You steal physical inventory, and give it away, OF COURSE you are not in violation of any copyright laws. In fact, you haven't copied anything at all - you stole physical inventory.
You are guilty of breaking and entering, and theft, and if the cops catch you, you can expect some jail time. But, as for copyright - you're free and clear. There won't be any multi-million dollar lawsuits over copying.
Wait - don't say "WHOOSH" yet. I understand perfectly that you are attempting to equate filesharing to theft. And, it just isn't so. When I COPY something, the original is left intact. The same zeros and ones are still right where they started out. Your inventory has not been modified one iota. You have lost nothing.
And, there is the difference between the casual file sharer, and a businessman. Time is NOT money to some hobbyist trying to collect all the songs from some long-defunct band from the 1950's. He is merely trying to satisfy some personal quest to get all 37 songs done by that group, which are no longer available.
No profit, no gain, outside of personal satisfaction.
COPYRIGHT law was never meant to apply to little people sharing and making personal copies. From it's earliest conception, copyright law was meant to apply to BUSINESS COMPETITION. In effect, if there was a dollar to be made from an idea, a song, a writing, then the AUTHOR should make that dollar.
When no financial gain is at stake, it's a whole different world. If I made a thousand copies of each of my songs/movies/softwares, and GAVE THEM AWAY, I would not be in violation of the SPIRIT OF COPYRIGHT LAW. But, if I profited just one penny on each copy, then I would be in violation.
Copyright law was, and should be, aimed at for-profit businesses, large or small. Producing copies of the Household Mover's Guide, and selling them for $20 at a truckstop late at night is a clear violation of copyright law. The motive is profit.
Setting up a site where Joe Sixpack can download music for ten cents or ten dollars per month is also profit driven.
Sharing a few songs via P2P is NOT PROFIT DRIVEN, and shouldn't even be in court as a copyright violation.
Dude - I run all my Windows and Linux installations the same way. I run as user, and if/when I need to do something as root/administrator, I call sudo/run as to do that task, then dismiss the admin rights. I learned this way back when Al Gore was still inventing the intartubez.
Now, had you BOTHERED to read my post, and what I actually said, you would have noticed that my Win7 installations have NOT BEEN compromised. I DID suggest that might be due to the fact that I don't use it much - but I DO ALLOW that Win7 is more secure than XP.
Sometimes, you have to pick your fights carefully. In this day and age, all the inJustice department need do is say the word "terrorism" or "9/11/01" to get an indictment and conviction.
I disagree with some - hell, MOST - of the embargoes, but what's to be done beyond protesting? I can point out that with proxies, anyone in the world can download any code that's available on the web. There's no need for me to SUPPLY a foreign national with anything, is there?
"Unless you think using Mac or Windows makes somebody inherently more virtuous overnight,"
God, I hope not! I have little use for a virtuous woman!!
Alright, if you insist - I'll try to be serious. Windows is, and always will be, playing catch-up in the security department. The basic, underlying security model was flawed simply because Microsoft didn't believe security was as important as convenience.
In fact - that seems to be part of the argument every time one of the MS fanbois tauntingly reminds us that it ain't the year of the Linux Desktop yet. "You can't expect the average user to invoke a command line, and spend 30 minutes configuring his hardware!" (I'm not calling you a fanboi - just pointing out a little of the obvious, lol)
Out of box, I think it's fair to say that *nix and Mac have Microsoft products beat, hands down. To date, I've not had a single *nix installation compromised. Windows? Yes, my Windows machines have been compromised. To be fair - my Win7 installation has not been compromised yet. But then, I don't use it much.;^)
Peripheral attachments to a central code structure, which slow down the core code, consume resources, and cause potential errors. Note that it is possible to create and publish potentially malevalent plugins, witness Microsoft's recent dotnet plugin fiasco.
I don't think that the above poster was "blaming" entertainment, so much as pointing out that government USES entertainment. Let's face it - entertainers aren't necessarily the brightest of bulbs. Almost all the big names in Hollywood are liberals, for example. They aren't very sharp tools, but they are tools.
