No it really isn't. Copyright makes a fundamental error in thinking, and that is thinking that ideas are equivalent to property. The key difference is that ideas can be shared with no loss to the original. For example, if I have a car only one person can be driving it at a time. If I were to share the car with someone else, it would be a compromise, neither of us could use the car exactly how we wanted it all the time. On the other hand, ideas are nothing like that.
There is a huge difference between government censorship and a corporation choosing what wants to do in regards to comments and voting. Freedom of expression is a natural right, being able to comment on X when X is a privately owned website is not.
Lulwut? No, the law says that until the heat death of the universe (pretty much the term of copyright today) it is illegal to get the ROMs. And while the Virtual Console service did make it easier to get out of print games there are still a huge list that Nintendo either hasn't bothered to release on it, at least over here in the states (such as Japanese-only games like Fire Emblem), or games that will never be released due to licensing issues.
The virtual console was a nice idea but broken in practice. Not to mention the games aren't transferable, for example, even though I bought the Super Mario Bros. ROM from the VC, I still can't play it on my computer or phone and who even knows if the titles I paid $5 for will even work on the Wii U or if I'd have to pay an extra $5.
Clearly the answer is to demonize what we can't understand. The next thing that will happen will be making "hacking software" illegal to possess, nevermind that all of them have perfectly legitimate applications. Of course though, none of this matters since the real cracking groups operate out of countries which aren't the US, Australia and Western Europe, while these laws will be used to create even more destruction of rights.
Google has access to tens of millions of viewers. They can change their logo and the talk around the office cooler is about an obscure Polish artist's 208th birthday. Surely Google can do something like that about patent reform.
If Google/really/ cared about patent reform would they spend several billion dollars acquiring companies simply for their patent portfolio? Google has enough money and enough lobbyists to spark some serious debate about the patent system but they haven't done much of it.
If Google was serious about patent reform, why would they spend $12 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility to get their patents? Why wouldn't Google simply spend a couple more millions on lobbyists to stress the need for patent reform. And yes, Google has never used patents offensively yet, but the very fact that they don't spend more money attacking the root of the problem rather than treating some of the symptoms is quite worrying.
We can blame all of the tech companies for not trying to extinguish software patents and reform patent law. None of the software companies think they are using patents offensively, all of them believe they are simply defending what they came up with. Neither Google, nor Microsoft, nor Apple are without blame.
-Every- tech company believes they are defending against the evil competition. Microsoft will say they only have software patents to protect against patent trolls and Google/Apple. Google will say they only have software patents to protect against patent trolls and Apple/Microsoft. Apple will say they only have software patents to protect against patent trolls and Google/Microsoft. No company believes they are the ones attacking with patents.
Carve a reverse of the image you are looking to burn onto a piece of steel attached to a long rod. Put the carved piece of steel where it will get very hot (in a fire or on the stove preferred) put the hot steel on the CD and press. The image should be burned onto the CD.
Voyeurism is too hard to really define accurately and unless the person being filmed can identify where it is and prove that the person couldn't be on a public street or something and see them and even then it would be someone's word against someone's word.
As for CP, the laws have done a lot more harm than good. By making it a restricted commodity and by making batshit insane decisions on it, we've got laws that harm, rather than help minors. First off, by making possession of it a crime, we've created an underground economy where rapists and abusers can get money to feed their crimes. Instead of letting it die out with previous images, our current laws encourage people to start paying the rapists rather than getting it for free. Net result is more minors are harmed because of these laws. Next, it is impossible to say what does and doesn't constitute CP, how is it that a drawing can be constituted as CP? Or a photoshop manipulation. Both of them are victimless crimes, no one is getting abused in either of them. Or what about the 19 year old with a 17 year old boy/girlfriend where they might be charged with CP for sending nude pictures, despite the fact that a day later when the 17 year old is 18 it is somehow legal?
