Die Bahn is a ghost, an amorphous entity. It has a will, but that will wants things no human being ever wanted.
Undoubtedly the cleaning lady working at a small town railway station in employ for Die Bahn may not care, but perhaps the engineers who are responsible for the winter maintenance will? Perhaps they read Slashdot or c't too?
The Lord of the Ring films were dramatized movies based on an English translation (thousands of years after the fact!) of a Westron propaganda pamphlet about the War of the Ring. Unless they had somehow uncovered a box of Elvish and Orcish accounts of the War, Peter Jackson and his team have always stood a snowball's chance in hell of creating an accurate depiction of the event. I don't think it is fair you blame him.
The difference between dogs-trees and piracy-sharing is that nobody associates dogs with trees anymore, but the word piracy is hardly ever used in such disassociated manner. The word piracy is often exclusively used to smear the actions of those who share. Similarly, the phrase "intellectual property" suggests still to this day that we are talking about property, about something that can be owned by a single individual. And even though current US copyright law uses the word "own", the constitution of that country makes clear that nobody owns works and inventions.
"First, I think you're spending way more effort than is necessary to rationalize piracy."
As long as people keep comparing good values such as sharing and copying to murder and bloodshed on the high seas, somebody needs to let in the cold harsh light of reality.
We weren't talking about P2P, we were talking about the cost of songs, and what people who regularly use P2P for downloading songs would be willing to pay.
Ah, but the code you wrote is _not_ your property; it is ours. And with ours I mean society's. You only have it on loan. That worked out to everybody's satisfaction at first, but you just had to keep begging for extensions, did you not? No wonder people get miffed. How about you keep your end of the deal (copyright only for 14 years, only on books, not on derivatives, and stop harassing my children), then maybe we will consider keeping ours.
"Why is a law immoral if it prevents people from sharing something produced by someone else without their consent?"
Because the maker is not the owner. Because sharing is a good value, that needs to be encouraged. Because copying protects works. Because the dissemination of works leads to new thoughts, new inventions, new works.
"I would have said that that is a fairly moral law. The opposite, that it is right to share anything regardless of the consent of the creator, strikes me as exceedingly immoral."
"So paying 99 or even 88 cents a track is a failure on their [the music industry's] part?"
That is correct.
"The only price most traders seem to agree to is zero."
You are wrong there. The only price all traders have agreed to so far is zero.
You are obviously unaware of the basics of the working of a free market. Unfortunately, I have not the time to educate you. Perhaps some other time. Suffice it to say for now, that the only way we are going to find out what is the optimal prices where buyers and suppliers will meet, is by experimenting.
In other words, we do no know yet what price traders would agree to.
That is true, and that is why the GPL was not intended for the likes of you. You may be able to be a parasite on the GPL ("stealing" the "intellectual property" of the Free Software Foundation, to put it in the words of the proponents of free beer for publishers), but that doesn't mean we should retain copyright as it is just to enable you to stay that parasite.
As a contributor to several free software projects, and as European citizen, I can only applaud this guy's efforts.
No copyright on software is all FSF/GNU ever wanted. The GPL is a kludge to sort of get to that state, but having copyrights on software outlawed is of course much better.
Also, the E.U. has a rule of shorter term; with software copyrights outlawed in the US, all American software becomes public domain in the E.U.
Slashdot Mirror
Depriving someone of something is stealing. Creating copyright laws is theft, the act of copying itself is not.
Die Bahn is a ghost, an amorphous entity. It has a will, but that will wants things no human being ever wanted.
Undoubtedly the cleaning lady working at a small town railway station in employ for Die Bahn may not care, but perhaps the engineers who are responsible for the winter maintenance will? Perhaps they read Slashdot or c't too?
You will have no trouble then explaining why it is one of the stupidest replies.
"are we wanting to rewrite history here?"
Sounds more like you want to go back and live in it.
Ah, I am sorry to have already replied to the article, I would have loved to mod this up. Best rant I heard in ages. :-)
"(I use CDrs for backup, I don't pay the CRIA anything. I get it from the US instead.)"
Isn't that called smuggling?
The roads that these CD-Rs get transported on from the factory to your house are paid for through taxes by citizens who don't even own a CD-writer!
