Mozilla really needs to support this de-facto standard for video (it's not just Apple using this in hardware).
This is actually possible if we make two versions of Firefox: one for the entire world, which does H.264, and an US legal shithole-only version, which doesn't. The version served to the visitor of getfirefox.com would be determined by a Geo-IP query. I have no idea why Ubuntu doesn't do the same, so that all people NOT living in the US might get DVD playback out of the box.
Anderson's reference to people who "prefer to buy their music online" carries the faint suggestion that refraining from theft should be considered a mere preference.
Great troll article. Piracy = Theft is a 100% reliable sign of a copyright establishment troll.
In the case you describe the problem lies with the publisher not making their trademark distinct enough. It should be obvious the work is not related to the movie by the absence of a trademark associated with the movie, while adding a word "unauthorized" on the cover would be unfair to its author.
If we were in a world with very limited copyrights, I'm guessing that the emphasis on trademarks in advertising of movies, books, etc. would be much stronger than now, and I doubt the things you describe would happen.
You prove my point: who has the right to create depends on the flow of money and whim of higher ups rather than who has the vision. Probably you can come up with better examples because I'm not that into gaming.
1a. It sucks. People buying it decide that ALL "Batman" stuff sucks. Nobody gets any money for stuff that sucks.
There is another mechanism to prevent that, and which is generally agreed upon as positive: trademarks. You are conflating trademarks with derivative works. You can register a trademark for the "leading" Batman comic (e.g. a distinct graphical symbol.. no idea what that could be) to distinguish it from those from competing authors, and only license it to works you approve of. This way you have a way of extracting some revenue from unrelated authors as well as having some grip on what is considered canon, but at the same you can't be an asshole and prevent others from publishing their work at all.
Here is another concept of "unauthorized" works. How about a film about the secret passions of Pol Pot enacted with nothing but Disney characters.
Except it wouldn't be marketed as a Disney movie. You might find the idea offensive, but there will be people who won't, and I see no reason to prevent them from making such a movie, as long as they don't misrepresent what it is about (which is an entirely different problem unrelated to copyright).
When an actor stars in a horror it does not suddenly make a family comedy in which he also appeared unacceptable to the kids. I don't know why it shouldn't be the same with cartoon characters.
If I change 5 words in somebody else's book and sign it with my name, it's plagarism. If I change 5 words and leave the original author's name on it, it's an unauthorized edition. If I rewrite a few chapters and sign it with both names, it's a collaboration. If I rewrite a few chapters and sign it with my name only, it's a derivative work. If I take the idea and characters and write an unrelated story, it's still a derivative work but might not be. If I reuse random sentences from someone else's book in my own unrelated one, it's called sampling. If I rewrite someone's book in modern slang, it's called a cover. If I reuse the store and characters but set it in modern times, it's called a remake. If I take the story, trivialize it in the most intellectually offensive way imaginable and show it to millions of people, with the original author maybe receiving lots of money and maybe not*, it's called a Hollywood movie.
*) see LOTR fiasco. Not an example of offensive trivializing though.
Consider a form of art unhindered by copyright: dance.
The age of Internet is also the golden age of dance. Little known or local styles like Melbourne Shuffle gain worldwide recognition. A plurality of others, like the many variants of Jumpstyle, Tecktonik or Hardstep are created, because the elements from many styles can be combined to form a new mix, while the Internet and Youtube in particular allows easy sharing of demos and tutorial videos that allow anyone to learn a particular move they like. Classical styles are becoming more popular as well. Never before in human history was there such a vibrant dance scene. And even though "anybody" can dance, professional dancers still have jobs (see Riverdance, Stomp, any music video).
It helps a few major players, but harms industry on the whole. The same is true for other creative arts. The proponents of restrictive IP rights usually misrepresent the good of those few best known players as the good of the industry, but the reality is that prosperity lies in plurality and "lawless free-for-all", not exclusive deals.
Sorry to reply to myself: The things you want to prevent already happen with games, movies, etc. remade by studios that have no connection to the original authors. Examples: Fallout 3, Homeworld Cataclysm, many others. In fact it only ensures that the idea is not exploited by the person who has the best vision, but by whoever gets picked by the management, which usually have artistic values high up their ass and care mostly about profits.
But I do not think some two bit hack should be able to just create a Batman comic strip without permission.
Sorry but this is the purest form of assholery enabled by copyright.
