The Chinese have no concept of copyright and patent restrictions like Americans do. This was probably a token sacrifice to appease the whiny US companies who just want to sit on their butts and collect royalties from the billions of masses. I don't know what their concept of plagiarism is, but ironically enforcing copyrights and patents encourages plagiarism - because you just can't be honest about and say "yeah, I did copy it".
Truthfully, I'm glad they don't respect copyrights and patents. It's one of the few freedoms that actually keep China from flying off the deep end. I could't even imagine RIAA types backed by authoritarian Chinese power.
The whole theory of copyright is to provide an "incentive" to bring beneficial creations out into the open. Considering that it has been proven that MS violated this purpose, an appropiate punishment wouldn't require Microsoft to do anything - it would simply assert that Microsoft copyrights could no longer be enforced.
But as it is, the punishment that Microsoft gets is nothing compaired to the punishment we get as Microsoft still has the nearly unlimited right and leverage to squeese and sue us using copyright controlls - minus one or two exceptions. This "punishment" did not eliminate their ability to abuse, it enshrined it. However it is probably for the better, because the problem isn't Microsoft. They are just a symptom of the kinds of problems copyrights cause as they are brought to their logical conclusion. Get rid of copyrights and the other problems will solve themselves.
Yahoo can go to hell for all I care. The only good thing about yahoo is that there are alternatives to yahoo that don't have a record of imprisioning people yet. I have never been one for boycotts, but this is a classic exception. We should boycott because this is way beyond contracting to sweat shops, and there are so many easy and good alternatives. I wonder if yahoo would be so causal about it if people defended the victims by firebonbing yahoo headquarters. Maybe there's a legal difference, but I doubt anyone except yahoo would see a moral difference.
It may be easy for you to say quit and depending on where you live there may be a plethora of jobs available...
The rural setting, the opinions of a spouse, the job market, the competence and pay of the manager - they are irrelavent. Those may be compelling reasons to take action in some other way, but they don't change the fact that nobody owes us a living, a standard of life, a career. Understanding that will cause one to strugle thru the very kind of solutions that turn them into leaders.
Wha? I agree that individual rights are important, but where does this shit about 'countries have no rights' come from?
What RU talking about. The whole reason why people organize into governments in the first place is to secure rights that they already have.
Let me guess, an American who wonders why foreigners want their little countries protected from being trampled by the global capitalist Jihad, and thinks the "American Way" is all about individualism and "Fuck t3h n4nny state!!" Well, maybe you should realize that the documents you seem to worship as protecting your "inalianable rights" were written in order to create a new government, separate from the British one. While the government supposedly exists to serve the people, the concept of "America" as a nation (and the state identities, in 1776) undoubtedly exists independently. Violations of American soverignty are considered rather serious, and are not looked upon kindly in the states.
Did anyone here say that the US government is goody twoshoes? All things being the same, when push comes to shove, it is much rather be dealing with a government who can be voted out if they go overboard, and who'se laws say things like "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed", "the freedom of speech shall not be adbridged", "certain inaliable rights". Anyone who finds the US governments trashing these laws offensive, should be completely freaking out over the Chinese government. Hey, there is no equivalency relationship!
While I applaud people for helping to spread information to people in China, you should not pretend that you are not violating the soverignty of a nation in the process. This could actually become a legal problem if the U.S. government ever decides to go after 'eeevil hackers' that do such things, for then you might get extradicted to China. Which would not be very pleasant.
That sounds like a very compelling note that when people in China aren't free, then it is a threat to people everywhere who are free.
I for one, would not like to be Ms Hu Yingying when the revolution comes...
In all fairness, she will probably be killed or tortured by the corrupt government she is faithfull to long before she is killed by revolution. Tyrinannical governments have a tendency of doing this. When Stalin took power, the first thing he did was kill all his frends and allies to consolitate his rule. When the Chineese "land reform" led to the disasterous death of millions, the first thing they did was round up and arrest and torture all the teachers who were teaching the goodness of communisim and the goodness of the Chineese leadership. Ironically, the farmers who nearly revolted and forced a return of the private property system were not punished at all, but rewarded.
That is why US people, US companies, and the US government should be very weary about cooperating on any issue that involves taking away freedom from the Chineese people. The goose that has laid the golden egg in China is not the Chineese government, but the Chineese people inspite of the government. When we cooperate with the Chineese authorities, we cut off our nose inspite of our face.
