held to the same standards as all others: the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable (or similar) doubt.
Fourthly, what of family members? Suppose I get kicked off internet for copyright infringement. What of my wife and my children? As far as I know, no modern democracy allows collective punishment, so it should be acceptable for my wife and children to get internet access at home. So why then bother with banning me, if the effect is that the internet connection is simply passed to my wife?
For an interesting comparison, move the "getting banned from internet for copyright infringement" to the world of printed matter: any person or company thrice accused of copyright infringement gets banned (for a short period of time, eg a year) from reading and writing. The effects would be quite devastating... You would have to have somebody read the bus timetable to you, you would have to have somebody write your checks for you, you would have to have somebody read your letters to you... And if a newspaper were accused of infringing someone's copyright three times, they could obviously not print a single letter the next year!
I can't understand why they would ask for this kind of information. And the fact that they ask is enough to tell me I porbably don't want to work for them (even assuming I lived in the area).
However, it can be put to possibly good use. Apply for any number of jobs with them, and provide a suitable number of account details, including everything they need to log in. Just slip in some pre-arranged details, so htey can log on to a web page displaying eg child porn. If the server is outside the USA the local, regional and federal authorities have very little power to do anything about it, until the next step: when your accomplice, who just happens to be the one running the server, lets you know that 'your' login credentials have been used, call the cops and let them know an employee of Bozeman is looking at child porn at his work computer.
When this has happened a few times, I hope the politicians (or other high-up) will remove this preposterous demand.
It could have been hilarious to see the mess of acusations and finger-pointing if Solid Oak had slipped something really nasty into an "only for you, my special Chinese friend" update.
Or maybe Solid Oak could have done some good with an update: see to it that all traffic in and out of the computers is heavily encrypted, and has to pass through one of several servers outside of China in order to be decrypted and sent on it way. That way they could have helped bring free speech to the Chinese.
While it does not affect this (or any other) senator, I think the MPAA/RIAA should be a bit carefull about making too much noice about this first trial and verdict.
Suppose the MPAA/RIAA go about, for years, telling anyone who will listen (or can't avoid hearing) that TPB were sent to prison for aiding copyright infringement. So far , so good. But what could happen if they get declared innocent in the Swedish Supreme Court? Suddenly lots of people would have reason to start sharing files, more out of spite than because they really need/want to.
If, however, the MPAAA/RIAA were a bit more cautious, and publicly admitted that there is not a final verdict yet, they would have a better chance of not irritating those who would otherwise become tomorrows file sharers.
At least, what I have described above is how I react: if told, time and time again, that X is illegal I will refrain from doing it. If then, suddenly, a higher authority says that X is perfectly legal, I will do as much of X as I possibly can, more out of spite than anything else.
The good senator may have missed a few points about the Pirate Bay trial.
Firstly, the guilty verdict has been appealed. I don't think we are likely to see the Swedish Supreme Court pass sentence for a good many years yet. And before the Supreme Court hands out a sentence, I don't think you should consider the matter settled. In fact, even after the Swedish Supreme Court, the accused might appeal to the European court (I'm not sure they have the legal possibility, but they might, and if so I think they will take it).
Secondly, the judge is suspected of being biased, and because of this the trial might be declared invalid. The reason this suspicion has arisen is that the judge is a member of two organisations whose purpose it is to strengthen copyright and/or trademark (or similar) protection. Among the other members of at least one of these organisations are the legal representatives for the plaintiffs.
If the trial is declared void, it might be a few years before we get a sentence again.
This reminds me, somehow, of Gudrun Schymann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudrun_Schyman), a Swedish politician who proposed a special "man tax". This tax would be levied on all men, for their collective responsability for the physical abuse some women have to put up with from some men. When someone opined that since all men would have to pay this tax, beating your wife/girlfriend cannot be illegal, she shut up very fast and has not raised the subject since!