"There are people out there who are able to configure Windows to be as secure as *Nix or Mac OS."
You make a pretty good point - except that you exaggerate a little. There are precious few people who can make their Windows machine as secure as *nix or Mac. And, most of those people work for an IT department somewhere that has hundreds of insiders fighting tooth and nail to poke tunnels so they can view their favorite flavor of porn.
I take it that this whole thing is aimed at private, domestic machines, rather than corporate or government computers. Imagine the City of Sydney being knocked offline for botnet infractions, LMAO
Don't they all do packet inspection anyway? And, some of them do deep packet inspection, looking for P2P users, right?
It really shouldn't be that hard to identify a spamming bot. Other bots may be harder to spot, but not impossible. While I don't much like the idea of retaining data on customer usage, I could justify 60 or 90 day retention of records for the purpose of shutting down malware/botnet machines.
"Yes, Barney, these six machines all answer up every single time the MyDoom2015 calls for a roll call - every week for the last three months!"
Alright, my example is a little facetious, but use your imagination.;^)
Wait - you are supposed to LOG IN to a hotspot? Seriously? Maybe I've been doing it wrong. I usually just spoof a MAC address, and take over an existing connection. Sometimes, I just log into the router, and change the settings more to my liking. There are so MANY imaginative ways to use a hotspot - why log in? Spoofing a MAC address has the advantage of making my terrorist network activities appear to be dozens of different people. Why, just last week I sold a suitcase nuke to an Ethiopian who had fallen on hard times. I only deduced that he has fallen on hard times, because his certified cashier's check bounced. I'm still waiting to hear back from him.
4chan? Really? I thought 4chan was populated by high school dropouts and misfits. Am I mistaken? The very term "free thought" suggests a population capable of thought. Hmmmm.
Precisely. Reading sci-fi and watching the "sci-fi" channels are totally different experiences. The real masters, the genuine science fiction writers, have always made at least a minimal attempt to incorporate science into the story. The hacks merely take a few ideas that they don't understand at all, add some special effects to replace the real thinking the authors put into the story, and market their trash to people who like action thrillers. Blah. Mindless zombies respond to flashing lights and loud noises - what's new?
Who, exactly, has to pay? Canonical? Hmmmm - I have a good bit of software installed in Ubuntu that Canonical doesn't support. DVDCSS for example. Actually, that breaks the law, here in the US - so, who is liable? I would assume that I am liable for all the software I use for circumventing software restrictions - not Canonical, not Debian, not Asus, or anyone else.
Pay MPEG LA? Nope, I won't. As long as I can find the source and/or a binary somewhere, I'll use their stuff, but I'm not paying them. Simple as that. There will always be a way around paying them, and I'll take advantage of it.
Now, if a mere 20 million more people took that position, and told MPEG LA and all the other patents holders that we aren't paying, we might make Congress and the courts take notice.
FFS, dude. Linux is gaining market share PARTLY because people WANT TO control what their machines are doing. People - some people - people like me - WANT to get inside, and see who, when, what, where, how, and why.
I don't WANT MS or anyone else to hold their code so close that I'm unable to even LOOK AT IT. To me, this is one of the major selling points of Linux, and any other open source project.
Fear the command line? Sorry - I can't respect it.
Someone who fears the command line to much to use those three commands shouldn't even be ATTEMPTING to compile something.
As for Canonical, or anyone else, who might fear liability for distributing a binary, they can run a simple script to do the compiling on the end user's machine.
"Kinda makes you wonder" if it's another slow news day. I mean, how many people did NOT see this coming? Even Joe Sixpack probably had this figured out - assuming that he even watches the evening news. Wait - maybe I'm getting senile. Joe stopped watching the news when he figured out how to schedule his programming around ESPN, More Gore Television, and Hot Chicks After Hours.
