One thing everyone needs to realize here is that we are simply on an upswing towards "everything should be free(as in speech)". To some less well educated people, like your typical MBA college student, that translates to "everything should be free(as in beer)"
Right now we are exploring the limits of that philosophy. For years, the music business (and the movie business) has been screwing the consumer with incredibly high prices. A lot of people feel that they are simply "getting even". This hurts the artist who only sees a fraction of the money the corporations make. Especially the small artist that is living on the razor's edge of a small budget. Yet a lot of people say, "Screw the artists! How many houses do they need? How many fast cars?"
In our culture, the new royalty is the high-paid entertainer. When we see actors getting 20 million dollars a movie, we don't exactly feel their pain when we pirate their movie. We of course forget about the lighting technician who only earns $15 an hour. Or the secretaries, or the gophers.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, we need to reach a point where these less-visible workers are hurt on a large scale before the pendulum can swing back. As human beings, we seem to learn best from a bloody face and a slightly dented wall.
Eventually a compromise will evolve where the small-time artist is not hurt, yet the customer doesn't feel screwed over. It has to. Everyone has too much to lose to go too far in either direction.
I'd like to apologize in advance for any person I may hurt in my ride on this pendulum. I promise to abide by the compromise that will eventually evolve, and I hope the swing will slow down and reverse course soon.
Of course this is what ESR is *supposed* to be doing. Right now he is not only silent, but catotonic on the issue. I am guessing that the self-appointed speaker-to-journalists is taking his $100 mil. in stocks and running.
Too bad. One hoped that he would have some integrity, as well as a spine.
So, more scare tactics from the MPAA. When someone infringes on the free speech of the media, the entertainment industry howls in indignation and raises a ruckus. Now they are terrorizing foreign citizens. I guess they only pay lip service to the first amendment when it suits their needs. Hypocrites. I bought the DeCSS T-Shirt from CopyLeft, and have a hardcopy of the code. This code will remain in my posession for...well...ever. And I might actually take out a personal ad in the local newspaper and put the DeCSS code there. Too bad I can't afford advertising space in Time Magazine.:) While I'm off topic and being moderated down with every word I speak, I just want to ask...where is Red Hat and VA Linux in all this? After they got their multi-billion dollar market caps, why aren't they investing in the defense of this necessary component for DVD playback? Don't they realize that a ruling against them will hurt Linux badly? Linux without DVD will be, in a couple of years, like Linux without CDs nowadays. Yet they remain silent. ESR was crowing and blathering about how we had already won the case. Yet we have the MPAA treading roughshod over the 1st Amendment. We have the MPAA terrorizing non-US citizens. We have had 2 injunctions. Yet ESR, VA Linux, and Red Hat are all mute and seemingly unwilling to help. They got their fat wallets, I guess, and screw the Open Source community.
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Right now we are exploring the limits of that philosophy. For years, the music business (and the movie business) has been screwing the consumer with incredibly high prices. A lot of people feel that they are simply "getting even". This hurts the artist who only sees a fraction of the money the corporations make. Especially the small artist that is living on the razor's edge of a small budget. Yet a lot of people say, "Screw the artists! How many houses do they need? How many fast cars?"
In our culture, the new royalty is the high-paid entertainer. When we see actors getting 20 million dollars a movie, we don't exactly feel their pain when we pirate their movie. We of course forget about the lighting technician who only earns $15 an hour. Or the secretaries, or the gophers.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, we need to reach a point where these less-visible workers are hurt on a large scale before the pendulum can swing back. As human beings, we seem to learn best from a bloody face and a slightly dented wall.
Eventually a compromise will evolve where the small-time artist is not hurt, yet the customer doesn't feel screwed over. It has to. Everyone has too much to lose to go too far in either direction.
I'd like to apologize in advance for any person I may hurt in my ride on this pendulum. I promise to abide by the compromise that will eventually evolve, and I hope the swing will slow down and reverse course soon.
Too bad. One hoped that he would have some integrity, as well as a spine.
So, more scare tactics from the MPAA. When someone infringes on the free speech of the media, the entertainment industry howls in indignation and raises a ruckus. Now they are terrorizing foreign citizens. I guess they only pay lip service to the first amendment when it suits their needs. Hypocrites. I bought the DeCSS T-Shirt from CopyLeft, and have a hardcopy of the code. This code will remain in my posession for...well...ever. And I might actually take out a personal ad in the local newspaper and put the DeCSS code there. Too bad I can't afford advertising space in Time Magazine. :) While I'm off topic and being moderated down with every word I speak, I just want to ask...where is Red Hat and VA Linux in all this? After they got their multi-billion dollar market caps, why aren't they investing in the defense of this necessary component for DVD playback? Don't they realize that a ruling against them will hurt Linux badly? Linux without DVD will be, in a couple of years, like Linux without CDs nowadays. Yet they remain silent. ESR was crowing and blathering about how we had already won the case. Yet we have the MPAA treading roughshod over the 1st Amendment. We have the MPAA terrorizing non-US citizens. We have had 2 injunctions. Yet ESR, VA Linux, and Red Hat are all mute and seemingly unwilling to help. They got their fat wallets, I guess, and screw the Open Source community.