As for celebrating violence, that is political speech and should, without a doubt, be protected. For example, in America we have Independence Day which celebrates the armed, violent, attacks against the British in the Revolutionary War. We celebrate soldiers who make a living killing others. The news celebrates violence all day, praising violent cops and violent soldiers. To quote Voltaire
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets
And as for the "real and demonstrable threat of violence" it is again political speech that should not be censored. Not to mention that violence can, and should be used to topple an oppressive regime.
The right to post a YouTube video (copyright stuff is an entirely different issue, same with Google being a private company, both things I won't address in this post), to wear a Swastika and to protest the government are all parts of the exact same right which all people have by virtue of being born. Anytime you attempt to censor anything you are infringing a natural right which has the end result: tyranny. The right to free, uncensored speech, aside from being a natural right of all people is very much needed in any country with any sort of voting or democratic process, because without information from all sides, people won't be able to make the best decisions at the polling booths.
When compared to the rest of the world, the US is a lot better because the government, although nowhere near small enough, is a lot better than in most of Europe where the state itself is already bankrupt and tax rates are sky high, in Africa/South America where the state is much more corrupt, in Asia where the state gives you no freedom, or where cultural barriers make it nearly impossible to live there without being a third-class citizen (Japan), a place where the nanny state hasn't fully taken over in most places (Australia)
The Chinese government has always been interesting. On one hand they try to maintain an image as a normal, 21st century non-totalitarian state while on the other they are running a dictatorship. What I've always found to be impressive is that even with fairly loose travel restrictions people still return from western countries back to China.
Exactly. Netflix is designed so people can watch DVDs and streaming content. I don't care who's fault it is that I can't watch what I want to watch. If Netflix doesn't have what I want to watch, why should I subscribe to them? Between this and their spin on rate increases that somehow it is a/good/ thing I'm paying more, I'm not sure if it is really worth the price.
Because it doesn't show that the government can do something and do it efficiently, it only shows that someone with a lot of money and a lot of computers spread across a geographical network can create a worldwide network.
A lot of us really liked WebOS the problem was it came on the worst devices. The HP TouchPad was much too expensive. And the Pre had many design flaws. The Pixi was just too underpowered and the HP Veer was just far too small. If HP/Palm released decent devices for running WebOS on, I would have bought one in a heartbeat. But all the devices they released were flawed in hardware. When the choice was between the iPhone, a multitude of Android devices, both with better software support and the WebOS device, the answer was clear.
And the only reason the internet was created by the government is because it was simply the only organization with enough computers to create the internet.
But yet most of those things can be, and should be, provided by private enterprise and would be better suited to private enterprise.
Taxation buys civilization at a much higher price and at a much lower quality than what private enterprise can do. While there is a use for court systems, and armed forces to protect the country along with limited (elected) police officers, such things can be paid for in a much better way than the current tax based on income, instead it should be paid like everything else, based on use.
Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.
Lets say a man comes up to you and demands your car and threatens you with bodily harm, surely we can call him a thief. Lets say 2 men come up with you and do the same thing. Does it stop being theft? Lets say 3 men come up to you, take a vote on if you should have your car, and all three of them vote to take your car and you are the lone dissenter. Is it still theft? What if 10 people came in much the same way and took your car and left you a bicycle. Is it still theft? How many people need to be in a mob for it to stop being theft? Surely even if 100 people came, took your brand new 2011 Porsche and replaced it with a 1988 Honda, it would still be theft, correct? Taxation is much the same thing, it is still theft no matter how many people are in the mob trying to take your property.
Let's face it, years of "crime" drama on television has warped our sense of reality. There are very, very, very few cases where someone is obviously doing evil and the police are somehow powerless to stop it. On the other hand, there are many, many, many cases where the police are the ones doing evil, harassing everyday citizens with nearly boundless power. This is despite the fact they have nearly no checks and balances that every other person in authority has.
Slashdot Mirror
No it really isn't. Copyright makes a fundamental error in thinking, and that is thinking that ideas are equivalent to property. The key difference is that ideas can be shared with no loss to the original. For example, if I have a car only one person can be driving it at a time. If I were to share the car with someone else, it would be a compromise, neither of us could use the car exactly how we wanted it all the time. On the other hand, ideas are nothing like that.