Back in my day, we had a required course in high school, called "Defensive Driving". We were taught that the best thing is not to hit anything. If you MUST hit something, his something smaller, softer, and less substantial.
Today? Idiot consumers expect to survive a collision with a nuclear warhead.
There is something wrong with a world where the cars are DESIGNED to run into things.
Charles Darwin is puzzled by this as well. He wonders why we wish to preserve the genetic misfits who think that running into solid bodies at speed is a good idea. We are setting ourselves up for something bad in the future.
Ooops - sorry to respond to myself - but I've got to add something. Thomas was only sharing a few songs, which is why I feel she should owe a couple hundred dollars, max.
Those people who share terabytes of entertainment media fall into a somewhat different category, IMHO. I doubt there is any legal term for what I want, unless "willful" somehow covers it.
The home user who uses Windows in a typical fashion is easily distinguishable from someone who sets up a dedicated server for the purpose of sharing huge libraries. While that server may not be "commercial" in nature, it clearly is meant for the purpose of "distribution", whereas Thomas' setup was not.
It would be much easier, and much more convincing, to prove that the terabyte server actually caused "damages" to the copyright holders.
To my understanding, no one has been convicted of downloading a song. All of these convictions rely on the "distribution" of songs. That is the key to every conviction that I've actually read about. The "copyright" holder has the sole privilege of making copies of their works. The courts have bought into the theory that "sharing" amounts to providing "copies" of a song.
If I were to steal all of the Van Gogh artwork in the world, I couldn't be convicted of any copyright laws - merely theft. If I were to make COPIES of that artwork, then sell them or give them away, then I would be violating copyright law.
The point that the courts seem to miss in all this legal wrangling, is the fact that people like Jamie realize no monetary return on those copyright violations. Copyright law was originally aimed at commercial use of copyrighted material. I think the courts need to focus on the original intent of copyright law, as opposed to going after small time file sharers. Or, more accurately, the courts need to slap RIAA and company around a little bit, and make it clear that steamrolling small time file sharers is UNPROFITABLE.
At most, Jamie Thomas should owe the record companies a couple hundred dollars, IMO. And, that amount hardly warrants the attentions of a single lawyer for one morning, let alone the massive support structure necessary to prosecute these cases.
Nope - the FF that you just unzipped onto your desktop isn't "installed".
"Will the new one keep itself up to date, or will I have to keep an eye out for new versions?"
Nope - FF won't update itself until you tell it. What you do with your fake eye is up to you, FF doesn't care.
"Can I remove the current Firefox first or will it break something?"
Open Synaptic, and uninstall. If it breaks anything, you can always reinstall.
"I removed Firefox from my Aspire One netbook once and it broke a few apps."
Oh? Like what? I can't think of anything that depends on Firefox for libraries.
"Why can't Firefox under Ubuntu have `check for updates` on the menu like the Windows version does?"
I see two questions here. As for "check for updates", try clicking "Help" in the menu bar. FF will check for updates. As for, "Why isn't Ubuntu like Windows?" - well - probably because Ubuntu is better than Windows.
Well - maybe because I am a dick? I've made a lot of claims about myself, here and elsewhere, but I've never claimed to be a nice guy.;^) In fact, if someone goes to the trouble to get under my skin, I am a real SOB!
Yeah, that kind of an attitude can bite you in the ass, but so far, I've judged human character well enough that they haven't been able to bite me.
Slashdot Mirror
You steal physical inventory, and give it away, OF COURSE you are not in violation of any copyright laws. In fact, you haven't copied anything at all - you stole physical inventory.
You are guilty of breaking and entering, and theft, and if the cops catch you, you can expect some jail time. But, as for copyright - you're free and clear. There won't be any multi-million dollar lawsuits over copying.
Wait - don't say "WHOOSH" yet. I understand perfectly that you are attempting to equate filesharing to theft. And, it just isn't so. When I COPY something, the original is left intact. The same zeros and ones are still right where they started out. Your inventory has not been modified one iota. You have lost nothing.