As for the issue at hand, why should internet users be singled out for extra taxes? I have not yet heard of any car owners having to pay an extra tax to fund a police branch concerned with car theft. (At least here in Sweden a part of your vehicle taxes are used to provide the roads, the rest disappears into that black hole that is the Government budget, no mention of a special car theft police squad.) Or home owners having to pay a special tax to have a police force that takes care of home burglaries.
Why is internet any different? Is it that the crimes can be spread over so many jurisdictions that makes it different? Or is it that the politicians are so stupid? I know what my answer is...
For the small fee of, say, £10000 I can get the UK what they need. I will provide them with an empty USB memory, and a letter explaining that what they are looking for can't be done. At least not if the suspected computer criminal is any good: the files can be encrypted, stored inside an encrypted ZIP-file, hidden inside a hidden encrypted partition on the hard drive. If that level of secrecy is not enough, the child porn pictures can be steganographically hidden inside other (completely innocent) pictures (or inside MP3 files for a bit of variation), and unless you know they are there you are utterly unlikely to ever find them...
I wonder how long it will take the authorities to realise that "theft" or "possesion of illegal goods" in the computer world are very different to "theft" and "possesion of illegal goods" in the physical world. If you have a stolen item in your house, hiding it in such a way that a thorough search does not find it is hard. Hiding a "stolen" file on a modern computer is not trivial, but it can be done if you have the knowledge. And this knowledge is not hard to find.
I was under the impression that software released under the GPL was free for anybody to use, if you respect the terms in GPL. I do not remember having read anything about contributions to the community in GPL. Therefore, a company that uses GPL:d software is under no obligation to make contributions to the community. However, should they choose to do so, I am sure the community would appreciate it.
While many companies might use GPL:d software without making (monetary) contributions to the community, I think there is something else they contribute: user base. While this is hard to measure and value in money, it is proof that GPL:d software works well enough to interest companies. And eventually word will get around: free software works, and it works well!
Further, any company using GPL:d software is likely to not use a proprietary software for the same function provided by GPL:d software. Seen from this perspective, they are contributing to the demise of proprietary software companies (or at least not contributing to their survival). With enough companies using GPL:d software instead of proprietary software, the producers of proprietary software will have to adapt to the new environment or cease operations.
I use GPL:d software as an example, replace with whatever F/LOSS licence you prefer.
I think it's a major issue for Microsoft. Not for the next three years, but for the next 25 years.
The reason is that in time the browser will be the only thing you actually run on your computer, everything else will be done via interfaces on a web page. Thus, controling which browser people use means controling how people use/experience the web. And this, in turn, means you can dictate what tools are used to create more complex things (think online word processors and so on). These tools will very likely not be free...
As a small indication of what Microsoft may have tried doing previously, ask yourself why the program was called "MSN Messenger" and what the letters "MSN" could be... As far as I know, the abbreviation should be interpreted "Microsoft Network".
And I am quite convinced that Microsoft's idea was to create a 'second internet' controlled by themselves, to which their customers could get access. Everything outside this "MSN" could be restricted in any way, ranging from completely inacessible, via "premium services for paying customers", to unlimited access.
Very true, and not all that long ago, there were discussions whether this list should be used to block access to foreign online gambling sites. I can't remember what the reasoning behind the suggestion was, but it indicates a very poor understanding of internet technology and (what I would call) acceptable censoring.
I think the USA should be careful when it comes to copyright. Not necessarily the copyright itself, but what official representatives say and do about it.
The reason is that copyright infringement is a civil matter in court. This, combined with the fact that all parties are supposed to pay their own lawyer expenses and the low damages given for unregistered work means that residents of the USA can very easily infringe on the copyright of foreigners and then hide behind the law.
What's that, you don't believe me? OK, then read this discussion: http://photo.net/business-photography-forum/00T5B5 . I am the starter of the discussion, and have had one of my photographs published by Jay Klusky and Duke University (or an employee/student of that university), both inside the USA. I live outside USA, and as far as I can tell the effects of the US legal system is that by standing up to defend my copyright I will loose money. Why bother, then?
I read the article, but didn't see any mention of what the 'radio pirates' are being charged with. Does anybody know?