In colonial India they had a tradition where when a man died, they threw his wife into a fire. Upon hearing this the British general said "well, we in Britian have a tradition too, we hang people who thow women in to fires, so you go a head with building your fire and we'll go ahead with building gallows next to your fire and after you carry out your tradition we'll carry out ours."
The point is that countries don't have rights, traditions and cultures don't have rights either, but individuals do. While everyone talks about respect for Chineese culture and Chineese traditions, they often seem to ignore how these same Chineese nationals adjust to the freedom in neighboring HK in a matter of days. It is not Chineese culture that is unable to adjust, it is China's communist government. I is not US expectations that are being judgemental and rash, it is the Chineese government. It is not only OK to help Chineese people find freedom and liberty, it is our duty as indivduals irrespective of US policy.
SSH has a SOCKS proxy built in, is on a large number of boxes by default, and everybody has to leave the port open anyhow because the only other option would be to use unencrypted access protocols and administration which would leave computer networks vulnerable.
Perhaps having public ssh accounts on secure VM's with a method of decentralized authentication or standardized access rules would work better. In theory they could even use full fledged x-windows apps over the internet leaving no trace of their activities on the local machines.
This is not one world where all people believe the same things. One nation should be allowed to keep its culture, even if another nation disagrees.
Nations and cultures do not have rights, indnviduals have rights, but the statement above is implying just the opposite. It also implies that individual rights are just some kind of culturial thing, and not inherent. What about HK? their culture strongly respects rights. But China does not want to respect those at all. Funny how Chineese citizens who go to HK seem to adjust in a matter of days.
Hey, "if not us, then who? if not now, then when?" This has nothing to do with US policy, it has to do with us and if we are willing to help people looking for freedom.
In all fairness, pharmacutical patents and medical regulations create a deep bias in the industry that make it so that the medical systems best interests are not aligned with our best interests. Just because a person doesn't trust the pharmacutical/medical system doesn't mean that they distrust scientific method or rational thought. The pharmacutical industry has earned this reputation, every year there is a new big mega lawsuit over some miracle drug whose side effects were covered up. Every year there is a new push to outlaw or regulate vitimans and natural herbs.
In many countries, they try to share medical info with the community. In the US they try to hide it and the only response you will ever get to a symptiom is - "go see a doctor". In many countries you can just walk into a store and pick up an antibiotic, here you need to go thru half a dozen specialists and a pharmacist.
Another option: violence
on
Public Patents?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I hate to say this, but there is another option that should be mentioned: violence, or the threat of it. As bad as this sounds, some people imposing patents have acutally done worse.
Sometimes a few credible threats can do a lot more to hold back the patent dogs than years of litigation and petitioning.
Considering that some patents have held back medical innovation and have led to deaths, or safety devices that have also led to death. Or considering how pharmacuticals sued African nations to keep them from making generics and that led to countless AIDS deaths. Or the countless other small innovative companies that were sued out of esxistence, and all the families and related people who suffered greatly from that. It is not an out of the question option.
I think the problem is that we clearly have a system that is unworkable in the information age and instead of dealing with it, people sue, people complain, they cry "wahhh, how will I make money with my book", or "wahhh, how will I make money with my movie", or "think of the starving artists", or they want to "fix" it in some way - without accepting that by now copyrights are an all or nothing game.
In fact copyeight compromizes are the worst thing we could to. It's like the US conolists compromising with the Brits, it's like the slave states compromising with the free states. People who thought it was workable simply were in denial of the real world and real world forces that were in play.
I think it's often overlooked that open source is actually a free market force. The forces that are pushing open source, is not that it's free, but that as society enters the information age the service value of information becomes worth more than the content value. That's why it's biggest influences have been, and will continue to be in free market countries like the USA. It is actually sort if ironic that the countrys that are most able to afford proprietary software are actually the ones that are going to be under the most pressure to move to and use free software.
Funny thing is, I can take measures to protect my daughter from sex perverts, but how do I protect her from a government that is slowly turning into an orwellian police state?
Cooperating with who? Yahoo was not cooperating with the chineese people when they turned over a dissidnet to be thrown in jail. There is a big difference between cooperating with an oppressive government vs a people who are oppressed.
