Gah, the black album bit. I still remember the first time I heard "Enter Sandman." My reaction was, "Oh, that's the ballad? Not bad." Puppets was the last decent album, but Kill 'Em All was definitely their best.
--
Re:Does the Division really matter?
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 1
You know, I tend to agree with you that a split into 3 or 4 divisions won't solve anything. Which is why I suggest they be split up along the following lines:
Consumer OS: 98 and CE
Enterprise OS: NT and Win64
Personal Applications: IE, (and the OS divisions would have to license it), Works, games, etc
Business Applications: Office, etc
Enterprise Applications: IIS, SQL Server, etc
Development Tools: VC++, VB, etc
Hardware
The goal is to split the client from the server as much as possible; also to seperate the OS from the apps from the development tools, since their monopoly is based on controlling all three. They should be forbidden from remerging for not less than 25 years, and there should be government oversight to prevent collusion for at least the first 3 or 4 years.
And the names "Microsoft" and "Windows" should not be allowed to be used by any of the companies.
>Of course there are examples of people who have >complaints about specific MS products, as is >true with any product. But my point is that the >vast majority of MS users are not up in arms >about being "forced" to use their products.
Not that it's really relevant to the issue, but name me one M$ product that DOESN'T have more than a few "examples of people who have complaints."
>Your example actually proves my point. They >*converted* to Exchange, presumably from a non- >Microsoft alternative. Why did they do this? And >what's to stop them from switching back if they >don't like it?
Well, at *my* company, one of the people involved straight-out admitted that the biggest reason was that it was an M$ product. Despite the fact that, even 2 years later, most of the people who used Groupwise (not even a particularly good package here) would prefer to switch back, we're still on Exchange. Why? Because M$ has a monopoly, and no other software company is percieved to have a chance of *survival* against them. Not winning, surviving.
>I think NT is another example of Microsoft's non- >monopoly. They have been trying to use the >dominance of Win32 to take over the server >market for years now. And yet apache has cleaned >their clocks. People *certainly* have choices in >the server arena.
The point is that M$ has managed to gain what, a 25% market share with a product that even it's boosters admit is technically inferior to the other options. How? By the leveraging of their desktop monopoly into another market.
And, if you recall, this case is about a DESKTOP monopoly, not a server one. NT has jack shit to do with this case.
>As I recall, Microsoft in most case simply >required that IE be featured on the desktop. >OEM's were always free to make Netscape an >option. And even if they didn't, so what? The >"obvious option" is called a modem. And it's >laughable to say that IE was "crammed down >users' throats." This is similar to saying >cereal companies cram the little toy at the >bottom of the package down kids' throats. >Microsoft gave away IE *for free.* How can that >do anything but help consumers?
It harms them in the long run by taking away their choice. Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knows that the average user these days is an idiot who has a hard time using the software that came pre-installed on his PC, much less going out there, spending a couple hours downloading Nutscrape off a modem, and installing and configuring it. And why should he bother, when there's this browser already made part of his OS?
Also, IE *is* forced down your throat. Office *requires* it. VC++ *requires* it. You cannot remove it from 98. If you have a M$ product these days, than you have no choice but to have IE wasting space on your hard drive, and you have no choice but to use IE as the HTML renderer used with these products.
And at least one manufacturer (Compaq, IIRC) was forced to ship the systems they manufactured with IE as the default browser, when the manufacturer wanted it to be Nutscrape.
Finally, there's the reason they did it, to "cut off Netscape's air supply." They weren't doing it to increase their own profits, they were doing it to cut off Netscape's main source of income, thereby preserving their dominance in the software market. And they were only able to do it because they have a monopoly on consumer desktop OS's.
>Netscape is still being actively developed, so >if the goal was to drive them out of business it >obviously didn't happen. What's the problem?
Umm, apparently you missed the minor detail of them being bought out by AOL. M$ DID put them out of business. Navigator may still be in development, but Netscape is no longer a corporate entity.
>And the supposed purpose of antitrust law is to >protect consumers, not competitors.
Actually, that's not true. Helping consumers is only part of it. The biggest reason for antitrust legislation is the political power a monopoly can wield. First, they can use their monopoly profits to just plain buy up politicians. Anyone remember M$ trying to bribe congressmen to cut off funding to the DOJ's antitrust division a little while back? Second, they can threaten to cut off the government from a product they are the sole supplier of. As in, "I'm sorry, but we we're currently not sure we can guarantee our survival as a company long enough to fulfill your order for 40,000 Windows licenses. Now if this antitrust suit were dropped, we might feel differently. Do you really want to tell the taxpayers you're going to just throw away the billions you've spent on making Windows your sole client OS (since we're the only one that gets shipped with PCs), and the billions more you've spent developing for it?" A monopoly can effectively control the government of a country. Despite what you libertarian types want to believe, the US government *is* the law of the land, and only the collective will of the majority of *ALL* the citizens should have more authority. For a company, whose only responsibility is to the wallets of a small number of people, to wield more power than our elected officials is both wrong and in the worst interests of everyone. THAT's why we have antitrust legislation, not because consumers are getting hurt.
And when was the last time a well-written pro-M$ post was moderated as flamebait? 90% of the time, they put "But we all know this'll get moderated down" in there somewhere, so the moderators fall over themselves moderating the thing up to 5, Insightful whether it actually deserves it or not. Maybe I should just change my.sig to "But I'm sure this'll get moderated down anyway..." Probably be posting at a 2 default within a week.
Um, I hate to break it to you, but Jackson has a history of being opposed to antitrust litigation. Microsoft started out with a friendly judge. Through their own contempt of the legal process, they turned him against them. I'd say that definitely qualifies as justice.
>First of all DR-DOS was completely compatible >with MS DOS. It was also a VAST improvenment >over MS DOS 4.x. But was really no better than >MS DOS 5 or 6. There were virtually no >differences between them as far as consumers >were concerned. DR-DOS needed to be MUCH better >than MSDOS to win over an established product, >they weren't, so they didn't.
Then why did pretty much every comparison done by the trade rags end up choosing DR-DOS? Why so many rave reviews, *including* DR-DOS 5 and 6? Answer? Because it *was* a much better product.
>Also, M$ NEVER REQUIRED per-processor licenses >of PC manufacturers, they merely gave a discount >to those that choose that method. The discount >is justifiable because the bookkeeping that M$ >has to do to know what to charge is much >simpler.
Umm... Those discounts were significicant enough that they cost the company FAR more than a minimal savings in bookkeeping. The only real benefit to M$ was to make it uneconomic to ship any OS other than MS-DOS on an ix86 system.
>Finally, The incorrect error messages weren't on >purpose. This is quite simply a lie. You belive >it because you WANT to, not because there is any >evidence to back it up.
Then why did they encrypt this particular error message, unlike any other? The ONLY reason is because it was to drive people away from DR-DOS, which was anticompetitive, and they knew it damn well, and were trying to hide it.
Well, that was an impressively knuckleheaded comment.
Lessee... First off, the settlement was rejected by the DOJ; the judge had absolutely nothing to do with it. Second, how do you know the offer was sensible? For all we know, the offer was that Janet Reno would get a free copy of Microsoft Bob. Third, dragging the case out does, in fact, benefit a whole lot of people. As long as M$ is up on antitrust charges, they pretty much have to play nice. Do you honestly think M$ would have allowed companies like Compaq to ship Linux boxes without the case going on? They sure did all they could to keep people from shipping DR-DOS and OS/2 systems.
Fourth, GUIs came out of Xerox, and were first released to the public by Apple. M$ just copied them, and poorly; the gui that Apple's been using since the mid '80s is STILL better than the ones M$ ships today. IBM, Intel, AMD, et al. in various ways all have a hell of a lot more to do with the inexpensive hardware we have these days; all M$ has done is keep the price of PCs higher than they need to be through monopoly pricing. Hell, even Atari and Commodore had more to do with it than M$.
>Microsoft play an important part in the >promotion of computers as useful tools, and >people know that they can use a Windows machine >even if they don't have any knowledge of >"kernels", "drivers" or "environment variables".
Yeah, and anyone who knows someone who knows something about Linux can have their system set up so they don't either. And everyone I know has huge problems with drivers on Windows. Never had a problem with Linux...
Oh yeah, and MacOS, BeOS, OS/2,... Linux ain't exactly the only option out there, and most of them "just work" at least as well as 'Doze. Since most of them "just stop working" a hell of a lot less.