Here in Sweden they could get hit by operating a radio transmitter without a licence, but I find it hard to believe they could get charged with anything serious for having tampered with another countries satelites, particularly if the satelites are military: the assumption would be that the satelites do not fall under Swedish jurisdiction (or should be tamperproof).
If it were up to me to decide, I would go for the broadest possible range of OSes: Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, BSD, BeOS....
The reason is simple: if an outside attacker can't predict what they will meet, it's much harder to get in.
And if you can get the various OSes to masquerade as each other when replying to outside queries, so much the better: an attacker could be trying to use known Mac vulnerabilities to enter a machine that from the outside looks and behaves like a Mac, but actually runs Windows or Linux.
While I agree that the robots.txt works in practice, I am not entirely convinced it will hold up in court.
As far as I know, the copyright holder must specifically grant others rights (eg grant Google the right to make and distribute thumbnails) for these rights to exist. If the copyright holder does nothing, you have only those rights granted to you by the law.
So if you wanted to really be a bitch about it, Google's stored thumbnails could very easily constitute a violation of copyright. In USA they might get off the hook claiming "fair use", but not all countries have such exceptions.
I don't think we have to bother quite yet, as I have no doubt this verdict will be appealed all the way to the Supreme court. So we don't have to start collecting for a few years...
So, the four guys get a year in prison each, and have to pay damages for a lot of money. So far, so good.
But, the RIAA has been claiming that every file sharing case is a lost sale for them. That ought to have, as a direct consequence, that if file sharing is down, legal CD sales (or legal downloads) are up by just as much. If not, the RIAA has been lieing!
And in Sweden, we have seen a sharp drop in internet traffic since the much-discussed IPRED law came into effect. It will be most interesting to see what sales figures the record companies report next time: not only have they got the guys behind TPB sentenced as "guilty" but they have IPRED to curb file sharing.
I cannot claim to _know_, but I believe it will be a year before the appeals court has time to take this case. And then at least another year before it gets to the Swedish supreme court. My personal guess is that it won't be over for another three years, at the least.
Granted, Facebook is owned (I assume) by some company, group of companies, individual or group of individuals, and as owner of Facebook it/he/she/they can decide what rules apply to material posted on Facebook. For the rest of us, we are left with two mutually exclusive choices: live by the rules, or leave Facebook.
However, I wonder how far they are willing to take this. If providing a link to a link to (possibly) 'illegal'(*) material is against FB rules, is a link to a link to a link OK? Or what about a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link?
For rest assured, no matter where FB draws the line, it can be gotten around. And _will_ be gotten around!
And what about posting links to Google search result pages, with searches like "mp3 Madonna filetype:torrent"? If they are to treat all equally, even a link like that should be blocked.
* I write 'illegal', knowing full well that it is most likely not the material itself that is illegal, but making it accessible to others without the copyright owner's permission.
If the Kremlin wants any appearance of being "fair" (please notice I am not actually accusing them of this, I am jsut hypothesising...) then they can't object if the rest of the world retaliates, and DDOSes them to such a degree they themselves choose to shut down all conenctions between Russia and the rest of the world.
For after all, what were the Russians upset about? A statue of some WW2-hero was moved. What does the rest of the world have to get upset about? Well, a number of East-European countries were left without heating gas in the beginning of January, to such an extent that even Germany felt it. Since this seems to be a recuring "phenomenon" why shouldn't Russia find itself DDOSed off internet once a year?
I am quite sure that Georgia (the country, not the US state) could very easily find reason to DDOS Russia. And I seem to remember Poland having been left without heating gas a few years ago, so even they would have perfect reasons to DDOS Russia.
If the Kremlin really think DDOSing someone is the way things work in the world, they jsut might find themselves further up the creek than they would want to be... For even those countries not affected by Russias slightly beligerent foreign politics could easily turn a blind eye to any illegal matters going on inside their borders, as long as the target is inside Russia.