"and time is money."
And, there is the difference between the casual file sharer, and a businessman. Time is NOT money to some hobbyist trying to collect all the songs from some long-defunct band from the 1950's. He is merely trying to satisfy some personal quest to get all 37 songs done by that group, which are no longer available.
No profit, no gain, outside of personal satisfaction.
I was doing moderation - but I must reply here.
COPYRIGHT law was never meant to apply to little people sharing and making personal copies. From it's earliest conception, copyright law was meant to apply to BUSINESS COMPETITION. In effect, if there was a dollar to be made from an idea, a song, a writing, then the AUTHOR should make that dollar.
When no financial gain is at stake, it's a whole different world. If I made a thousand copies of each of my songs/movies/softwares, and GAVE THEM AWAY, I would not be in violation of the SPIRIT OF COPYRIGHT LAW. But, if I profited just one penny on each copy, then I would be in violation.
Copyright law was, and should be, aimed at for-profit businesses, large or small. Producing copies of the Household Mover's Guide, and selling them for $20 at a truckstop late at night is a clear violation of copyright law. The motive is profit.
Setting up a site where Joe Sixpack can download music for ten cents or ten dollars per month is also profit driven.
Sharing a few songs via P2P is NOT PROFIT DRIVEN, and shouldn't even be in court as a copyright violation.
My two cents.
Dude - I run all my Windows and Linux installations the same way. I run as user, and if/when I need to do something as root/administrator, I call sudo/run as to do that task, then dismiss the admin rights. I learned this way back when Al Gore was still inventing the intartubez.
Common sense. Yes - common sense. Let's discuss common sense with some people who are responsible for huge sums of money, and corporate reputations, alright? How about the fine people at TJX? http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/several-millions-of-bank-cards-have-been-hacked-764895.html
Now, had you BOTHERED to read my post, and what I actually said, you would have noticed that my Win7 installations have NOT BEEN compromised. I DID suggest that might be due to the fact that I don't use it much - but I DO ALLOW that Win7 is more secure than XP.
Whatever - I'm not going to argue with you about relative security of various operating systems. Just go visit some of the people linked to here http://www.google.com/search?q=bank+hack+million+lost&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Tell them that if they had any common sense, they wouldn't have lost millions. Fair enough?
Sometimes, you have to pick your fights carefully. In this day and age, all the inJustice department need do is say the word "terrorism" or "9/11/01" to get an indictment and conviction.
I disagree with some - hell, MOST - of the embargoes, but what's to be done beyond protesting? I can point out that with proxies, anyone in the world can download any code that's available on the web. There's no need for me to SUPPLY a foreign national with anything, is there?
"Unless you think using Mac or Windows makes somebody inherently more virtuous overnight,"
God, I hope not! I have little use for a virtuous woman!!
Alright, if you insist - I'll try to be serious. Windows is, and always will be, playing catch-up in the security department. The basic, underlying security model was flawed simply because Microsoft didn't believe security was as important as convenience.
In fact - that seems to be part of the argument every time one of the MS fanbois tauntingly reminds us that it ain't the year of the Linux Desktop yet. "You can't expect the average user to invoke a command line, and spend 30 minutes configuring his hardware!" (I'm not calling you a fanboi - just pointing out a little of the obvious, lol)
Out of box, I think it's fair to say that *nix and Mac have Microsoft products beat, hands down. To date, I've not had a single *nix installation compromised. Windows? Yes, my Windows machines have been compromised. To be fair - my Win7 installation has not been compromised yet. But then, I don't use it much. ;^)
About:plugins
Peripheral attachments to a central code structure, which slow down the core code, consume resources, and cause potential errors. Note that it is possible to create and publish potentially malevalent plugins, witness Microsoft's recent dotnet plugin fiasco.
'Nuff said?
I don't think that the above poster was "blaming" entertainment, so much as pointing out that government USES entertainment. Let's face it - entertainers aren't necessarily the brightest of bulbs. Almost all the big names in Hollywood are liberals, for example. They aren't very sharp tools, but they are tools.