Let's just get rid of copyright and replace it with something sane.
There is a huge difference between government censorship and a corporation choosing what wants to do in regards to comments and voting. Freedom of expression is a natural right, being able to comment on X when X is a privately owned website is not.
Only if you friend request idiots.
That's the nice thing about Facebook, you can set your news feed only to the people who you actually care about.
Lulwut? No, the law says that until the heat death of the universe (pretty much the term of copyright today) it is illegal to get the ROMs. And while the Virtual Console service did make it easier to get out of print games there are still a huge list that Nintendo either hasn't bothered to release on it, at least over here in the states (such as Japanese-only games like Fire Emblem), or games that will never be released due to licensing issues.
The virtual console was a nice idea but broken in practice. Not to mention the games aren't transferable, for example, even though I bought the Super Mario Bros. ROM from the VC, I still can't play it on my computer or phone and who even knows if the titles I paid $5 for will even work on the Wii U or if I'd have to pay an extra $5.
Um... utility companies have a legal monopoly. They have already gamed the system and are outside of the free market.
Clearly the answer is to demonize what we can't understand. The next thing that will happen will be making "hacking software" illegal to possess, nevermind that all of them have perfectly legitimate applications. Of course though, none of this matters since the real cracking groups operate out of countries which aren't the US, Australia and Western Europe, while these laws will be used to create even more destruction of rights.
I wish my mod points hadn't expired. Excellent points.
Google has access to tens of millions of viewers. They can change their logo and the talk around the office cooler is about an obscure Polish artist's 208th birthday. Surely Google can do something like that about patent reform.
If Google /really/ cared about patent reform would they spend several billion dollars acquiring companies simply for their patent portfolio? Google has enough money and enough lobbyists to spark some serious debate about the patent system but they haven't done much of it.
If Google was serious about patent reform, why would they spend $12 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility to get their patents? Why wouldn't Google simply spend a couple more millions on lobbyists to stress the need for patent reform. And yes, Google has never used patents offensively yet, but the very fact that they don't spend more money attacking the root of the problem rather than treating some of the symptoms is quite worrying.
We can blame all of the tech companies for not trying to extinguish software patents and reform patent law. None of the software companies think they are using patents offensively, all of them believe they are simply defending what they came up with. Neither Google, nor Microsoft, nor Apple are without blame.
-Every- tech company believes they are defending against the evil competition. Microsoft will say they only have software patents to protect against patent trolls and Google/Apple. Google will say they only have software patents to protect against patent trolls and Apple/Microsoft. Apple will say they only have software patents to protect against patent trolls and Google/Microsoft. No company believes they are the ones attacking with patents.
Carve a reverse of the image you are looking to burn onto a piece of steel attached to a long rod. Put the carved piece of steel where it will get very hot (in a fire or on the stove preferred) put the hot steel on the CD and press. The image should be burned onto the CD.
Voyeurism is too hard to really define accurately and unless the person being filmed can identify where it is and prove that the person couldn't be on a public street or something and see them and even then it would be someone's word against someone's word.
As for CP, the laws have done a lot more harm than good. By making it a restricted commodity and by making batshit insane decisions on it, we've got laws that harm, rather than help minors. First off, by making possession of it a crime, we've created an underground economy where rapists and abusers can get money to feed their crimes. Instead of letting it die out with previous images, our current laws encourage people to start paying the rapists rather than getting it for free. Net result is more minors are harmed because of these laws. Next, it is impossible to say what does and doesn't constitute CP, how is it that a drawing can be constituted as CP? Or a photoshop manipulation. Both of them are victimless crimes, no one is getting abused in either of them. Or what about the 19 year old with a 17 year old boy/girlfriend where they might be charged with CP for sending nude pictures, despite the fact that a day later when the 17 year old is 18 it is somehow legal?