Sweden does not use juries in trials (with one exception: freedom of press). The verdict is decided by a judge and three laymen (ie not necessarily legally schooled people). The laymen usually serve the same court in four years periods, but can be appointed over and over.
Not using a jury means, mostly, that you don't get the drama/rhetoric content from a US trial, since any experienced layman will quickly see through the drama/rhetoric.
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What you fail to take into account is that no French law is really ever used. To anybody. Unless of course you are a criminal, terrorist or foreigner. French laws are essentially a bunch of guidelines to stear you in the right way, but if you break them tastefully, you may very well get away with it. And being the President de la Republique means you can get away with murder....
I haven't yet been on trial, although I have, most unfortunately, been personally involved in a trial: a few years ago I was beaten up by some guys the cops caught and dragged to court.
As for questions like "Do you believe in God?"I would answer it honestly, but can't see any situation in which the question would be relevant.
My intention was not to let the jury do all the interrogation of witnesses and fact-finding on their own, but rather as a compliment to what the prosecution and defence do. Would it be useful? Quite honestly, I have no clue.
There is an easy way around this: let the jurors ask questions to any witness they like, and demand clarification of any facts they need explained in more detail. And let them do this at any time before delivering their verdict, be it while the witness is still in the stand or much later.
Since both the DA and defence council are obviously biased one way or the other, letting the jury do some fact-finding of their own seems reasonable to me. (Caveat: I live in a country that does not use a jury system, so my proposal might entail problems I cannot forsee. Instead of a jury, Sweden has a system in which volunteers are elected to serve in four year periods. All courts are presided over by a judge, who obviously has legal training, but the other people needn't have it).
Apart from the obvious "Linux is a threat to us and therefore we are not a monopoly" I think Microsoft may very well percieve Linux as a threat to them, but for slightly less obvious reasons.
The major reason that Linux is a threat to Microsoft is that it is (usually) free, and nobody can compete with free in the long run. Given enough time, Linux would eventually conquer the desktop. But it would be decades, if not centuries. If nothing else, Linux's small presence on the market means that Microsoft cannot raise it's prices too much, or people will start seriously looking at the alternatives. And if they discover the alternatives are good enough (or better then Windows) for no money (or very little money) the game will be up for Microsoft.
There is a more threatening aspect of Linux though. It is not one that matters every day, but in the long run Microsoft must deal with the fact that a lot of "Linux" is a community. A community of users and developers spread around the globe cannot be purchased and shut down as if it were a competing company. Suppose Microsoft purchased Cannonical and shut it down. They have not really gained anything, since they can't stop the individual developers from continuing their work, even if it is in their spare time.
Even if Microsoft started buying all companies that released a Linux distro, they cannot win: once it becomes obvious that to become a millionaire you just have to release a Linux distro, new distros will be popping up so fast that rabbits will reproduce slowly, by comparison.
I think the only way for Microsoft to keep "winning the game" against Linux is to constantly produce better and better software for lower and lower prices. Since Linux's market share seems to be growing, Microsoft is already under pressure to not raise their prices too high, and this pressure will increase several times over with increasing market share for Linux.
Like so often before, the devil is in the details.
While I have no major principal objections to copyright infringers being kicked off internet (if they use internet for the infringement), I would want to know more of the details before making my mind up.
For starters, I would want everybody to be given a fair trial, and only when they have been found guilty three times should they be kicked off internet. I get the impression that with the present suggestion it's enough to be accused of copyright infringement three times to be kicked off. That is taking other people's right too easily: it should require a trial according to the country's requirements.
Secondly, I think there should be a time limit to how long you are banned from internet. I see no reason why a mere copyright infringer should be banned from internet for life. It's not like you can use copyright infringement to kill someone...
Thirdly, I would like to know what provisions the law provides to protect the technically challenged. Suppose my neighbour hacks into my WLAN, and starts sharing files. I suppose the recording industry would like to hold me responsible, but should they be able to do so? In my opinion, no. Granted, the recording industry will not like the "I am an idiot with technology"-defence, but this kind of trial should be held to the same standards as all others: the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable (or similar) doubt.