If someone random releases a Batman comic, then there are three possible outcomes: 1. It sucks. Nobody cares, the original author does not lose anything. Publisher is annoyed because somebody is using "their" franchise, but since people tend to forget about shitty comics they doesn't care much. 2. It is acceptable. Some people will buy and enjoy it, but most probably won't consider it canon. The original author is unaffected. Publisher is annoyed because they think that money should belong to them. 3. It is absolutely great. Readers have a great comic, the "unauthorized" artist has a lot of money. The original artist might have a reduced ability to sell his future works if they aren't as good as the "unauthorized" ones, but most probably his earlier works will sell better because of increased popularity of Batman in general. Publisher gnaws his arms off because they did not make any money from the hit.
Conclusion: this use of copyright does not benefit the authors or the readers in the slightest. They only benefit the publishers, who can turn the creative arts into a money farm. The effect is a cultural land grab that stifles creativity, and prevents a great many works from being created because they would not be authorized. For example, a movie about the Stalinist terror using Disney characters could become a cultural milestone, and yet there is no chance of that ever being authorized.
I wouldn't call code written after reading examples a derivative work of those examples. Examples are a thing at the technical level, equivalent to knowing how to use brushes and paint to create a painting. Every painting would then be a derivative work of the materials used to create it, or the publications describing various painting techniques, and that's not what a derivative work should mean. If you copy and paste code from examples your program may still be useful but I doubt it will conquer the world.
Because a laptop screen can't be read from any angle.
Nowadays laptops and even standalone monitors have shitty screens. Look at a HP TC1100 someday for true LCD glory. Viewable for any angle with no color degradation and very slight brightness changes. When I went to a store I was very surprised that almost all modern screens are inferior compared to this 4 year old thing.
Of course it is different from an e-ink screen. For example, it's not too bright when viewed in direct sunlight. But overall if you can buy a cheap used TC1100 it makes for a great ebook reader (because you can detach the keyboard) and graphic tablet. It works well with Linux too.
This one of the numerous examples of the US legal shithole hampering progress and innovation for the whole world. (Another ones are DVDs on Linux and the financial crisis.) Software patents make the world worse. Please, let the upcoming CAFC Bilski ruling invalidate all of them.
same as they "denature" ethyl alcohol that you can buy at the hardware store by poisoning it with methyl alcohol
Nowadays you're more likely to come across alcohol denatured with denatonium benzoate (Bitrex), at least in Europe. It is so bitter it makes you instantly want to puke, but it's not toxic. The bums around here obviously drink it, because their mouths are all violet from the coloring.
No it can't. It's like saying that you can avoid theft by burning all your possessions. Kexec is equivalent to a reboot without touching the BIOS: it shuts the system down, but instead of actually powering down or rebooting it starts a different kernel. It only has some use when the BIOS takes a very long time to reboot and you want to speed it up, or when you want to boot from a remotely stored kernel.
Ksplice allows you to update the kernel without shutting down your applications, so it is really rebootless.
Solar panels on the roof are great, and if I lived in a hotter climate I would probably look into buying some, but please not use this story as support for "we don't need centralized energy generation". I'll show you why. Look at the chart "monthly output" on this page: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2338837,00.asp
In December, the panels generate only about 20% of what they do in July. A five-fold variation is a BIG one. He obviously could not disconnect himself from the grid - he had to rely on an external power source during the whole winter. There is no storage technology to alleviate this - right now you simply cannot store large amounts of energy for 6 months with anything resembling decent efficiency. That's why we need a mix of energy sources, and it's rather unlikely that we will ever be able to satisfy our energy needs with 100% renewables.
Pumped storage, nanotech ultracapacitors, flywheels, fuel cells even will store energy for a calm day.
The problems in not a few calm days. It is seasonal variations in output, and the storage technologies you mentioned cannot help with this. You cannot store energy for an entire city for 6 months. With the kind of seasonal variation in power output from solar and wind present in most parts of Europe, you'd either have to invent means of storing an obscene amount of energy (good luck making it safe as well), or massively overbuild generating capacity.
Look at it this way: if you can open 30 tabs in Chrome with the amount of memory you have, you should be able to open 120 tabs in Firefox. So memory usage does matter even if you have a lot of it. In fact, most modern desktop applications are more limited by the available memory than processing power.
Slashdot Mirror
if you can afford the licensing fees for H.264
...or colocating your server in Europe...
Mozilla really needs to support this de-facto standard for video (it's not just Apple using this in hardware).
This is actually possible if we make two versions of Firefox: one for the entire world, which does H.264, and an US legal shithole-only version, which doesn't. The version served to the visitor of getfirefox.com would be determined by a Geo-IP query. I have no idea why Ubuntu doesn't do the same, so that all people NOT living in the US might get DVD playback out of the box.