>By forcing Microsoft to limit their practices >you are forcing the ordinary consumer who wants >to own and use a PC to accept something which is >second-best in terms of easy use - it is far >easier for a normal user to have their browser >as part of the OS than it is to have it as a >separate application.
Why? Do you honestly believe people are too stupid to install the free browser on the CD that shipped with their system? Is that too complex for you? I firmly believe that 90% of the people on this planet are too stupid to live, but even *I* give them more credit than that.
>However I'm sure that this view will offend the >majority of/.ers, secure in their guru-like >knowledge of how to compile a kernel, set up >Apache and write Perl CGI scripts. Anything >which aims to make computing easier for the >masses, like AOL have done, seems to attract >rabid flamebait rather than honest praise.
Why do you get so defensive just because we're brighter than you? The reason it attracts flames is because bullshit like AOL and 'Doze *makes our lives harder.* Why do idiots like you insist on rabidly flaming Linux instead of honestly praising it for the sheer number of headaches it's saved sysadmins around the world?
I'm wondering whether this was a decent troll, a lame attempt at astroturfing, or an actual, bona fide, idiot...
>While other things may be important to >capitalism, private property is the sine qua non >of capitalism: In its absence there is no >capitalism at all.
But opposing the strengthening of one part of it, when it's debatable whether or not IP actually is private property (I notice you didn't even touch that argument; shall I take it you agree that IP is public property that a limited monopoly is granted on?), is not opposing capitalism. I seem to recall you bitching that I was quoting you out of context?
>Neither a free society nor capitalism can exist >in a moral vacuum. Among other things, the right >to private property must be protected -- no one >has the right to steal your stuff, right? No one >has the right to destroy my property, either. So >how absurd would it be for us to suppose that >private property is protected but our lives are >not?
All capitalism is, fundamentally, is any economic system that supports the ownership of capital (i.e. the means of production) by individuals. Just as socialism is simply the ownership of capital by the state or by the people collectively. There's a lot of baggage attached to both terms, but fundamentally, that's all they are. Copyright is in no way means of production, it's protection of the end product. Therefore, seeking to weaken copyright (or, more appropriately to this argument, opposing the strengthening of copyright) does not in any way make one opposed to capitalism.
Also, by this definition, capitalism is orthogonal to morality. It can very easily exist in a moral vacuum; the owner of capital can wield sufficient physical force to enforce his ownership. See most of Africa, they're the most capitalistic countries in the world. A company can very easily operate there completely free of government regulation. Simply because you don't like the end result doesn't make them less capitalistic. A free society can't exist in a moral vacuum, but it's no impediment to a capitalistic one. However much you try to claim it, they ain't the same thing.
>Can contracts survive where honesty and >truthfulness are not valued? Of course not! You >think you're being clever, but you're really not.
Why not? See my above point about force. All it takes is to make reward for compliance, the penalty for noncompliance, and the probability of being caught breaking the contract sufficiently high. And why are contracts more fundamental to capitalism than the right to sell your services? If anything, contracts are a part of that right.
Not to mention I don't see what the legality of paid assassination has to do with truthfulness or honesty. If anything, it would be valued even more highly. Who'd employ an assassin they couldn't trust? And wouldn't you be a bit more careful about being honest if you knew a lie could cause you to end up with a bullet in your head?
>This amazingly irrelevant statement is attached >to a quote that you cleverly ripped from its >context
Not really. It was a restatement of his argument. Your claim was that it was perfectly OK for you to stick your fingers in your ears as he made a logical argument, simply because the argument was in his own self-interest. I don't have any self-interest in this area, so you'll have to address it this time.
>What I said had to do specifically with the >poster's professed willingness to violate >copyright while at the same time being upset >about not having legal access to MP3.com. A >person who is willing to violate copyright is >obviously not particularly interested in what is >legal, so it's pretty silly to pretend to be all >worked up about not having "legal" access to >something. If you will look you will see that >this is exactly how the poster understood it, >and it was in fact my intent. I'm sorry you >didn't get it.
Oh, I got it. I just don't agree with it. If a law is wrong, I feel no responsibility to obey it. I will break it as I choose, and I will accept the consequences if caught, but I will continue to fight to change the law. And any logical, rational arguments I make in favor of changing the law are no less logical or rational simply because I'm making them. Since I don't feel this law is wrong, I don't violate it. However, it wouldn't detract from my arguments if I did.
>The problem with MP3.com is that it is SURELY >being used for illegal purposes -- it is not a >question of taking away something that merely >*might* be used illegally
And MY point, which I'm sorry that you don't understand, is that this is absolutely, completely irrelevent. To go back to the gun manufacturer analogy, a gun manufacturer knows that many of its products will be used illegally. Not MIGHT be, WILL be. Similarly, mp3.com knows that much of the disk space and throughput they provide will be used for illegal purposes. Neither mp3.com nor the gun manufacturer is responsible for this illegal use; the only responsible party is the one who made the knowing choice to use a legal product or service in an illegal fashion.
>Lastly, to borrow your gun analogy -- I assert >that law enforcement would be fully within their >rights to shut down a gun shop where illegal >arms trafficking was occurring right alongside >legitimate firearms sales. >if MP3.com is trafficking in pirated music right >alongside legitimate music, I have NO problem >with law enforcement shutting them down.
They aren't. I'm not sure why you haven't gotten this yet, since you've been told repeatedly. The MP3s that mp3.com sells are legally theirs to sell; the artists have signed contracts allowing mp3.com to distribute the songs over the internet via MP3. mp3.com also provides a service allowing people to upload music to their servers, so they can then stream to any internet-connected device. It's this service that is being abused, and it's being abused by mp3.com's customers, not by mp3.com itself. What if that gun store provided secure gun lockers in the back, and people started selling or giving away the combinations to their lockers? Should the cops shut down the gun store?
>You fail to understand economics. Lack of gain >== reduced income (reduced by the amount you >failed to pay me). (snipping only one sentence from those paragraphs in an attempt at brevity, for a change:))
I'm afraid it's you who refuse to understand. It isn't income you're losing, it's *potential* income. How can you say your income is reduced by the amount of the sale? I might well have chosen to do without if I couldn't copy illegally. Also, I suggest you take an arithmetic course. x + 0 != x - 1, no matter what economists believe. It may be a loss as far as tax status goes, *but you are not losing anything you currently have.* THAT is the key difference between theft and copyright infringement. And I'm not suggesting abandoning copyright. I'm suggesting not overextending it so that copyright infringement is treated the same as theft of a physical object. Once again, so you can't mistake my point: COPYRIGHT GOOD! BUT COPYRIGHT NOT SAME AS PHYSICAL PROPERTY! DON'T TREAT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND THEFT SAME WAY, LEGALLY OR MORALLY! Get it?:)
>Ford's income is reduced by the amount of money >that you spent on a Chevy rather than on a Ford. >If enough people do this, Ford goes out of >business.
*But is it theft?* That was my question, and you didn't answer it. How about is it theft from Ford if I steal a Chevy? After all, I might have bought a Ford in either case. So Ford's losing *potential* income in the same way a copyright holder does due to an infringement.
>On top of all this, you are apparently incapable >of distinguishing between patents and copyright
I'm completely aware of the difference, thank you. However, the section of the Constitution I quoted applies to *BOTH*. The arguments I used apply to *BOTH*. Therefore, I referenced *BOTH* in my arguments. What in my argument applied only to patents and not copyrights? If you can't come up with a real argument, then please be quiet.
Oh, and care to actually address my point of whether you believe copyright expiration is government taking? How about patent expiration? You can stick your fingers in your ears again if you want, but they're still connected.
>Judging from your post, we don't have a monopoly >on histrionics.:-)
Really? Care to point out the histrionic parts of my original post? Care to tell me WHY they're histrionic? (Yeah, I saw the smiley, but I'm not going to let you even jokingly give me a name I haven't earned.)
>Then I honestly don't think you can call >yourself a capitalist at all. This is >fundamental to capitalism: the right to private >property. If you dispute the legitimacy of >copyright, you implicitly dispute the legitimacy >of private property.