Fourthly, what of family members? Suppose I get kicked off internet for copyright infringement. What of my wife and my children? As far as I know, no modern democracy allows collective punishment, so it should be acceptable for my wife and children to get internet access at home. So why then bother with banning me, if the effect is that the internet connection is simply passed to my wife?
For an interesting comparison, move the "getting banned from internet for copyright infringement" to the world of printed matter: any person or company thrice accused of copyright infringement gets banned (for a short period of time, eg a year) from reading and writing. The effects would be quite devastating... You would have to have somebody read the bus timetable to you, you would have to have somebody write your checks for you, you would have to have somebody read your letters to you... And if a newspaper were accused of infringing someone's copyright three times, they could obviously not print a single letter the next year!
I can't understand why they would ask for this kind of information. And the fact that they ask is enough to tell me I porbably don't want to work for them (even assuming I lived in the area).
However, it can be put to possibly good use. Apply for any number of jobs with them, and provide a suitable number of account details, including everything they need to log in. Just slip in some pre-arranged details, so htey can log on to a web page displaying eg child porn. If the server is outside the USA the local, regional and federal authorities have very little power to do anything about it, until the next step: when your accomplice, who just happens to be the one running the server, lets you know that 'your' login credentials have been used, call the cops and let them know an employee of Bozeman is looking at child porn at his work computer.
When this has happened a few times, I hope the politicians (or other high-up) will remove this preposterous demand.
It could have been hilarious to see the mess of acusations and finger-pointing if Solid Oak had slipped something really nasty into an "only for you, my special Chinese friend" update.
Or maybe Solid Oak could have done some good with an update: see to it that all traffic in and out of the computers is heavily encrypted, and has to pass through one of several servers outside of China in order to be decrypted and sent on it way. That way they could have helped bring free speech to the Chinese.
While it does not affect this (or any other) senator, I think the MPAA/RIAA should be a bit carefull about making too much noice about this first trial and verdict.
Suppose the MPAA/RIAA go about, for years, telling anyone who will listen (or can't avoid hearing) that TPB were sent to prison for aiding copyright infringement. So far , so good. But what could happen if they get declared innocent in the Swedish Supreme Court? Suddenly lots of people would have reason to start sharing files, more out of spite than because they really need/want to.
If, however, the MPAAA/RIAA were a bit more cautious, and publicly admitted that there is not a final verdict yet, they would have a better chance of not irritating those who would otherwise become tomorrows file sharers.
At least, what I have described above is how I react: if told, time and time again, that X is illegal I will refrain from doing it. If then, suddenly, a higher authority says that X is perfectly legal, I will do as much of X as I possibly can, more out of spite than anything else.
The good senator may have missed a few points about the Pirate Bay trial.
Firstly, the guilty verdict has been appealed. I don't think we are likely to see the Swedish Supreme Court pass sentence for a good many years yet. And before the Supreme Court hands out a sentence, I don't think you should consider the matter settled. In fact, even after the Swedish Supreme Court, the accused might appeal to the European court (I'm not sure they have the legal possibility, but they might, and if so I think they will take it).
Secondly, the judge is suspected of being biased, and because of this the trial might be declared invalid. The reason this suspicion has arisen is that the judge is a member of two organisations whose purpose it is to strengthen copyright and/or trademark (or similar) protection. Among the other members of at least one of these organisations are the legal representatives for the plaintiffs.
If the trial is declared void, it might be a few years before we get a sentence again.
This reminds me, somehow, of Gudrun Schymann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudrun_Schyman), a Swedish politician who proposed a special "man tax". This tax would be levied on all men, for their collective responsability for the physical abuse some women have to put up with from some men. When someone opined that since all men would have to pay this tax, beating your wife/girlfriend cannot be illegal, she shut up very fast and has not raised the subject since!