You don't seem to mind being a leech when it suits you.
The only sort of people who suspect all others of wrongdoings, are the crooks.
Says an anonymous coward. Let me guess: American?
The Lord of the Ring films were dramatized movies based on an English translation (thousands of years after the fact!) of a Westron propaganda pamphlet about the War of the Ring. Unless they had somehow uncovered a box of Elvish and Orcish accounts of the War, Peter Jackson and his team have always stood a snowball's chance in hell of creating an accurate depiction of the event. I don't think it is fair you blame him.
Thank you for the compliment.
The difference between dogs-trees and piracy-sharing is that nobody associates dogs with trees anymore, but the word piracy is hardly ever used in such disassociated manner. The word piracy is often exclusively used to smear the actions of those who share. Similarly, the phrase "intellectual property" suggests still to this day that we are talking about property, about something that can be owned by a single individual. And even though current US copyright law uses the word "own", the constitution of that country makes clear that nobody owns works and inventions.
"First, I think you're spending way more effort than is necessary to rationalize piracy."
As long as people keep comparing good values such as sharing and copying to murder and bloodshed on the high seas, somebody needs to let in the cold harsh light of reality.
Well, I agree with the poster, and I have produced works that are worth copying, and that have actually been pirated.
Of course, I doubt that you will let facts influence the mind you had already made up.
We weren't talking about P2P, we were talking about the cost of songs, and what people who regularly use P2P for downloading songs would be willing to pay.
"I lived through the 80s music scene. There is a lot of music that has deservedly been forgotten."
:-)
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Do I need to prove my point with a few examples of contemporary music, or are you willing to concede it?
Ah, but the code you wrote is _not_ your property; it is ours. And with ours I mean society's. You only have it on loan. That worked out to everybody's satisfaction at first, but you just had to keep begging for extensions, did you not? No wonder people get miffed. How about you keep your end of the deal (copyright only for 14 years, only on books, not on derivatives, and stop harassing my children), then maybe we will consider keeping ours.
"Why is a law immoral if it prevents people from sharing something produced by someone else without their consent?"
Because the maker is not the owner. Because sharing is a good value, that needs to be encouraged. Because copying protects works. Because the dissemination of works leads to new thoughts, new inventions, new works.
"I would have said that that is a fairly moral law. The opposite, that it is right to share anything regardless of the consent of the creator, strikes me as exceedingly immoral."
Why on earth would you think that?
"So paying 99 or even 88 cents a track is a failure on their [the music industry's] part?"
That is correct.
"The only price most traders seem to agree to is zero."
You are wrong there. The only price all traders have agreed to so far is zero.
You are obviously unaware of the basics of the working of a free market. Unfortunately, I have not the time to educate you. Perhaps some other time. Suffice it to say for now, that the only way we are going to find out what is the optimal prices where buyers and suppliers will meet, is by experimenting.
In other words, we do no know yet what price traders would agree to.
That is true, and that is why the GPL was not intended for the likes of you. You may be able to be a parasite on the GPL ("stealing" the "intellectual property" of the Free Software Foundation, to put it in the words of the proponents of free beer for publishers), but that doesn't mean we should retain copyright as it is just to enable you to stay that parasite.
"As the grandparent suggested, you have almost certainly never been involved in the creation of anything that can be pirated."
And what is this an argument for/against? What are you trying to say with it?
"No matter how stupid the P2P laws are, it is good when they are enforced. It is not anyone's right to break the law, no matter how silly the law is."
There is no P2P law.
"And I bet you would just love intellectual property laws if you had any intellectual property."
Anybody who posts here has "intellectual property", just to borrow your intellectually challenged phrase.
Copyright law does not restrict itself to worthwhile creations. Whether a creation is worthwhile is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.
With enough practice we'll get it right.
As a contributor to several free software projects, and as European citizen, I can only applaud this guy's efforts.
No copyright on software is all FSF/GNU ever wanted. The GPL is a kludge to sort of get to that state, but having copyrights on software outlawed is of course much better.
Also, the E.U. has a rule of shorter term; with software copyrights outlawed in the US, all American software becomes public domain in the E.U.
I really hope this guy succeeds.
Copyrights do not protect works, they protect the interests of those who create works. The works themselves would love to be without copyrights.