Private property is *one* fundamental tenet of capitalism. Intellectual property is *one* facet of property ownership, with it being debateable whether or not it should be treated the same as physical property (discussion below). Seeking to weaken one disputed facet of one tenet of capitalism does not make one a non-capitalist. This isn't a black and white issue here, there's a range of beliefs between "lasseiz-faire capitalist" and "state socialist." Basically, absolutism is bullshit, and that's what you're guilty of here.
Wouldn't you say it's just as fundamental to capitalism that if you desire a service that I provide, I should have the right to sell it to you? To take your argument to its logical conclusion, anyone who opposes murder for hire isn't a capitalist. After all, assassins provide a service that their customers desire and are willing to pay for. Isn't it socialistic to prevent them from selling this service? The government intervention in this area is preventing the assassins from utilizing their talents to make a living by providing a needed service and supressing what could be a thriving market. So if you oppose murder for hire, then by your own logic, I don't see how you can call yourself a capitalist. You can argue that murder for hire, drug dealing, and providing alcohol to minors should all be illegal, but your only arguments come from utilitarian or religious principles, not capitalistic principles. So if you oppose murder for hire, then by your own logic, I don't see how you can call yourself a capitalist.
>Later in your post you practically admit that >you do NOT use these things legally, when you >say "I choose to willfully do my best to fight >that. Yes, that includes breaking copyright >law." So your alleged concerns about having >"legal access" to MP3.com seem rather empty.
Wrong. Simply because somthing CAN be used illegally is not grounds for making that something illegal. Do you support lawsuits by the families of murder victims against gun manufacturers? It's exactly the same thing. Historically, it's been the perpetrator of an illegal action that gets punished, not the one who sold them the means to do so, unless the seller had certain foreknowledge that the means would be used illegally in the specific incidence in question. A gun manufacturer knows for certain that one of the weapons they make will be used to commit a crime, but they aren't accountable unless they know that this *specific* weapon will commit this *specific* crime, and choose to sell it anyway. Same with mp3.com.
mp3.com can and is used for a purpose that is legal under fair use. The fact that it can also be used illegally is NOT sufficient reason to shut them down, or to permit the RIAA to shut them down by burying them under lawsuits.
And no, I've never used mp3.com or played an mp3 of a song I haven't purchased, so your little straw-man argument doesn't work against me.
>Setting that aside, however, I honestly don't >see how you can possibly demonstrate that >MP3.com can protect copyright, short of >requiring its users to actually send in their >own CDs. As it stands, a user can simply claim >to own a disc, but there is no way to verify >that.
And it's not their job to do so. It's the responsibility of the owner of a copyright to police it. mp3.com has the legal responsibility to cooperate with the copyright holder in any legal investigation, but it's not their responsibility to police it themselves, just as it's not Best Buy's responsibility to make sure I don't violate someone's copyright with the blank tapes I buy from them.
On whether intellectual property is property, do you believe patents and copyrights should expire? If so then either
you support government taking of private property, which means you're a socialist; or
intellectual property is, in fact, not property at all, but a utilitarian social convention.
(Just to throw your absolutism back at you.)
From the US Constitution: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Phrase by phrase: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts This makes explicit the purpose. It is not to defend property or the rights of the inventor, it is to create a utilitarian good. The faster progress of science and the arts creates more good than is lost by the restriction of the right to distribute it.
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries(emphasis mine) If IP is truly property, why is it only yours for a limited time? If I make a car, it's mine until it falls apart or I choose to sell it. We're back to the choice above; either the Founding Fathers(TM) were flaming commies who believed in taking, or they did not intend for patents and copyrights to truly be property.
Furthermore, if you look at other writings of several of the framers, you'll see that they believed that knowledge and art in fact belong to humanity collectively. (Sorry, couldn't dig up online references.) It is the reward of the inventor/artist to control the use of their discovery/creation for a period of time, so that there's some incentive to do it. But because it truly belongs to everyone, that control is limited. This is also one of the justifications for fair use.
Finally, I'm getting pretty sick of the histrionics of people who claim copyright infringement is theft. It isn't. When I steal something from you, you lose it. You are directly harmed by it, which is why theft is traditionally a criminal offense. If I infringe your copyright, you suffer no loss. You simply don't gain anything of mine. You are not directly harmed by it, which is why copyright infringement is traditionally a civil matter. (Though obscenities like the DMCA and UCITA are trying to change that.) Lack of gain != loss. Or have I stolen from Ford by buying a Chevy? By stealing a Chevy? In either of those cases, I'm depriving Ford of potential revenue, just as I'm depriving the holder of a copyright of potential revenue by infinging. So DON'T give me that theft/piracy bullshit. That's just an appeal to the emotions of the feebleminded, and you know it just as well as I do.
"Mental anguish" had nothing to do with it. The largest part of the judgement was *punitive* damages awarded by the jury. As in, McDonalds showed no desire whatsoever to change their ways despite a number of other cases in which people had been injured, so the jury decided to give them a whack with the clue-by-four. And as McDonalds coffee is now served something like 20-30 degrees cooler and hopefully a spill will no longer cause the need for skin grafts, I'd say it worked. Also remember the judgement was reduced by the judge. This is a case where the system worked just fine.
>You don't seem to understand the concept that >the drivers are *Nvidia's* property, not yours. >They can do as they damn well please with their >software
You don't seem to understand that my money is *my* property, not Nvidia's OR yours. I can do as I damn well please with my money, including NOT spending it on a company whose product and/or conduct doesn't meet my standards. And because I'm a "sue-happy" American, I can tell Nvidia, you, and everyone else who reads/. that I'm doing it and why.
>Just because you're a sue-happy american doesn't >mean you can just bring any company into court >that does something you don't approve of.
Nvidia REPEATEDLY claimed that they would be releasing open-source drivers for their cards. Many people bought cards from Nvidia because of this claim. Nvidia is now reneging on this claim. This may, therefore, count as a false-advertising issue. False advertising is against the law in the "sue-happy" US. Just because Nvidia's a big company doesn't mean they can do whatever the fuck they want without facing the consequences, whether those consequences are legal or simply the loss of customers to Nvidia's slightly more clued-in competitors.
I'd also remind you that Nvidia has a history of false advertising: "The Riva128 is faster than the Voodoo2!""The Riva TNT will be faster than Voodoo2 SLI!"
>They killed one, and by mistake since the boat >was supposed to be empty.
This makes it perfectly OK for the military to attack a civilian target?
>Of course the French could have sunken it when it >was crusing into the French military restricted >area, which would have been their legitimate >right, but prefered to do it when the boat was >empty.
And had they done so, it would have been their right. (But it still would have, and should have, caused a major international incident.) HOWEVER, they chose to commit an act of terrorism on the soil of a foreign nation.
>And for the dead guy, well, that's too bad, but >death is a risk one must accept when violating a >military area (especially when you do so with a >bunch of recording equipement).
Except for the minor detail that he wasn't violating a military area when he died.
>It's taken for granted thet you can't go buy a >book, Xerox it's contents and hand it out on the >street corner, why should music be different?
Ah, but that's not what we're talking about here. That would be ripping your CDs to MP3, then taking the additional step of allowing anonymous ftp access to them. It's that additional step that's prohibited under copyright law; I can, in fact, xerox the contents of that book. I just can't distribute the copies.
No one here is arguing with the fact that that DISTRIBUTING copies is illegal, the argument is that MAKING copies is legal.
Now could you please explain a method of tracking crime that does NOT also give the ability to track speech? If law enforcement authorities get the ability to track speech, they *will* abuse it to keep tabs on dissidents, until they can trump up enough "evidence" to nail them. Or until they can just get them killed. (Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Darryl Cherney, Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney, etc...)
Ain't no bigotry in it. The point was that there are states like Misery or Mississippi where laws like that would be guaranteed to pass, *if it were up to the majority of the residents of those states.* It isn't anti-Christian bigotry to point out the Christain bigotry that exists in many places in the US. No matter how much some people want to hide their heads in the sand about it.
The point is that the majority ain't always right; that even if a million people believe in a stupid thing, it's still stupid; that tyranny of the majority is still tyranny and is no better than any other tyranny.
>This is NOT a constitutional or first amendment >issue. They're not trying to filter everyone's >connections. Whether or not you like it, they do >have the right to attach conditions to the money >that the state gives to libraries.
That's right, but it doesn't mean they can attach any condition they want. States are still bound by the US Constitution, and this is a First Amendment violation. For example, they couldn't deny funding to any library that didn't have a Mormon chapel built into it.