As for the issue at hand, why should internet users be singled out for extra taxes? I have not yet heard of any car owners having to pay an extra tax to fund a police branch concerned with car theft. (At least here in Sweden a part of your vehicle taxes are used to provide the roads, the rest disappears into that black hole that is the Government budget, no mention of a special car theft police squad.) Or home owners having to pay a special tax to have a police force that takes care of home burglaries.
Why is internet any different? Is it that the crimes can be spread over so many jurisdictions that makes it different? Or is it that the politicians are so stupid? I know what my answer is...
For the small fee of, say, £10000 I can get the UK what they need. I will provide them with an empty USB memory, and a letter explaining that what they are looking for can't be done. At least not if the suspected computer criminal is any good: the files can be encrypted, stored inside an encrypted ZIP-file, hidden inside a hidden encrypted partition on the hard drive. If that level of secrecy is not enough, the child porn pictures can be steganographically hidden inside other (completely innocent) pictures (or inside MP3 files for a bit of variation), and unless you know they are there you are utterly unlikely to ever find them...
I wonder how long it will take the authorities to realise that "theft" or "possesion of illegal goods" in the computer world are very different to "theft" and "possesion of illegal goods" in the physical world. If you have a stolen item in your house, hiding it in such a way that a thorough search does not find it is hard. Hiding a "stolen" file on a modern computer is not trivial, but it can be done if you have the knowledge. And this knowledge is not hard to find.
I was under the impression that software released under the GPL was free for anybody to use, if you respect the terms in GPL. I do not remember having read anything about contributions to the community in GPL. Therefore, a company that uses GPL:d software is under no obligation to make contributions to the community. However, should they choose to do so, I am sure the community would appreciate it.
While many companies might use GPL:d software without making (monetary) contributions to the community, I think there is something else they contribute: user base. While this is hard to measure and value in money, it is proof that GPL:d software works well enough to interest companies. And eventually word will get around: free software works, and it works well!
Further, any company using GPL:d software is likely to not use a proprietary software for the same function provided by GPL:d software. Seen from this perspective, they are contributing to the demise of proprietary software companies (or at least not contributing to their survival). With enough companies using GPL:d software instead of proprietary software, the producers of proprietary software will have to adapt to the new environment or cease operations.
I use GPL:d software as an example, replace with whatever F/LOSS licence you prefer.
I think it's a major issue for Microsoft. Not for the next three years, but for the next 25 years.
The reason is that in time the browser will be the only thing you actually run on your computer, everything else will be done via interfaces on a web page. Thus, controling which browser people use means controling how people use/experience the web. And this, in turn, means you can dictate what tools are used to create more complex things (think online word processors and so on). These tools will very likely not be free...
As a small indication of what Microsoft may have tried doing previously, ask yourself why the program was called "MSN Messenger" and what the letters "MSN" could be... As far as I know, the abbreviation should be interpreted "Microsoft Network".
And I am quite convinced that Microsoft's idea was to create a 'second internet' controlled by themselves, to which their customers could get access. Everything outside this "MSN" could be restricted in any way, ranging from completely inacessible, via "premium services for paying customers", to unlimited access.
Very true, and not all that long ago, there were discussions whether this list should be used to block access to foreign online gambling sites. I can't remember what the reasoning behind the suggestion was, but it indicates a very poor understanding of internet technology and (what I would call) acceptable censoring.
I think the USA should be careful when it comes to copyright. Not necessarily the copyright itself, but what official representatives say and do about it.
The reason is that copyright infringement is a civil matter in court. This, combined with the fact that all parties are supposed to pay their own lawyer expenses and the low damages given for unregistered work means that residents of the USA can very easily infringe on the copyright of foreigners and then hide behind the law.
What's that, you don't believe me? OK, then read this discussion: http://photo.net/business-photography-forum/00T5B5 . I am the starter of the discussion, and have had one of my photographs published by Jay Klusky and Duke University (or an employee/student of that university), both inside the USA. I live outside USA, and as far as I can tell the effects of the US legal system is that by standing up to defend my copyright I will loose money. Why bother, then?
I read the article, but didn't see any mention of what the 'radio pirates' are being charged with. Does anybody know?
