I am taking the liberty of sending to you both a brief summary of Al Gore's Internet involvement, prepared by Bob Kahn and me. As you know, there have been a seemingly unending series of jokes chiding the vice president for his assertion that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has become the Internet.
Vint Cerf on Al Gore's important role in the creation of the internet (Link leads to full statement).
But there is something fundamental about selling your ideas and your labor. Those things are valuable to me, and I'm not necessarily going to give them away.
Great. That's why we have copyright law. Fantastic. No-ones stopping Gates from selling Word and Windows XP and Access and Excel, the fruit of his company's labour. However, when Bill wants to stop *me* from selling the fruits of *my* labour, because he has been granted a monopoly on a concept, I'd say it was me getting oppressed, not him.
Correct. As if Usenet is going to die because a single service (one of the ones I use, as it happens) have decided to charge a yearly fee that's approximately equal to (slightly more than) the cheapest Slashdot subscription.
At first the ability to search Usenet was on the Google home page. Then it disappeared, and now it's on a subpage that you have to dig
Eh? Google Groups is still on the front page, as far as I can tell (albeit google.co.uk) What's he talking about.,
and the search totally stinks.
That's true, though.
Having said that, Dvorak's article seems to have little point, and even less evidence to back up his opinions. It's pretty sad when a smart guy is reduced to shouting "Doom! Woe! The end of the World!." The fact he does it in the bilge-ridden pages of PCMag, just makes it worse.
Customer now thinks Open Source people are clueless freaks, and any mention of this stuff is taboo.
In which case, the customer is an idiot as well. Nowhere near as big an idiot as the zealot consultant, I'll grant you, but an idiot none the less. Closing your mind to an entire idea because you've generalised from one single bad experience is not good practice in any walk of life.
That's not relevant in the slightest. The fact of whether I can or cannot restrict access by various means has no bearing on your rights, which is the issue.
And besides, Orbitz are applying their rules as contractual terms in the creation of an account, and they very much are allowed to do that.
You can also put technical restrictions on how it can be seen.
Right. Now stop there. If I can restrict how it's seen, you don't have any rights. If you had rights, I wouldn't be allowed to restrict you. That's what a right is.
Got that? A right is something that no one can legally restrict. If I can legally restrict it, it's not a right.
Jesus. Sometimes this place is like teaching kindergarten
That's only a logical conclusion if you consider removal of net access to be equivalent to genocide and mass murder.
The govt of the PRC are bad, bad people, but the evidence for this is not that they ban cybercafes. They're bad people because they violently surpress dissent from, and oppression to, their rule.
Quick clue: Killing and torturing your political opponents : bad. Restricting cybercafes : relatively, not actually a very big deal.
should be noted that not all of the copyright stuff is "bad".
Hey Hemos, before sticking your ignorant oar in, can I recommend that you learn the difference between trademarks (which is what this is about) and copyright (which is completely unrelated to this case).
I'd say putting your website on the public internet is an implicit statement that I'm allowed to use it.
That's true, but it shows that you have know idea what a right is.
If I decide that no-one from your home country can access my web page, and block access based on IP address, you have absolutely no redress to force me to allow you access. If you had a right to use it, you would now have redress. So me banning you does not infringe on any right that you have.
Chinese government restrictive, controlling bastards. But given the Great Leap Forwards, assorted purges on intellectuals, the show trials, the widespread censorship, the repression of Tibet and the Tiananmen Square Massacre, did we not know this already?
Won't that affect our rights to use the web as it was designed?
You don't have a right to use my webpage. OK? Even if I put it on the web and leave it accesible to everyone, you still don't have a right to use it.. I may let you, I may not. I may decide to block access based on any criteria I can determine -- apparent geographical location, whether you accept cookies, your user agent, or the selection of a pseudo-random number.
It's my website. Legally, and morally, you have no right to use it, any more than you have the right to use my toilet if I leave my house unlocked.
But is doing exactly what they were accused of ILLEGAL?