"There are people out there who are able to configure Windows to be as secure as *Nix or Mac OS."
You make a pretty good point - except that you exaggerate a little. There are precious few people who can make their Windows machine as secure as *nix or Mac. And, most of those people work for an IT department somewhere that has hundreds of insiders fighting tooth and nail to poke tunnels so they can view their favorite flavor of porn.
I take it that this whole thing is aimed at private, domestic machines, rather than corporate or government computers. Imagine the City of Sydney being knocked offline for botnet infractions, LMAO
Don't they all do packet inspection anyway? And, some of them do deep packet inspection, looking for P2P users, right?
It really shouldn't be that hard to identify a spamming bot. Other bots may be harder to spot, but not impossible. While I don't much like the idea of retaining data on customer usage, I could justify 60 or 90 day retention of records for the purpose of shutting down malware/botnet machines.
"Yes, Barney, these six machines all answer up every single time the MyDoom2015 calls for a roll call - every week for the last three months!"
Alright, my example is a little facetious, but use your imagination. ;^)
Wait - you are supposed to LOG IN to a hotspot? Seriously? Maybe I've been doing it wrong. I usually just spoof a MAC address, and take over an existing connection. Sometimes, I just log into the router, and change the settings more to my liking. There are so MANY imaginative ways to use a hotspot - why log in? Spoofing a MAC address has the advantage of making my terrorist network activities appear to be dozens of different people. Why, just last week I sold a suitcase nuke to an Ethiopian who had fallen on hard times.
I only deduced that he has fallen on hard times, because his certified cashier's check bounced. I'm still waiting to hear back from him.
4chan? Really? I thought 4chan was populated by high school dropouts and misfits. Am I mistaken? The very term "free thought" suggests a population capable of thought. Hmmmm.
Actually, your post helps to point out the primary point of TFA. There really is no intelligent life on earth. It died off before it could mature.
Will the forty dollar bottle work?
https://www.kleinconnection.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product1_10001_10001_-1_14106_17829_true_98005_Insulated-Beverage-Hauler
Precisely. Reading sci-fi and watching the "sci-fi" channels are totally different experiences. The real masters, the genuine science fiction writers, have always made at least a minimal attempt to incorporate science into the story. The hacks merely take a few ideas that they don't understand at all, add some special effects to replace the real thinking the authors put into the story, and market their trash to people who like action thrillers. Blah. Mindless zombies respond to flashing lights and loud noises - what's new?
You used the words "bed" and "suck" in the same sentence - and you expect what exactly? Whatever it is, I'm at least marginally interested!
Who, exactly, has to pay? Canonical? Hmmmm - I have a good bit of software installed in Ubuntu that Canonical doesn't support. DVDCSS for example. Actually, that breaks the law, here in the US - so, who is liable? I would assume that I am liable for all the software I use for circumventing software restrictions - not Canonical, not Debian, not Asus, or anyone else.
Pay MPEG LA? Nope, I won't. As long as I can find the source and/or a binary somewhere, I'll use their stuff, but I'm not paying them. Simple as that. There will always be a way around paying them, and I'll take advantage of it.
Now, if a mere 20 million more people took that position, and told MPEG LA and all the other patents holders that we aren't paying, we might make Congress and the courts take notice.
FFS, dude. Linux is gaining market share PARTLY because people WANT TO control what their machines are doing. People - some people - people like me - WANT to get inside, and see who, when, what, where, how, and why.
I don't WANT MS or anyone else to hold their code so close that I'm unable to even LOOK AT IT. To me, this is one of the major selling points of Linux, and any other open source project.
Fear the command line? Sorry - I can't respect it.
Just how easy should it be to compile something?
configure
make
make install
Someone who fears the command line to much to use those three commands shouldn't even be ATTEMPTING to compile something.