Here in Sweden they could get hit by operating a radio transmitter without a licence, but I find it hard to believe they could get charged with anything serious for having tampered with another countries satelites, particularly if the satelites are military: the assumption would be that the satelites do not fall under Swedish jurisdiction (or should be tamperproof).
If it were up to me to decide, I would go for the broadest possible range of OSes: Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, BSD, BeOS....
The reason is simple: if an outside attacker can't predict what they will meet, it's much harder to get in.
And if you can get the various OSes to masquerade as each other when replying to outside queries, so much the better: an attacker could be trying to use known Mac vulnerabilities to enter a machine that from the outside looks and behaves like a Mac, but actually runs Windows or Linux.
While I agree that the robots.txt works in practice, I am not entirely convinced it will hold up in court.
As far as I know, the copyright holder must specifically grant others rights (eg grant Google the right to make and distribute thumbnails) for these rights to exist. If the copyright holder does nothing, you have only those rights granted to you by the law.
So if you wanted to really be a bitch about it, Google's stored thumbnails could very easily constitute a violation of copyright. In USA they might get off the hook claiming "fair use", but not all countries have such exceptions.
I don't think we have to bother quite yet, as I have no doubt this verdict will be appealed all the way to the Supreme court. So we don't have to start collecting for a few years...
So, the four guys get a year in prison each, and have to pay damages for a lot of money. So far, so good.
But, the RIAA has been claiming that every file sharing case is a lost sale for them. That ought to have, as a direct consequence, that if file sharing is down, legal CD sales (or legal downloads) are up by just as much. If not, the RIAA has been lieing!
And in Sweden, we have seen a sharp drop in internet traffic since the much-discussed IPRED law came into effect. It will be most interesting to see what sales figures the record companies report next time: not only have they got the guys behind TPB sentenced as "guilty" but they have IPRED to curb file sharing.
I cannot claim to _know_, but I believe it will be a year before the appeals court has time to take this case. And then at least another year before it gets to the Swedish supreme court. My personal guess is that it won't be over for another three years, at the least.
However, I wonder how far they are willing to take this. If providing a link to a link to (possibly) 'illegal'(*) material is against FB rules, is a link to a link to a link OK? Or what about a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link?
For rest assured, no matter where FB draws the line, it can be gotten around. And _will_ be gotten around!
And what about posting links to Google search result pages, with searches like "mp3 Madonna filetype:torrent"? If they are to treat all equally, even a link like that should be blocked.
* I write 'illegal', knowing full well that it is most likely not the material itself that is illegal, but making it accessible to others without the copyright owner's permission.
If the Kremlin wants any appearance of being "fair" (please notice I am not actually accusing them of this, I am jsut hypothesising...) then they can't object if the rest of the world retaliates, and DDOSes them to such a degree they themselves choose to shut down all conenctions between Russia and the rest of the world.
For after all, what were the Russians upset about? A statue of some WW2-hero was moved. What does the rest of the world have to get upset about? Well, a number of East-European countries were left without heating gas in the beginning of January, to such an extent that even Germany felt it. Since this seems to be a recuring "phenomenon" why shouldn't Russia find itself DDOSed off internet once a year?
I am quite sure that Georgia (the country, not the US state) could very easily find reason to DDOS Russia. And I seem to remember Poland having been left without heating gas a few years ago, so even they would have perfect reasons to DDOS Russia.
If the Kremlin really think DDOSing someone is the way things work in the world, they jsut might find themselves further up the creek than they would want to be... For even those countries not affected by Russias slightly beligerent foreign politics could easily turn a blind eye to any illegal matters going on inside their borders, as long as the target is inside Russia.
Sweden does not use juries in trials (with one exception: freedom of press). The verdict is decided by a judge and three laymen (ie not necessarily legally schooled people). The laymen usually serve the same court in four years periods, but can be appointed over and over.
Not using a jury means, mostly, that you don't get the drama/rhetoric content from a US trial, since any experienced layman will quickly see through the drama/rhetoric.