>This bill could just as easily cut funding to >any library that has more than say, 10 copies of >Mein Kampf
Nope, couldn't do that either. That little freedom of speech thing, ya know. Now they could deny funding to any library that had more than 10 copies of ANY work, but they wouldn't be allowed to single out one work that way.
>I don't know where people get the idea that if >something costs more than they want to pay, its >OK to steal it. Downloading copyrighted CD's is >generally stealing.
And I don't know where people get the idea that copyright infringement is theft. First off, in terms of relative unethicalitiy, if I steal something from you, you no longer have it. I have deprived you of something you previously owned. If I infringe on your copyright, I haven't taken anything from you. You still have ownership of the material; you have suffered no real loss. I just haven't given you anything of mine. Not recieving potential earnings != loss. Or did I steal from Chevrolet by buying a Ford? Would I be stealing from Chevrolet by stealing a Ford? Either way, Chevrolet is losing potential earnings. This is why copyright infringement is not currently a criminal offence.
Second, the legal aspect. Legally, theft IS a criminal offence, while historically copyright infringement has been a civil offence. (UCITA and the DMCA, among other recent laws, are trying to change that, though.) Again, they're two different things.
Note that I didn't say copyright infringement was right in any way right, I'm just getting really sick of that "piracy," "stealing," etc. histrionics that the RIAA, the MPAA, the SPA, etc. like to engage in. It's copyright infringement, not a high crime here.
> From the GNU site: The licenses for most >software are designed to take away your freedom >to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU >General Public License is intended to guarantee >your freedom to share and change free software-- >to make sure the software is free for all its >users.
>This seems to imply that the GPL is about bug >fixes and adding features.
Just out of curiosity, where do you get that? All it talks about there is preserving your freedom, it doesn't restrict that freedom to a given use.
>This also implies that the GPL is meant to be >applied to people who are actually given the >software or receive it in some way. I am not >certain that Slade's program is being >distributed to it's users and thus qualifies to >have its source viewed on request.
Uh... If I get it from him with his knowledge and consent, then he's distributed it. At that point, he is required to give me the source if I ask for it. If he does not, he has not agreed to the GPL, and therefore has no right to distribute other than those given by copyright law (i.e., none whatsoever). Therefore, he's violating copyright law, and Carmack has the right to sue him to stop distribution, and possibly for damages.
>Finally as for the original spirit of the GPL I >have always likened it to automobiles and >Microsoft's Windows. Now if I buy a car and >something goes wrong with it (broken tail light, >leaky radiator, whatever) nothing stops me from >viewing the manufacturer's specs for my car, >going over to Pep Boys to buy parts and tools, >and fixing my car. Now on the other hand if >Windows crashes and I have a Ph.D from M.I.T. in >Operating Systems and got a 4.0 all through my >college career I can't do shit but reboot and >pray it doesn't happen again. This is wrong. It >is wrongs like this that the GPL was created to >right and NOT to satisfy some unalienable right >to read everybody else's code.
If it is wrong that I can't fix my software, then I have a moral, if not a legal, right to fix my software. In order to exercise this right, I need access to the source code. Therefore I do, in fact, have an moral, if not legal, unalienable right to the source code, and this unalienable right is exactly what the GPL was intended to enforce. (Note--I don't actually believe that. I believe that a company may not prevent me from reverse-engineering or modifying their product, but they're under no ethical obligation to make it easier. They are, however, required to not go out of their way to make it difficult. And if someone licenses their code under the GPL, licensees are, in fact, required to give me access to source with the binaries. That is, after all, the point of the GPL.)
>PS: GPL is NOT like the public domain because >you have no right to ask for code or do anything >you like with it if the binaries were not >distributed to you.
Actually, under public domain, I don't have the right to ask for jack shit that wasn't already given to me. In that area, I have *more* rights under the GPL. All PD means is the creator gives up his monopoly, and I can do anything I want with his creation.
Okay, we've just hit the Nazi threshhold. What was that old Usenet rule? Any thread that goes on long enough will eventually mention Nazis? Anyone remember the name and exact phrasing of that rule?
That would be Godwin's law. If you actually take the time to read the post, you'll see he called ArchieBunker a neo-Nazi, not a Nazi. Which is a defensible position, based on the guy's previous posts, and based on the fact that he lists his homepage as stormfront.org. (Sorry about the link if it's bad; I'm at work and the page is restricted for hate speech.) Then there's his quote, which is beloved by white supremacists of the militia persuasion everywhere, despite the minor detail that George Washington never said it.:)
Ahh however if you remember that there are certain laws that take such behavior as criminal on many levels. Eventually they will end up in a court room.
The individual who obtained the information was breaking the law. If they steal the data they can be prosecuted. I doubt that many psychiatrists actually use encryption anyway.
This seems to be a prevailing view you hold. My question to you is, why should I not be able to prevent them from getting at my data in the first place? Even if I do prosecute or sue, the damage has already been done.
According to your line of thought, we should all leave our doors unlocked, and just prosecute anyone who steals something. Why should I go through the time and legal hassle of a court trial, and end up not getting my stuff back (which I won't), when I can simply lock my damn door? Similarly, why shouldn't I simply encrypt my message?
Furthermore, we're talking about making a dent in the right of the Britsh people to privately communicate. Aside from the obvious domino effect issue, there MUST be a clear, present, obvious, and overwhelmingly important reason in order to reduce ANYONE's rights. The question here is not why do we need crypto, the question is why should it be taken away. So far, they still haven't come up with a good reason for that.
Actually, that's a policy change in response to the lawsuit. At the time, official McD's corporate policy required that coffed be kept at around 180 degrees.
Jeez, you think maybe it's because the corporate owners of the media in the US don't want it heard (given that the people who own the media and who decide what you see are conservative as hell)? Right now, it's in their best interests to make both parties look bad, but to make the Dems look a little bit worse.
Face it, the liberal media is a myth. You can't have a liberal corporate media, and the media in the US is most definately corporate.
Ummm... I hate to break it to you, man, but Reefer Madness was discredited a couple decades ago. Under the influence of pot, you're most likely to sit on the couch with 20 bucks worth of Taco Bell and laugh at Sesame Street.
At least in the US, people under the influence of alcohol make public nuisances of themselves, beat their spouses, start fights, become involved in sexual assualts... People under the unfluence of pot become involved in extensive navel-gazing and find American TV entertaining. Everything else you've heard is boolsheet.
If the article read "College Students Spend Your Money on Porn," you'd be pisssed.
Not nearly as pissed as I am by your insistence that my tax dollars should be spent on censorware. That particular argument works both ways, kiddo. Oh, and don't you think it's a *little* offensive to insist that students spend a big chunk of change censoring themselves?
What are these MAJOR issues you're talking about? Since when do students have any right to high speed internet access in thier private residence? I'm a student and I have to dial. There is no issue because no rights are being taken away, whatever access thay are given is a benefit NOT A RIGHT.
The word you're looking for is privilege. And you're right, it is--one that they pay for. Given that they pay for it, it is their decision as to how it's used.
As for the first amendment issues: 1. The provision prohibiting visits in dorm rooms is a clear violation of the right to peacably assemble. 2. The other provsions are violation of the right to free speech and the press, as they prevent students from expressing their opinions over channels made publicly available for that purpose. (By making the channels themselves unavailable. If you believe that filtering software only gets rid of porn, I've got some seafront property in Kansas you might be interested in.) These provisions are roughly the same as prohibiting the (publicly funded) post office from carrying porn, or from delivering/picking up materials which are not study-related. And you KNOW how constitutional either of those would be.
Once again, TAXPAYERS AREN'T! For the average public university, gov't funding accounts for only a VERY small share of the university budget. The vast majority of University funding comes from tuition, alumni funding, sports revenue, and corporate grants. So tax money pays for *maybe* 5% of the cost of that pr0n download, and you're one of about 250M people sharing that 5%, many of whom don't agree with you on this. In comparison, the student is probably paying for 50-75%. So what the HELL gives you the right to tell them what they can and can't do with their line?
And this is in addition to the MAJOR 1st amendment issues regarding all three laws.
Slashdot Mirror
Gah, the black album bit. I still remember the first time I heard "Enter Sandman." My reaction was, "Oh, that's the ballad? Not bad."
Puppets was the last decent album, but Kill 'Em All was definitely their best.