Anderson's reference to people who "prefer to buy their music online" carries the faint suggestion that refraining from theft should be considered a mere preference.
Great troll article.
Piracy = Theft is a 100% reliable sign of a copyright establishment troll.
In the case you describe the problem lies with the publisher not making their trademark distinct enough. It should be obvious the work is not related to the movie by the absence of a trademark associated with the movie, while adding a word "unauthorized" on the cover would be unfair to its author.
If we were in a world with very limited copyrights, I'm guessing that the emphasis on trademarks in advertising of movies, books, etc. would be much stronger than now, and I doubt the things you describe would happen.
You prove my point: who has the right to create depends on the flow of money and whim of higher ups rather than who has the vision. Probably you can come up with better examples because I'm not that into gaming.
1a. It sucks. People buying it decide that ALL "Batman" stuff sucks. Nobody gets any money for stuff that sucks.
There is another mechanism to prevent that, and which is generally agreed upon as positive: trademarks. You are conflating trademarks with derivative works. You can register a trademark for the "leading" Batman comic (e.g. a distinct graphical symbol.. no idea what that could be) to distinguish it from those from competing authors, and only license it to works you approve of. This way you have a way of extracting some revenue from unrelated authors as well as having some grip on what is considered canon, but at the same you can't be an asshole and prevent others from publishing their work at all.
Here is another concept of "unauthorized" works. How about a film about the secret passions of Pol Pot enacted with nothing but Disney characters.
Except it wouldn't be marketed as a Disney movie. You might find the idea offensive, but there will be people who won't, and I see no reason to prevent them from making such a movie, as long as they don't misrepresent what it is about (which is an entirely different problem unrelated to copyright).
When an actor stars in a horror it does not suddenly make a family comedy in which he also appeared unacceptable to the kids. I don't know why it shouldn't be the same with cartoon characters.
Copyright is complicated.
If I change 5 words in somebody else's book and sign it with my name, it's plagarism.
If I change 5 words and leave the original author's name on it, it's an unauthorized edition.
If I rewrite a few chapters and sign it with both names, it's a collaboration.
If I rewrite a few chapters and sign it with my name only, it's a derivative work.
If I take the idea and characters and write an unrelated story, it's still a derivative work but might not be.
If I reuse random sentences from someone else's book in my own unrelated one, it's called sampling.
If I rewrite someone's book in modern slang, it's called a cover.
If I reuse the store and characters but set it in modern times, it's called a remake.
If I take the story, trivialize it in the most intellectually offensive way imaginable and show it to millions of people, with the original author maybe receiving lots of money and maybe not*, it's called a Hollywood movie.
*) see LOTR fiasco. Not an example of offensive trivializing though.
Consider a form of art unhindered by copyright: dance.
The age of Internet is also the golden age of dance. Little known or local styles like Melbourne Shuffle gain worldwide recognition. A plurality of others, like the many variants of Jumpstyle, Tecktonik or Hardstep are created, because the elements from many styles can be combined to form a new mix, while the Internet and Youtube in particular allows easy sharing of demos and tutorial videos that allow anyone to learn a particular move they like. Classical styles are becoming more popular as well. Never before in human history was there such a vibrant dance scene. And even though "anybody" can dance, professional dancers still have jobs (see Riverdance, Stomp, any music video).
There is a lesson to be learned from this.
It helps a few major players, but harms industry on the whole. The same is true for other creative arts. The proponents of restrictive IP rights usually misrepresent the good of those few best known players as the good of the industry, but the reality is that prosperity lies in plurality and "lawless free-for-all", not exclusive deals.
Sorry to reply to myself: The things you want to prevent already happen with games, movies, etc. remade by studios that have no connection to the original authors. Examples: Fallout 3, Homeworld Cataclysm, many others. In fact it only ensures that the idea is not exploited by the person who has the best vision, but by whoever gets picked by the management, which usually have artistic values high up their ass and care mostly about profits.
But I do not think some two bit hack should be able to just create a Batman comic strip without permission.
Sorry but this is the purest form of assholery enabled by copyright.
If someone random releases a Batman comic, then there are three possible outcomes:
1. It sucks. Nobody cares, the original author does not lose anything. Publisher is annoyed because somebody is using "their" franchise, but since people tend to forget about shitty comics they doesn't care much.
2. It is acceptable. Some people will buy and enjoy it, but most probably won't consider it canon. The original author is unaffected. Publisher is annoyed because they think that money should belong to them.
3. It is absolutely great. Readers have a great comic, the "unauthorized" artist has a lot of money. The original artist might have a reduced ability to sell his future works if they aren't as good as the "unauthorized" ones, but most probably his earlier works will sell better because of increased popularity of Batman in general. Publisher gnaws his arms off because they did not make any money from the hit.