As for celebrating violence, that is political speech and should, without a doubt, be protected. For example, in America we have Independence Day which celebrates the armed, violent, attacks against the British in the Revolutionary War. We celebrate soldiers who make a living killing others. The news celebrates violence all day, praising violent cops and violent soldiers. To quote Voltaire
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets
And as for the "real and demonstrable threat of violence" it is again political speech that should not be censored. Not to mention that violence can, and should be used to topple an oppressive regime.
Yes it is the same thing.
The right to post a YouTube video (copyright stuff is an entirely different issue, same with Google being a private company, both things I won't address in this post), to wear a Swastika and to protest the government are all parts of the exact same right which all people have by virtue of being born. Anytime you attempt to censor anything you are infringing a natural right which has the end result: tyranny. The right to free, uncensored speech, aside from being a natural right of all people is very much needed in any country with any sort of voting or democratic process, because without information from all sides, people won't be able to make the best decisions at the polling booths.
When compared to the rest of the world, the US is a lot better because the government, although nowhere near small enough, is a lot better than in most of Europe where the state itself is already bankrupt and tax rates are sky high, in Africa/South America where the state is much more corrupt, in Asia where the state gives you no freedom, or where cultural barriers make it nearly impossible to live there without being a third-class citizen (Japan), a place where the nanny state hasn't fully taken over in most places (Australia)
The Chinese government has always been interesting. On one hand they try to maintain an image as a normal, 21st century non-totalitarian state while on the other they are running a dictatorship. What I've always found to be impressive is that even with fairly loose travel restrictions people still return from western countries back to China.
Exactly. Netflix is designed so people can watch DVDs and streaming content. I don't care who's fault it is that I can't watch what I want to watch. If Netflix doesn't have what I want to watch, why should I subscribe to them? Between this and their spin on rate increases that somehow it is a /good/ thing I'm paying more, I'm not sure if it is really worth the price.
Yep, and often the old CRTs support higher resolutions than an LCD, especially if you just buy a cheap LCD.
Because it doesn't show that the government can do something and do it efficiently, it only shows that someone with a lot of money and a lot of computers spread across a geographical network can create a worldwide network.
A lot of us really liked WebOS the problem was it came on the worst devices. The HP TouchPad was much too expensive. And the Pre had many design flaws. The Pixi was just too underpowered and the HP Veer was just far too small. If HP/Palm released decent devices for running WebOS on, I would have bought one in a heartbeat. But all the devices they released were flawed in hardware. When the choice was between the iPhone, a multitude of Android devices, both with better software support and the WebOS device, the answer was clear.
And the only reason the internet was created by the government is because it was simply the only organization with enough computers to create the internet.
But yet most of those things can be, and should be, provided by private enterprise and would be better suited to private enterprise.
Taxation buys civilization at a much higher price and at a much lower quality than what private enterprise can do. While there is a use for court systems, and armed forces to protect the country along with limited (elected) police officers, such things can be paid for in a much better way than the current tax based on income, instead it should be paid like everything else, based on use.
Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.
Lets say a man comes up to you and demands your car and threatens you with bodily harm, surely we can call him a thief. Lets say 2 men come up with you and do the same thing. Does it stop being theft? Lets say 3 men come up to you, take a vote on if you should have your car, and all three of them vote to take your car and you are the lone dissenter. Is it still theft? What if 10 people came in much the same way and took your car and left you a bicycle. Is it still theft? How many people need to be in a mob for it to stop being theft? Surely even if 100 people came, took your brand new 2011 Porsche and replaced it with a 1988 Honda, it would still be theft, correct? Taxation is much the same thing, it is still theft no matter how many people are in the mob trying to take your property.
Let's face it, years of "crime" drama on television has warped our sense of reality. There are very, very, very few cases where someone is obviously doing evil and the police are somehow powerless to stop it. On the other hand, there are many, many, many cases where the police are the ones doing evil, harassing everyday citizens with nearly boundless power. This is despite the fact they have nearly no checks and balances that every other person in authority has.