--
Consumer OS: 98 and CE
Enterprise OS: NT and Win64
Personal Applications: IE, (and the OS divisions would have to license it), Works, games, etc
Business Applications: Office, etc
Enterprise Applications: IIS, SQL Server, etc
Development Tools: VC++, VB, etc
Hardware
The goal is to split the client from the server as much as possible; also to seperate the OS from the apps from the development tools, since their monopoly is based on controlling all three. They should be forbidden from remerging for not less than 25 years, and there should be government oversight to prevent collusion for at least the first 3 or 4 years.
And the names "Microsoft" and "Windows" should not be allowed to be used by any of the companies.
--
>Of course there are examples of people who have
>complaints about specific MS products, as is
>true with any product. But my point is that the
>vast majority of MS users are not up in arms
>about being "forced" to use their products.
Not that it's really relevant to the issue, but name me one M$ product that DOESN'T have more than a few "examples of people who have complaints."
>Your example actually proves my point. They
>*converted* to Exchange, presumably from a non-
>Microsoft alternative. Why did they do this? And
>what's to stop them from switching back if they
>don't like it?
Well, at *my* company, one of the people involved straight-out admitted that the biggest reason was that it was an M$ product. Despite the fact that, even 2 years later, most of the people who used Groupwise (not even a particularly good package here) would prefer to switch back, we're still on Exchange. Why? Because M$ has a monopoly, and no other software company is percieved to have a chance of *survival* against them. Not winning, surviving.
>I think NT is another example of Microsoft's non-
>monopoly. They have been trying to use the
>dominance of Win32 to take over the server
>market for years now. And yet apache has cleaned
>their clocks. People *certainly* have choices in
>the server arena.
The point is that M$ has managed to gain what, a 25% market share with a product that even it's boosters admit is technically inferior to the other options. How? By the leveraging of their desktop monopoly into another market.
And, if you recall, this case is about a DESKTOP monopoly, not a server one. NT has jack shit to do with this case.
>As I recall, Microsoft in most case simply
>required that IE be featured on the desktop.
>OEM's were always free to make Netscape an
>option. And even if they didn't, so what? The
>"obvious option" is called a modem. And it's
>laughable to say that IE was "crammed down
>users' throats." This is similar to saying
>cereal companies cram the little toy at the
>bottom of the package down kids' throats.
>Microsoft gave away IE *for free.* How can that
>do anything but help consumers?
It harms them in the long run by taking away their choice. Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knows that the average user these days is an idiot who has a hard time using the software that came pre-installed on his PC, much less going out there, spending a couple hours downloading Nutscrape off a modem, and installing and configuring it. And why should he bother, when there's this browser already made part of his OS?
Also, IE *is* forced down your throat. Office *requires* it. VC++ *requires* it. You cannot remove it from 98. If you have a M$ product these days, than you have no choice but to have IE wasting space on your hard drive, and you have no choice but to use IE as the HTML renderer used with these products.
And at least one manufacturer (Compaq, IIRC) was forced to ship the systems they manufactured with IE as the default browser, when the manufacturer wanted it to be Nutscrape.
Finally, there's the reason they did it, to "cut off Netscape's air supply." They weren't doing it to increase their own profits, they were doing it to cut off Netscape's main source of income, thereby preserving their dominance in the software market. And they were only able to do it because they have a monopoly on consumer desktop OS's.
>Netscape is still being actively developed, so
>if the goal was to drive them out of business it
>obviously didn't happen. What's the problem?
Umm, apparently you missed the minor detail of them being bought out by AOL. M$ DID put them out of business. Navigator may still be in development, but Netscape is no longer a corporate entity.
>And the supposed purpose of antitrust law is to
>protect consumers, not competitors.
Actually, that's not true. Helping consumers is only part of it. The biggest reason for antitrust legislation is the political power a monopoly can wield. First, they can use their monopoly profits to just plain buy up politicians. Anyone remember M$ trying to bribe congressmen to cut off funding to the DOJ's antitrust division a little while back? Second, they can threaten to cut off the government from a product they are the sole supplier of. As in, "I'm sorry, but we we're currently not sure we can guarantee our survival as a company long enough to fulfill your order for 40,000 Windows licenses. Now if this antitrust suit were dropped, we might feel differently. Do you really want to tell the taxpayers you're going to just throw away the billions you've spent on making Windows your sole client OS (since we're the only one that gets shipped with PCs), and the billions more you've spent developing for it?" A monopoly can effectively control the government of a country. Despite what you libertarian types want to believe, the US government *is* the law of the land, and only the collective will of the majority of *ALL* the citizens should have more authority. For a company, whose only responsibility is to the wallets of a small number of people, to wield more power than our elected officials is both wrong and in the worst interests of everyone. THAT's why we have antitrust legislation, not because consumers are getting hurt.
--
>A PRO-M$ COMMENT IS NOT FLAMEBAIT!
.sig to "But I'm sure this'll get moderated down anyway..." Probably be posting at a 2 default within a week.
And when was the last time a well-written pro-M$ post was moderated as flamebait? 90% of the time, they put "But we all know this'll get moderated down" in there somewhere, so the moderators fall over themselves moderating the thing up to 5, Insightful whether it actually deserves it or not. Maybe I should just change my
--
Um, I hate to break it to you, but Jackson has a history of being opposed to antitrust litigation. Microsoft started out with a friendly judge. Through their own contempt of the legal process, they turned him against them. I'd say that definitely qualifies as justice.
--
>First of all DR-DOS was completely compatible
>with MS DOS. It was also a VAST improvenment
>over MS DOS 4.x. But was really no better than
>MS DOS 5 or 6. There were virtually no
>differences between them as far as consumers
>were concerned. DR-DOS needed to be MUCH better
>than MSDOS to win over an established product,
>they weren't, so they didn't.
Then why did pretty much every comparison done by the trade rags end up choosing DR-DOS? Why so many rave reviews, *including* DR-DOS 5 and 6? Answer? Because it *was* a much better product.
>Also, M$ NEVER REQUIRED per-processor licenses
>of PC manufacturers, they merely gave a discount
>to those that choose that method. The discount
>is justifiable because the bookkeeping that M$
>has to do to know what to charge is much
>simpler.
Umm... Those discounts were significicant enough that they cost the company FAR more than a minimal savings in bookkeeping. The only real benefit to M$ was to make it uneconomic to ship any OS other than MS-DOS on an ix86 system.
>Finally, The incorrect error messages weren't on
>purpose. This is quite simply a lie. You belive
>it because you WANT to, not because there is any
>evidence to back it up.
Then why did they encrypt this particular error message, unlike any other? The ONLY reason is because it was to drive people away from DR-DOS, which was anticompetitive, and they knew it damn well, and were trying to hide it.
Go away, Microsoft astroturfer.
--
Well, that was an impressively knuckleheaded comment.
/.ers, secure in their guru-like
Lessee... First off, the settlement was rejected by the DOJ; the judge had absolutely nothing to do with it. Second, how do you know the offer was sensible? For all we know, the offer was that Janet Reno would get a free copy of Microsoft Bob. Third, dragging the case out does, in fact, benefit a whole lot of people. As long as M$ is up on antitrust charges, they pretty much have to play nice. Do you honestly think M$ would have allowed companies like Compaq to ship Linux boxes without the case going on? They sure did all they could to keep people from shipping DR-DOS and OS/2 systems.
Fourth, GUIs came out of Xerox, and were first released to the public by Apple. M$ just copied them, and poorly; the gui that Apple's been using since the mid '80s is STILL better than the ones M$ ships today. IBM, Intel, AMD, et al. in various ways all have a hell of a lot more to do with the inexpensive hardware we have these days; all M$ has done is keep the price of PCs higher than they need to be through monopoly pricing. Hell, even Atari and Commodore had more to do with it than M$.
>Microsoft play an important part in the
>promotion of computers as useful tools, and
>people know that they can use a Windows machine
>even if they don't have any knowledge of
>"kernels", "drivers" or "environment variables".
Yeah, and anyone who knows someone who knows something about Linux can have their system set up so they don't either. And everyone I know has huge problems with drivers on Windows. Never had a problem with Linux...
Oh yeah, and MacOS, BeOS, OS/2,... Linux ain't exactly the only option out there, and most of them "just work" at least as well as 'Doze. Since most of them "just stop working" a hell of a lot less.