Conclusion: this use of copyright does not benefit the authors or the readers in the slightest. They only benefit the publishers, who can turn the creative arts into a money farm. The effect is a cultural land grab that stifles creativity, and prevents a great many works from being created because they would not be authorized. For example, a movie about the Stalinist terror using Disney characters could become a cultural milestone, and yet there is no chance of that ever being authorized.
I wouldn't call code written after reading examples a derivative work of those examples. Examples are a thing at the technical level, equivalent to knowing how to use brushes and paint to create a painting. Every painting would then be a derivative work of the materials used to create it, or the publications describing various painting techniques, and that's not what a derivative work should mean. If you copy and paste code from examples your program may still be useful but I doubt it will conquer the world.
Because a laptop screen can't be read from any angle.
Nowadays laptops and even standalone monitors have shitty screens. Look at a HP TC1100 someday for true LCD glory. Viewable for any angle with no color degradation and very slight brightness changes. When I went to a store I was very surprised that almost all modern screens are inferior compared to this 4 year old thing.
Of course it is different from an e-ink screen. For example, it's not too bright when viewed in direct sunlight. But overall if you can buy a cheap used TC1100 it makes for a great ebook reader (because you can detach the keyboard) and graphic tablet. It works well with Linux too.
Italians are sick people. The girl making out with an RC car is... interesting.
This one of the numerous examples of the US legal shithole hampering progress and innovation for the whole world. (Another ones are DVDs on Linux and the financial crisis.) Software patents make the world worse. Please, let the upcoming CAFC Bilski ruling invalidate all of them.
same as they "denature" ethyl alcohol that you can buy at the hardware store by poisoning it with methyl alcohol
Nowadays you're more likely to come across alcohol denatured with denatonium benzoate (Bitrex), at least in Europe. It is so bitter it makes you instantly want to puke, but it's not toxic. The bums around here obviously drink it, because their mouths are all violet from the coloring.
No it can't. It's like saying that you can avoid theft by burning all your possessions. Kexec is equivalent to a reboot without touching the BIOS: it shuts the system down, but instead of actually powering down or rebooting it starts a different kernel. It only has some use when the BIOS takes a very long time to reboot and you want to speed it up, or when you want to boot from a remotely stored kernel.
Ksplice allows you to update the kernel without shutting down your applications, so it is really rebootless.
M$ can also mean millions of dollars, so it's not single-meaning either.
Solar panels on the roof are great, and if I lived in a hotter climate I would probably look into buying some, but please not use this story as support for "we don't need centralized energy generation". I'll show you why. Look at the chart "monthly output" on this page: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2338837,00.asp
In December, the panels generate only about 20% of what they do in July. A five-fold variation is a BIG one. He obviously could not disconnect himself from the grid - he had to rely on an external power source during the whole winter. There is no storage technology to alleviate this - right now you simply cannot store large amounts of energy for 6 months with anything resembling decent efficiency. That's why we need a mix of energy sources, and it's rather unlikely that we will ever be able to satisfy our energy needs with 100% renewables.
Pumped storage, nanotech ultracapacitors, flywheels, fuel cells even will store energy for a calm day.
The problems in not a few calm days. It is seasonal variations in output, and the storage technologies you mentioned cannot help with this. You cannot store energy for an entire city for 6 months. With the kind of seasonal variation in power output from solar and wind present in most parts of Europe, you'd either have to invent means of storing an obscene amount of energy (good luck making it safe as well), or massively overbuild generating capacity.
It is only problematic because of the DMCA. Repeal DMCA and we'll instantly have out of the box DVD playback on Linux.
Step two, repeal software patents and Ubuntu boxes will play every media ever recorded by man.
Remind me to plant 4.3GB from /dev/random
You would have to wait a LOT of time...
Which Soviet Union are you talking about?
He means the dissolution of the Soviet Union, not its formation.
Examples of countries that had peaceful democratic revolutions that were successful in large part because the protesters did not use guns:
Poland (1989)
Czechoslovakia (1989)
Hungary (1990)
Lithuania (1990)
East Germany (1990)
Latvia (1991)
Estonia (1991)
Georgia (1991)
Ukraine (2004)
I think the Chrome processes share a lot of their virtual space, so their actual memory usage is a lower.
Look at it this way: if you can open 30 tabs in Chrome with the amount of memory you have, you should be able to open 120 tabs in Firefox. So memory usage does matter even if you have a lot of it. In fact, most modern desktop applications are more limited by the available memory than processing power.