Yes, it's contributory copyright infringement. And if the judge got out of bed on the wrong side, it could even be conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.
Would it be illegal for me to post the addresses of places you can go in Canada to purchase medicinal marajuana?
If clicking that link resulted (by any mechanism) in the marijuana turning up at my door three weeks later then yes, it would. You're a facilitator. You've made it (a lot) easier for me to break the US's (silly) laws about medicinal marijuana. If not -- well, that depends. It's all about intent, anc context.
If all of these are illegal, then how could any news site like slashdot ever report the name of a website that hosts these files?
Because reportage on infringement is not the same as making facilitating infringement the core of your business.
Look, much as you'd like it to be, legal process is not an exercise in formal logic. In deciding to prosecute or not, people always take intent into account. Would slashdot's reportage by construed as intending to facilitate crime -- no. Does Loki's business method intend to facilitate copyright infringement. Of course it bloody does. That's the difference.
it is perfectly legal to download music or video for personal use in the EU... All I know my movie downloads fall in the "fair use" category according to the current EU copyright law.
No. It isn't. And No, it doesn't. (There is no general "fair use" provision under European Union copyright law, although certain exceptions are made for research and educational purposes.) I'd be interested to know why you believe that, when it is simply untrue. Wherever you got it from, please stop spreading this ridiculous misinformation.
Slashdot Mirror
PS : Please tell me who won the 1:50 at Kempton Park.
Next week, read the first installment of Cory's brand new fantasy epic, "The Lord Of The Rings"
Correct. As if Usenet is going to die because a single service (one of the ones I use, as it happens) have decided to charge a yearly fee that's approximately equal to (slightly more than) the cheapest Slashdot subscription.
... etc
Imminent death of net
Having said that, Dvorak's article seems to have little point, and even less evidence to back up his opinions. It's pretty sad when a smart guy is reduced to shouting "Doom! Woe! The end of the World!." The fact he does it in the bilge-ridden pages of PCMag, just makes it worse.
That's not relevant in the slightest. The fact of whether I can or cannot restrict access by various means has no bearing on your rights, which is the issue.
And besides, Orbitz are applying their rules as contractual terms in the creation of an account, and they very much are allowed to do that.
Got that? A right is something that no one can legally restrict. If I can legally restrict it, it's not a right.
Jesus. Sometimes this place is like teaching kindergarten
The govt of the PRC are bad, bad people, but the evidence for this is not that they ban cybercafes. They're bad people because they violently surpress dissent from, and oppression to, their rule.
Quick clue:
Killing and torturing your political opponents : bad.
Restricting cybercafes : relatively, not actually a very big deal.
Got that? Good.
Thank you.
I consider my bad analogy greatly improved upon.
If I decide that no-one from your home country can access my web page, and block access based on IP address, you have absolutely no redress to force me to allow you access. If you had a right to use it, you would now have redress. So me banning you does not infringe on any right that you have.
Ahhhh, slashdot. Home of informed intelligent debate -- weighed down by this sort of retarded idiocy from the likes of DoraLives.
Chinese government restrictive, controlling bastards. But given the Great Leap Forwards, assorted purges on intellectuals, the show trials, the widespread censorship, the repression of Tibet and the Tiananmen Square Massacre, did we not know this already?
So, why is this news?
It's my website. Legally, and morally, you have no right to use it, any more than you have the right to use my toilet if I leave my house unlocked.
Orbitz has silly new rules for users.
So don't use them.
Duh.
The real first mistake was failing to cover up the fact they've made an illegal copy of Napoleon Dynamite.
Yeah, but when the will of the people is "We want something for nothing", what the hell do you want the legislators to do about it?
Actually... that's not a bad plan. :)
Look, much as you'd like it to be, legal process is not an exercise in formal logic. In deciding to prosecute or not, people always take intent into account. Would slashdot's reportage by construed as intending to facilitate crime -- no. Does Loki's business method intend to facilitate copyright infringement. Of course it bloody does. That's the difference.