>By forcing Microsoft to limit their practices
>you are forcing the ordinary consumer who wants
>to own and use a PC to accept something which is
>second-best in terms of easy use - it is far
>easier for a normal user to have their browser
>as part of the OS than it is to have it as a
>separate application.
Why? Do you honestly believe people are too stupid to install the free browser on the CD that shipped with their system? Is that too complex for you? I firmly believe that 90% of the people on this planet are too stupid to live, but even *I* give them more credit than that.
>However I'm sure that this view will offend the
>majority of
>knowledge of how to compile a kernel, set up
>Apache and write Perl CGI scripts. Anything
>which aims to make computing easier for the
>masses, like AOL have done, seems to attract
>rabid flamebait rather than honest praise.
Why do you get so defensive just because we're brighter than you? The reason it attracts flames is because bullshit like AOL and 'Doze *makes our lives harder.* Why do idiots like you insist on rabidly flaming Linux instead of honestly praising it for the sheer number of headaches it's saved sysadmins around the world?
I'm wondering whether this was a decent troll, a lame attempt at astroturfing, or an actual, bona fide, idiot...
--
>While other things may be important to
:))
:)
:-)
>capitalism, private property is the sine qua non
>of capitalism: In its absence there is no
>capitalism at all.
But opposing the strengthening of one part of it, when it's debatable whether or not IP actually is private property (I notice you didn't even touch that argument; shall I take it you agree that IP is public property that a limited monopoly is granted on?), is not opposing capitalism. I seem to recall you bitching that I was quoting you out of context?
>Neither a free society nor capitalism can exist
>in a moral vacuum. Among other things, the right
>to private property must be protected -- no one
>has the right to steal your stuff, right? No one
>has the right to destroy my property, either. So
>how absurd would it be for us to suppose that
>private property is protected but our lives are
>not?
All capitalism is, fundamentally, is any economic system that supports the ownership of capital (i.e. the means of production) by individuals. Just as socialism is simply the ownership of capital by the state or by the people collectively. There's a lot of baggage attached to both terms, but fundamentally, that's all they are. Copyright is in no way means of production, it's protection of the end product. Therefore, seeking to weaken copyright (or, more appropriately to this argument, opposing the strengthening of copyright) does not in any way make one opposed to capitalism.
Also, by this definition, capitalism is orthogonal to morality. It can very easily exist in a moral vacuum; the owner of capital can wield sufficient physical force to enforce his ownership. See most of Africa, they're the most capitalistic countries in the world. A company can very easily operate there completely free of government regulation. Simply because you don't like the end result doesn't make them less capitalistic. A free society can't exist in a moral vacuum, but it's no impediment to a capitalistic one. However much you try to claim it, they ain't the same thing.
>Can contracts survive where honesty and
>truthfulness are not valued? Of course not! You
>think you're being clever, but you're really not.
Why not? See my above point about force. All it takes is to make reward for compliance, the penalty for noncompliance, and the probability of being caught breaking the contract sufficiently high. And why are contracts more fundamental to capitalism than the right to sell your services? If anything, contracts are a part of that right.
Not to mention I don't see what the legality of paid assassination has to do with truthfulness or honesty. If anything, it would be valued even more highly. Who'd employ an assassin they couldn't trust? And wouldn't you be a bit more careful about being honest if you knew a lie could cause you to end up with a bullet in your head?
>This amazingly irrelevant statement is attached
>to a quote that you cleverly ripped from its
>context
Not really. It was a restatement of his argument. Your claim was that it was perfectly OK for you to stick your fingers in your ears as he made a logical argument, simply because the argument was in his own self-interest. I don't have any self-interest in this area, so you'll have to address it this time.
>What I said had to do specifically with the
>poster's professed willingness to violate
>copyright while at the same time being upset
>about not having legal access to MP3.com. A
>person who is willing to violate copyright is
>obviously not particularly interested in what is
>legal, so it's pretty silly to pretend to be all
>worked up about not having "legal" access to
>something. If you will look you will see that
>this is exactly how the poster understood it,
>and it was in fact my intent. I'm sorry you
>didn't get it.
Oh, I got it. I just don't agree with it. If a law is wrong, I feel no responsibility to obey it. I will break it as I choose, and I will accept the consequences if caught, but I will continue to fight to change the law. And any logical, rational arguments I make in favor of changing the law are no less logical or rational simply because I'm making them. Since I don't feel this law is wrong, I don't violate it. However, it wouldn't detract from my arguments if I did.
>The problem with MP3.com is that it is SURELY
>being used for illegal purposes -- it is not a
>question of taking away something that merely
>*might* be used illegally
And MY point, which I'm sorry that you don't understand, is that this is absolutely, completely irrelevent. To go back to the gun manufacturer analogy, a gun manufacturer knows that many of its products will be used illegally. Not MIGHT be, WILL be. Similarly, mp3.com knows that much of the disk space and throughput they provide will be used for illegal purposes. Neither mp3.com nor the gun manufacturer is responsible for this illegal use; the only responsible party is the one who made the knowing choice to use a legal product or service in an illegal fashion.
>Lastly, to borrow your gun analogy -- I assert
>that law enforcement would be fully within their
>rights to shut down a gun shop where illegal
>arms trafficking was occurring right alongside
>legitimate firearms sales.
>if MP3.com is trafficking in pirated music right
>alongside legitimate music, I have NO problem
>with law enforcement shutting them down.
They aren't. I'm not sure why you haven't gotten this yet, since you've been told repeatedly. The MP3s that mp3.com sells are legally theirs to sell; the artists have signed contracts allowing mp3.com to distribute the songs over the internet via MP3. mp3.com also provides a service allowing people to upload music to their servers, so they can then stream to any internet-connected device. It's this service that is being abused, and it's being abused by mp3.com's customers, not by mp3.com itself. What if that gun store provided secure gun lockers in the back, and people started selling or giving away the combinations to their lockers? Should the cops shut down the gun store?
>You fail to understand economics. Lack of gain
>== reduced income (reduced by the amount you
>failed to pay me).
(snipping only one sentence from those paragraphs in an attempt at brevity, for a change
I'm afraid it's you who refuse to understand. It isn't income you're losing, it's *potential* income. How can you say your income is reduced by the amount of the sale? I might well have chosen to do without if I couldn't copy illegally. Also, I suggest you take an arithmetic course. x + 0 != x - 1, no matter what economists believe. It may be a loss as far as tax status goes, *but you are not losing anything you currently have.* THAT is the key difference between theft and copyright infringement. And I'm not suggesting abandoning copyright. I'm suggesting not overextending it so that copyright infringement is treated the same as theft of a physical object. Once again, so you can't mistake my point: COPYRIGHT GOOD! BUT COPYRIGHT NOT SAME AS PHYSICAL PROPERTY! DON'T TREAT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND THEFT SAME WAY, LEGALLY OR MORALLY! Get it?
>Ford's income is reduced by the amount of money
>that you spent on a Chevy rather than on a Ford.
>If enough people do this, Ford goes out of
>business.
*But is it theft?* That was my question, and you didn't answer it. How about is it theft from Ford if I steal a Chevy? After all, I might have bought a Ford in either case. So Ford's losing *potential* income in the same way a copyright holder does due to an infringement.
>On top of all this, you are apparently incapable
>of distinguishing between patents and copyright
I'm completely aware of the difference, thank you. However, the section of the Constitution I quoted applies to *BOTH*. The arguments I used apply to *BOTH*. Therefore, I referenced *BOTH* in my arguments. What in my argument applied only to patents and not copyrights? If you can't come up with a real argument, then please be quiet.
Oh, and care to actually address my point of whether you believe copyright expiration is government taking? How about patent expiration? You can stick your fingers in your ears again if you want, but they're still connected.
>Judging from your post, we don't have a monopoly
>on histrionics.
Really? Care to point out the histrionic parts of my original post? Care to tell me WHY they're histrionic? (Yeah, I saw the smiley, but I'm not going to let you even jokingly give me a name I haven't earned.)
--
>yourself a capitalist at all. This is
>fundamental to capitalism: the right to private
>property. If you dispute the legitimacy of
>copyright, you implicitly dispute the legitimacy
>of private property.
