No, it's definitely a fact. A story, a picture, a program, or even a song does not require a specific physical form to exist, so they can't be stolen in any true sense of the word. Current law uses the concept of intellectual property as a kludge to graft certain property-like qualities onto creative works for a limited period of time. This is why the concept of "intellectual property" is a misnomer, there is no actual property involved.
Unlike stealing a vase, a bicycle, or a car, violating a copyright does not deprive a person of physical property. Your ability to make use of a copyrighted work you created may or may not be inhibited by copyright violations, but decreasing its value is in no way stealing. Diminishing the value of something through illegal means is an illegal act, but it is considered a different crime from theft because no party is deprived of physical property in the process. Vandalism would be a more appropriate comparison to copyright violations because it reduces the value of a work illegally without necessarily depriving anyone of property.
Near the end of February, Detroit's infamous sculpture dedicated to Joe Louis was defaced with cans of white paint. The perpetrators were charged with vandalism rather than theft. Care to guess why? It was because no party was deprived of physical property due to the act, yet the value of the sculpture was diminished.
You're forgetting that copyrightable works are not property, so they can't be accurately compared to a car, a desk, or a computer.
Stealing information would require preventing the party from whom you obtained it from accessing that same information. It can't be as harmful as stealing materials because ideas are inherently intangible, so you can't truly own them and they are only of value when they are copied.
Fair use doesn't have to be specificaly enumerated in the Constitution to be considered a right (you would know that if you ever bothered to read the US Constitution). Any law passed to abolish it would be ruled unconstitutional almost immediately because it would remove the only means for the public to make use of a copyrighted work.
"How ironic! Not only is there precipitation on the day of your nuptials, but the passage for which you'd previously paid was in fact complimentary!
MUHAHAHA!" -Alanis Megatron
Nobody in Congress even read the Patriot Act, and supposedly they don't actually read other bills, either. It was written in the middle of the night and blindly passed the next morning, so the only people who read it were the ones who wrote it. Voting against it was basically political suicide because of the act's name and the impetus for Congress to do something, anything to assuage the public's fears. The Patriot Act was a failure of the US Government for which every elected official must be blamed.
And you can't say "stupid" instead of "gay" because...? Wouldn't it be easier to simply say what you mean rather than using braindead slang?
You implied that gay people are somehow inferior by using the word "gay" when you meant bad or stupid. "Gay" is not a synonym for bad or stupid, so don't use it that way.
You're like those fucking retards who got offended because Lord of the Rings had a title called "The Two Towers" to which they associated with 9/11.
That's not an excuse for disparaging a group of people simply because you want to use idiotic slang that you know will be considered offensive, nor is it relevant since the group of people protesting the title didn't even understand its origin.
Don't be so sure. People said Farscape wasn't coming back and it's coming back as a miniseries. They said Family Guy wasn't coming back, but enough tasteless idiots bought the DVDs that Fox decided to make more episodes.
There is a chance Futurama could come back. It reportedly costs about the same amount per episode as Family Guy, Cartoon Network would like more episodes, it has been selling well on DVD, the show's writers would like to make more episodes, and a rabid pack of fans want more episodes. The only obstacle to getting more episodes is Fox.
You're a fan of Family Guy, aren't you? You have all of the defining characteristics of that garbage pile's fans- an absurdly short attention span, the intelligence of a houseplant, no sense of humor, and no ability to discern good from bad.
I think most of the problems with how Wind Waker looked were the character designs. That bright, happy, deformed look works well for something like a Kirby game or a Mario game, but doesn't suit the atmosphere of most Zelda games. My impressions of what the games were really supposed to look like were dictated by how Hyrule was depicted in the instruction booklets.
You also have to factor in the fact that the first four games were limited by being first-generation games on their respective consoles. They were supposed to be simpified versions of what you saw in the instruction booklets. Cel shading wasn't the problem with Wind Waker, it was the freakish character designs. If the game had been designed to look like the animated series or the artwork in the instruction booklets from the first few games, nobody would have complained, but making Link look like the freakish lovechild of Charlie Brown and a Powerpuff Girl is just plain wrong.
I have tried playing Wind Waker and found it to be a higly overrated game that seemed to use the controversy over its graphics as a distraction from its shortcomings.
We'll see if the new game can add anything to gameplay. Primus knows the previous one didn't.
One of the reasons I was disappointed by Wind Waker was that the graphics seemed like they were trying to distract people from the fact that the gameplay was almost exactly like the N64 Zelda games. I was so dissapointed by it that as far as I'm concerned, the new game is the first version of Zelda for the Gamecube.