As for Canonical, or anyone else, who might fear liability for distributing a binary, they can run a simple script to do the compiling on the end user's machine.
Your objection is utter failure.
"Kinda makes you wonder" if it's another slow news day. I mean, how many people did NOT see this coming? Even Joe Sixpack probably had this figured out - assuming that he even watches the evening news. Wait - maybe I'm getting senile. Joe stopped watching the news when he figured out how to schedule his programming around ESPN, More Gore Television, and Hot Chicks After Hours.
Phhht. Maybe this IS news to part of the world?
Back in my day, we had a required course in high school, called "Defensive Driving". We were taught that the best thing is not to hit anything. If you MUST hit something, his something smaller, softer, and less substantial.
Today? Idiot consumers expect to survive a collision with a nuclear warhead.
There is something wrong with a world where the cars are DESIGNED to run into things.
Charles Darwin is puzzled by this as well. He wonders why we wish to preserve the genetic misfits who think that running into solid bodies at speed is a good idea. We are setting ourselves up for something bad in the future.
Ooops - sorry to respond to myself - but I've got to add something. Thomas was only sharing a few songs, which is why I feel she should owe a couple hundred dollars, max.
Those people who share terabytes of entertainment media fall into a somewhat different category, IMHO. I doubt there is any legal term for what I want, unless "willful" somehow covers it.
The home user who uses Windows in a typical fashion is easily distinguishable from someone who sets up a dedicated server for the purpose of sharing huge libraries. While that server may not be "commercial" in nature, it clearly is meant for the purpose of "distribution", whereas Thomas' setup was not.
It would be much easier, and much more convincing, to prove that the terabyte server actually caused "damages" to the copyright holders.
To my understanding, no one has been convicted of downloading a song. All of these convictions rely on the "distribution" of songs. That is the key to every conviction that I've actually read about. The "copyright" holder has the sole privilege of making copies of their works. The courts have bought into the theory that "sharing" amounts to providing "copies" of a song.
If I were to steal all of the Van Gogh artwork in the world, I couldn't be convicted of any copyright laws - merely theft. If I were to make COPIES of that artwork, then sell them or give them away, then I would be violating copyright law.
The point that the courts seem to miss in all this legal wrangling, is the fact that people like Jamie realize no monetary return on those copyright violations. Copyright law was originally aimed at commercial use of copyrighted material. I think the courts need to focus on the original intent of copyright law, as opposed to going after small time file sharers. Or, more accurately, the courts need to slap RIAA and company around a little bit, and make it clear that steamrolling small time file sharers is UNPROFITABLE.
At most, Jamie Thomas should owe the record companies a couple hundred dollars, IMO. And, that amount hardly warrants the attentions of a single lawyer for one morning, let alone the massive support structure necessary to prosecute these cases.
"Will I have two Firefoxs installed then?"
Nope - the FF that you just unzipped onto your desktop isn't "installed".
"Will the new one keep itself up to date, or will I have to keep an eye out for new versions?"
Nope - FF won't update itself until you tell it. What you do with your fake eye is up to you, FF doesn't care.
"Can I remove the current Firefox first or will it break something?"
Open Synaptic, and uninstall. If it breaks anything, you can always reinstall.
"I removed Firefox from my Aspire One netbook once and it broke a few apps."
Oh? Like what? I can't think of anything that depends on Firefox for libraries.
"Why can't Firefox under Ubuntu have `check for updates` on the menu like the Windows version does?"
I see two questions here. As for "check for updates", try clicking "Help" in the menu bar. FF will check for updates. As for, "Why isn't Ubuntu like Windows?" - well - probably because Ubuntu is better than Windows.
"Why be a dick about it? "
Well - maybe because I am a dick? I've made a lot of claims about myself, here and elsewhere, but I've never claimed to be a nice guy. ;^) In fact, if someone goes to the trouble to get under my skin, I am a real SOB!
Yeah, that kind of an attitude can bite you in the ass, but so far, I've judged human character well enough that they haven't been able to bite me.