Private property is *one* fundamental tenet of capitalism. Intellectual property is *one* facet of property ownership, with it being debateable whether or not it should be treated the same as physical property (discussion below). Seeking to weaken one disputed facet of one tenet of capitalism does not make one a non-capitalist. This isn't a black and white issue here, there's a range of beliefs between "lasseiz-faire capitalist" and "state socialist." Basically, absolutism is bullshit, and that's what you're guilty of here.
Wouldn't you say it's just as fundamental to capitalism that if you desire a service that I provide, I should have the right to sell it to you? To take your argument to its logical conclusion, anyone who opposes murder for hire isn't a capitalist. After all, assassins provide a service that their customers desire and are willing to pay for. Isn't it socialistic to prevent them from selling this service? The government intervention in this area is preventing the assassins from utilizing their talents to make a living by providing a needed service and supressing what could be a thriving market. So if you oppose murder for hire, then by your own logic, I don't see how you can call yourself a capitalist. You can argue that murder for hire, drug dealing, and providing alcohol to minors should all be illegal, but your only arguments come from utilitarian or religious principles, not capitalistic principles. So if you oppose murder for hire, then by your own logic, I don't see how you can call yourself a capitalist.
>Later in your post you practically admit that
>you do NOT use these things legally, when you
>say "I choose to willfully do my best to fight
>that. Yes, that includes breaking copyright
>law." So your alleged concerns about having
>"legal access" to MP3.com seem rather empty.
Wrong. Simply because somthing CAN be used illegally is not grounds for making that something illegal. Do you support lawsuits by the families of murder victims against gun manufacturers? It's exactly the same thing. Historically, it's been the perpetrator of an illegal action that gets punished, not the one who sold them the means to do so, unless the seller had certain foreknowledge that the means would be used illegally in the specific incidence in question. A gun manufacturer knows for certain that one of the weapons they make will be used to commit a crime, but they aren't accountable unless they know that this *specific* weapon will commit this *specific* crime, and choose to sell it anyway. Same with mp3.com.
mp3.com can and is used for a purpose that is legal under fair use. The fact that it can also be used illegally is NOT sufficient reason to shut them down, or to permit the RIAA to shut them down by burying them under lawsuits.
And no, I've never used mp3.com or played an mp3 of a song I haven't purchased, so your little straw-man argument doesn't work against me.
>Setting that aside, however, I honestly don't
>see how you can possibly demonstrate that
>MP3.com can protect copyright, short of
>requiring its users to actually send in their
>own CDs. As it stands, a user can simply claim
>to own a disc, but there is no way to verify
>that.
And it's not their job to do so. It's the responsibility of the owner of a copyright to police it. mp3.com has the legal responsibility to cooperate with the copyright holder in any legal investigation, but it's not their responsibility to police it themselves, just as it's not Best Buy's responsibility to make sure I don't violate someone's copyright with the blank tapes I buy from them.
On whether intellectual property is property, do you believe patents and copyrights should expire? If so then either
(Just to throw your absolutism back at you.)
From the US Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Phrase by phrase:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts
This makes explicit the purpose. It is not to defend property or the rights of the inventor, it is to create a utilitarian good. The faster progress of science and the arts creates more good than is lost by the restriction of the right to distribute it.
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries(emphasis mine)
If IP is truly property, why is it only yours for a limited time? If I make a car, it's mine until it falls apart or I choose to sell it. We're back to the choice above; either the Founding Fathers(TM) were flaming commies who believed in taking, or they did not intend for patents and copyrights to truly be property.
Furthermore, if you look at other writings of several of the framers, you'll see that they believed that knowledge and art in fact belong to humanity collectively. (Sorry, couldn't dig up online references.) It is the reward of the inventor/artist to control the use of their discovery/creation for a period of time, so that there's some incentive to do it. But because it truly belongs to everyone, that control is limited. This is also one of the justifications for fair use.
Finally, I'm getting pretty sick of the histrionics of people who claim copyright infringement is theft. It isn't. When I steal something from you, you lose it. You are directly harmed by it, which is why theft is traditionally a criminal offense. If I infringe your copyright, you suffer no loss. You simply don't gain anything of mine. You are not directly harmed by it, which is why copyright infringement is traditionally a civil matter. (Though obscenities like the DMCA and UCITA are trying to change that.) Lack of gain != loss. Or have I stolen from Ford by buying a Chevy? By stealing a Chevy? In either of those cases, I'm depriving Ford of potential revenue, just as I'm depriving the holder of a copyright of potential revenue by infinging. So DON'T give me that theft/piracy bullshit. That's just an appeal to the emotions of the feebleminded, and you know it just as well as I do.
--
"Mental anguish" had nothing to do with it. The largest part of the judgement was *punitive* damages awarded by the jury. As in, McDonalds showed no desire whatsoever to change their ways despite a number of other cases in which people had been injured, so the jury decided to give them a whack with the clue-by-four. And as McDonalds coffee is now served something like 20-30 degrees cooler and hopefully a spill will no longer cause the need for skin grafts, I'd say it worked. Also remember the judgement was reduced by the judge. This is a case where the system worked just fine.
--
>You don't seem to understand the concept that
/. that I'm doing it and why.
>the drivers are *Nvidia's* property, not yours.
>They can do as they damn well please with their
>software
You don't seem to understand that my money is *my* property, not Nvidia's OR yours. I can do as I damn well please with my money, including NOT spending it on a company whose product and/or conduct doesn't meet my standards. And because I'm a "sue-happy" American, I can tell Nvidia, you, and everyone else who reads
>Just because you're a sue-happy american doesn't
>mean you can just bring any company into court
>that does something you don't approve of.
Nvidia REPEATEDLY claimed that they would be releasing open-source drivers for their cards. Many people bought cards from Nvidia because of this claim. Nvidia is now reneging on this claim. This may, therefore, count as a false-advertising issue. False advertising is against the law in the "sue-happy" US. Just because Nvidia's a big company doesn't mean they can do whatever the fuck they want without facing the consequences, whether those consequences are legal or simply the loss of customers to Nvidia's slightly more clued-in competitors.
I'd also remind you that Nvidia has a history of false advertising: "The Riva128 is faster than the Voodoo2!""The Riva TNT will be faster than Voodoo2 SLI!"
--
>They killed one, and by mistake since the boat
>was supposed to be empty.
This makes it perfectly OK for the military to attack a civilian target?
>Of course the French could have sunken it when it
>was crusing into the French military restricted
>area, which would have been their legitimate
>right, but prefered to do it when the boat was
>empty.
And had they done so, it would have been their right. (But it still would have, and should have, caused a major international incident.) HOWEVER, they chose to commit an act of terrorism on the soil of a foreign nation.
>And for the dead guy, well, that's too bad, but
>death is a risk one must accept when violating a
>military area (especially when you do so with a
>bunch of recording equipement).
Except for the minor detail that he wasn't violating a military area when he died.
--
>It's taken for granted thet you can't go buy a
>book, Xerox it's contents and hand it out on the
>street corner, why should music be different?
Ah, but that's not what we're talking about here. That would be ripping your CDs to MP3, then taking the additional step of allowing anonymous ftp access to them. It's that additional step that's prohibited under copyright law; I can, in fact, xerox the contents of that book. I just can't distribute the copies.
No one here is arguing with the fact that that DISTRIBUTING copies is illegal, the argument is that MAKING copies is legal.
--
Right.
Now could you please explain a method of tracking crime that does NOT also give the ability to track speech? If law enforcement authorities get the ability to track speech, they *will* abuse it to keep tabs on dissidents, until they can trump up enough "evidence" to nail them. Or until they can just get them killed. (Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Darryl Cherney, Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney, etc...)
--
Ain't no bigotry in it. The point was that there are states like Misery or Mississippi where laws like that would be guaranteed to pass, *if it were up to the majority of the residents of those states.* It isn't anti-Christian bigotry to point out the Christain bigotry that exists in many places in the US. No matter how much some people want to hide their heads in the sand about it.
The point is that the majority ain't always right; that even if a million people believe in a stupid thing, it's still stupid; that tyranny of the majority is still tyranny and is no better than any other tyranny.
--
>This is NOT a constitutional or first amendment
>issue. They're not trying to filter everyone's
>connections. Whether or not you like it, they do
>have the right to attach conditions to the money
>that the state gives to libraries.
That's right, but it doesn't mean they can attach any condition they want. States are still bound by the US Constitution, and this is a First Amendment violation. For example, they couldn't deny funding to any library that didn't have a Mormon chapel built into it.