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't it be better to use the banana plant to play "Yes, We Have no Bananas"?
Unlike stealing a vase, a bicycle, or a car, violating a copyright does not deprive a person of physical property. Your ability to make use of a copyrighted work you created may or may not be inhibited by copyright violations, but decreasing its value is in no way stealing. Diminishing the value of something through illegal means is an illegal act, but it is considered a different crime from theft because no party is deprived of physical property in the process. Vandalism would be a more appropriate comparison to copyright violations because it reduces the value of a work illegally without necessarily depriving anyone of property.
Near the end of February, Detroit's infamous sculpture dedicated to Joe Louis was defaced with cans of white paint. The perpetrators were charged with vandalism rather than theft. Care to guess why? It was because no party was deprived of physical property due to the act, yet the value of the sculpture was diminished.
Stealing information would require preventing the party from whom you obtained it from accessing that same information. It can't be as harmful as stealing materials because ideas are inherently intangible, so you can't truly own them and they are only of value when they are copied.
Well, it's not Martians. They sell whole surface of planet for one lousy bead.
Getting unpatriotic? It was unpatriotic from the start.
Fair use doesn't have to be specificaly enumerated in the Constitution to be considered a right (you would know that if you ever bothered to read the US Constitution). Any law passed to abolish it would be ruled unconstitutional almost immediately because it would remove the only means for the public to make use of a copyrighted work.
It's that yellow, sometimes yellowish, goop people put on hot dogs, duh.
"How ironic! Not only is there precipitation on the day of your nuptials, but the passage for which you'd previously paid was in fact complimentary! MUHAHAHA!" -Alanis Megatron
I think it was something about the little, yellow, chick-shaped marshmallow candy.
I thought that was only supposed to be available in the deviant hobbit fancier edition?
Nobody in Congress even read the Patriot Act, and supposedly they don't actually read other bills, either. It was written in the middle of the night and blindly passed the next morning, so the only people who read it were the ones who wrote it. Voting against it was basically political suicide because of the act's name and the impetus for Congress to do something, anything to assuage the public's fears. The Patriot Act was a failure of the US Government for which every elected official must be blamed.
If this nightmare of a law is passed, it will be time to start discussing revolution because the system will be beyond reform.
Of course it wouldn't be in the liner notes. It would be more appropriate as a hidden track.
You implied that gay people are somehow inferior by using the word "gay" when you meant bad or stupid. "Gay" is not a synonym for bad or stupid, so don't use it that way.
You're like those fucking retards who got offended because Lord of the Rings had a title called "The Two Towers" to which they associated with 9/11.
That's not an excuse for disparaging a group of people simply because you want to use idiotic slang that you know will be considered offensive, nor is it relevant since the group of people protesting the title didn't even understand its origin.
There is a chance Futurama could come back. It reportedly costs about the same amount per episode as Family Guy, Cartoon Network would like more episodes, it has been selling well on DVD, the show's writers would like to make more episodes, and a rabid pack of fans want more episodes. The only obstacle to getting more episodes is Fox.
You're a fan of Family Guy, aren't you? You have all of the defining characteristics of that garbage pile's fans- an absurdly short attention span, the intelligence of a houseplant, no sense of humor, and no ability to discern good from bad.
I'm gonna sing the doom song now. Doom, doom doom, doom, doom, doomy doomy doom...
If you really want to tell them apart, just have them race each other.
About ten bucks a pound, probably less.
You haven't heard about the plans to start production of Soylent Green with spammers?
Ah, yes, mindless destruction. Good for the spark I always say.
- Megatron, "Nemesis, Part II"
Still, they called the tooth fairy a legend and now it's head of the FBI.
I think most of the problems with how Wind Waker looked were the character designs. That bright, happy, deformed look works well for something like a Kirby game or a Mario game, but doesn't suit the atmosphere of most Zelda games. My impressions of what the games were really supposed to look like were dictated by how Hyrule was depicted in the instruction booklets.
I have tried playing Wind Waker and found it to be a higly overrated game that seemed to use the controversy over its graphics as a distraction from its shortcomings.
One of the reasons I was disappointed by Wind Waker was that the graphics seemed like they were trying to distract people from the fact that the gameplay was almost exactly like the N64 Zelda games. I was so dissapointed by it that as far as I'm concerned, the new game is the first version of Zelda for the Gamecube.