>This bill could just as easily cut funding to
>any library that has more than say, 10 copies of
>Mein Kampf
Nope, couldn't do that either. That little freedom of speech thing, ya know. Now they could deny funding to any library that had more than 10 copies of ANY work, but they wouldn't be allowed to single out one work that way.
--
>I don't know where people get the idea that if
>something costs more than they want to pay, its
>OK to steal it. Downloading copyrighted CD's is
>generally stealing.
And I don't know where people get the idea that copyright infringement is theft. First off, in terms of relative unethicalitiy, if I steal something from you, you no longer have it. I have deprived you of something you previously owned. If I infringe on your copyright, I haven't taken anything from you. You still have ownership of the material; you have suffered no real loss. I just haven't given you anything of mine. Not recieving potential earnings != loss. Or did I steal from Chevrolet by buying a Ford? Would I be stealing from Chevrolet by stealing a Ford? Either way, Chevrolet is losing potential earnings. This is why copyright infringement is not currently a criminal offence.
Second, the legal aspect. Legally, theft IS a criminal offence, while historically copyright infringement has been a civil offence. (UCITA and the DMCA, among other recent laws, are trying to change that, though.) Again, they're two different things.
Note that I didn't say copyright infringement was right in any way right, I'm just getting really sick of that "piracy," "stealing," etc. histrionics that the RIAA, the MPAA, the SPA, etc. like to engage in. It's copyright infringement, not a high crime here.
--
> From the GNU site: The licenses for most
>software are designed to take away your freedom
>to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU
>General Public License is intended to guarantee
>your freedom to share and change free software--
>to make sure the software is free for all its
>users.
>This seems to imply that the GPL is about bug
>fixes and adding features.
Just out of curiosity, where do you get that? All it talks about there is preserving your freedom, it doesn't restrict that freedom to a given use.
>This also implies that the GPL is meant to be
>applied to people who are actually given the
>software or receive it in some way. I am not
>certain that Slade's program is being
>distributed to it's users and thus qualifies to
>have its source viewed on request.
Uh... If I get it from him with his knowledge and consent, then he's distributed it. At that point, he is required to give me the source if I ask for it. If he does not, he has not agreed to the GPL, and therefore has no right to distribute other than those given by copyright law (i.e., none whatsoever). Therefore, he's violating copyright law, and Carmack has the right to sue him to stop distribution, and possibly for damages.
>Finally as for the original spirit of the GPL I
>have always likened it to automobiles and
>Microsoft's Windows. Now if I buy a car and
>something goes wrong with it (broken tail light,
>leaky radiator, whatever) nothing stops me from
>viewing the manufacturer's specs for my car,
>going over to Pep Boys to buy parts and tools,
>and fixing my car. Now on the other hand if
>Windows crashes and I have a Ph.D from M.I.T. in
>Operating Systems and got a 4.0 all through my
>college career I can't do shit but reboot and
>pray it doesn't happen again. This is wrong. It
>is wrongs like this that the GPL was created to
>right and NOT to satisfy some unalienable right
>to read everybody else's code.
If it is wrong that I can't fix my software, then I have a moral, if not a legal, right to fix my software. In order to exercise this right, I need access to the source code. Therefore I do, in fact, have an moral, if not legal, unalienable right to the source code, and this unalienable right is exactly what the GPL was intended to enforce. (Note--I don't actually believe that. I believe that a company may not prevent me from reverse-engineering or modifying their product, but they're under no ethical obligation to make it easier. They are, however, required to not go out of their way to make it difficult. And if someone licenses their code under the GPL, licensees are, in fact, required to give me access to source with the binaries. That is, after all, the point of the GPL.)
>PS: GPL is NOT like the public domain because
>you have no right to ask for code or do anything
>you like with it if the binaries were not
>distributed to you.
Actually, under public domain, I don't have the right to ask for jack shit that wasn't already given to me. In that area, I have *more* rights under the GPL. All PD means is the creator gives up his monopoly, and I can do anything I want with his creation.
--
Okay, we've just hit the Nazi threshhold. What was that old Usenet rule? Any thread that goes on long enough will eventually mention Nazis? Anyone remember the name and exact phrasing of that rule?
:)
That would be Godwin's law. If you actually take the time to read the post, you'll see he called ArchieBunker a neo-Nazi, not a Nazi. Which is a defensible position, based on the guy's previous posts, and based on the fact that he lists his homepage as stormfront.org. (Sorry about the link if it's bad; I'm at work and the page is restricted for hate speech.) Then there's his quote, which is beloved by white supremacists of the militia persuasion everywhere, despite the minor detail that George Washington never said it.
--
Are you intentionally this dense?
Ahh however if you remember that there are certain laws that take such behavior as criminal on many levels. Eventually they will end up in a court room.
The individual who obtained the information was breaking the law. If they steal the data they can be prosecuted. I doubt that many psychiatrists actually use encryption anyway.
This seems to be a prevailing view you hold. My question to you is, why should I not be able to prevent them from getting at my data in the first place? Even if I do prosecute or sue, the damage has already been done.
According to your line of thought, we should all leave our doors unlocked, and just prosecute anyone who steals something. Why should I go through the time and legal hassle of a court trial, and end up not getting my stuff back (which I won't), when I can simply lock my damn door? Similarly, why shouldn't I simply encrypt my message?
Furthermore, we're talking about making a dent in the right of the Britsh people to privately communicate. Aside from the obvious domino effect issue, there MUST be a clear, present, obvious, and overwhelmingly important reason in order to reduce ANYONE's rights. The question here is not why do we need crypto, the question is why should it be taken away. So far, they still haven't come up with a good reason for that.
--
Actually, that's a policy change in response to the lawsuit. At the time, official McD's corporate policy required that coffed be kept at around 180 degrees.
--
Jeez, you think maybe it's because the corporate owners of the media in the US don't want it heard (given that the people who own the media and who decide what you see are conservative as hell)? Right now, it's in their best interests to make both parties look bad, but to make the Dems look a little bit worse.
Face it, the liberal media is a myth. You can't have a liberal corporate media, and the media in the US is most definately corporate.
--
Ummm... I hate to break it to you, man, but Reefer Madness was discredited a couple decades ago. Under the influence of pot, you're most likely to sit on the couch with 20 bucks worth of Taco Bell and laugh at Sesame Street.
At least in the US, people under the influence of alcohol make public nuisances of themselves, beat their spouses, start fights, become involved in sexual assualts... People under the unfluence of pot become involved in extensive navel-gazing and find American TV entertaining. Everything else you've heard is boolsheet.
--
If the article read "College Students Spend Your Money on Porn," you'd be pisssed.
Not nearly as pissed as I am by your insistence that my tax dollars should be spent on censorware. That particular argument works both ways, kiddo. Oh, and don't you think it's a *little* offensive to insist that students spend a big chunk of change censoring themselves?
What are these MAJOR issues you're talking about? Since when do students have any right to high speed internet access in thier private residence? I'm a student and I have to dial. There is no issue because no rights are being taken away, whatever access thay are given is a benefit NOT A RIGHT.
The word you're looking for is privilege. And you're right, it is--one that they pay for. Given that they pay for it, it is their decision as to how it's used.
As for the first amendment issues:
1. The provision prohibiting visits in dorm rooms is a clear violation of the right to peacably assemble.
2. The other provsions are violation of the right to free speech and the press, as they prevent students from expressing their opinions over channels made publicly available for that purpose. (By making the channels themselves unavailable. If you believe that filtering software only gets rid of porn, I've got some seafront property in Kansas you might be interested in.) These provisions are roughly the same as prohibiting the (publicly funded) post office from carrying porn, or from delivering/picking up materials which are not study-related. And you KNOW how constitutional either of those would be.
--
Once again, TAXPAYERS AREN'T! For the average public university, gov't funding accounts for only a VERY small share of the university budget. The vast majority of University funding comes from tuition, alumni funding, sports revenue, and corporate grants. So tax money pays for *maybe* 5% of the cost of that pr0n download, and you're one of about 250M people sharing that 5%, many of whom don't agree with you on this. In comparison, the student is probably paying for 50-75%. So what the HELL gives you the right to tell them what they can and can't do with their line?
And this is in addition to the MAJOR 1st amendment issues regarding all three laws.
--