Those are compelling arguments for changing some things at home, not for sticking our head in the sand about China's police state. That 200 bln trade deficit is the punishment we get for using paper money instead of real money (eg gold), and that business shift to china is the punishment we get for having a welfare state. If we didn't have one, we would have no resistance to bringing in cheap labor so they could build the factories here, but today we can't do that because if we did they would all come here and sign up for freebies coerced at everyone elses expense and kill us.
I have no doubt that the US economy is getting ready to fall off a hyperinflationary debt cliff, but when it does it will probably kill they paper money system and kill the welfare state leaving us in a reasonably good competitive position to use real money and open the immigration flood gates.
Copyright has its right to exist. When someone creates something, he puts time and money behind it, develops it and he should have a chance to earn money that way.
What? Copyrights don't have rights, individuals have rights. Anyhow, if someone wants to make money from a creation, try giving a concert - not monopolizing the distribution channel and microregulating how every individual on the planet copys information at their disposal. If you want balance, then let content flow freely and charge for content related services. Content doesn't have a natural limit in supply vs demand, content related services do.
By saying that China is "communist", what I am saying is that their political system is being held accountable to forces that are NOT in the interest of peoples liberty, or that temper abuses of government. The US had slaves on the plantation too, but accountability to fundamental political forces changed that as society moved on. Where are those forces in China? Answer, there are none other than from us and from resistance in China that we should not be helping the Chineese governemnt quell.
I don't know how you "know" that. I strongly suspect it ain't true. It's true without a shadow of a doubt that chinese, particularily those living in the more modern cities have *enormously* much better access to western news and communications today than they did 10 years ago. You're free to consider this real improvement irrelevant and go back to shouting "Communists!" offcourse.
Many of these changes were forced as people in China stood up to the Chineese government, now American businesses come in and don't want to stand up to the Chineese government. We had better, or the goose that has laid the golden egg will get killed.
.... I generally talk politely to Americans, try to *reasonably* explain what problems I see in their foreign policy. I do this because I consider it more likely to achieve my wanted result than acting like a crazed nutjob and trying to insult as many people as I can. What would be practical *benefits* for say Bush to spend his next meeting with someone chinese saying as many bad words as he can think of ? What would that acomplish ? Would it make the human-rigths situation in China improve ?
Ok fine, they don't need to say the Chineese government is a "piece of shit",... as if I literally ment they should say that anyhow. But as long as people refuse to insist that the problem IS the Chineese governemnt and act accordingly then they are helping noone.
What's your solution by the way ? Invade tomorrow ?
The solution for now is simply to not appease the Chineese government.
Don't you think you should be worrying about the lies from your own government before critising others?
Why is it that just because my own government is trying to act criminal should it mean that I need to stick a bag over my head and pretend that other governments aren't being criminal even moreso?
This all leads to the simple conclusion, that communism (as much as capitalism or all other -isms) are just minor technicalities only mostly happy people with nothing better to do can worry about.
Philosophies like "statisim" and "libertarinisim" are not just some nice little philosophies that sit on the clouds. They involve belief systems, and these belief systems lead to chioces, and these choices have conesquences. If people don't care, it is only to the extent that they don't realise the consequences of their choices. Do the leaders at google, yahoo, and cisco really understand the consequences of their choices other then beyond the next quarterly report? It sure seems like they don't care, which means that we as customers must - or else.
like you haven't give a lot of your rights away recently.
The truth is that I do not trust any government to respect my liberties, but all else being equal... I would much rather have a government whose foundation is built on laws like the right to bear arms, and the freedom of speech, than have one whose foundation is built on the right to take from people and controll them in the name of some nice sounding excuse like "stability" or freebies coerced at everyone elses loss.
Slashdot Mirror
The Chinese have no concept of copyright and patent restrictions like Americans do. This was probably a token sacrifice to appease the whiny US companies who just want to sit on their butts and collect royalties from the billions of masses. I don't know what their concept of plagiarism is, but ironically enforcing copyrights and patents encourages plagiarism - because you just can't be honest about and say "yeah, I did copy it".
Truthfully, I'm glad they don't respect copyrights and patents. It's one of the few freedoms that actually keep China from flying off the deep end. I could't even imagine RIAA types backed by authoritarian Chinese power.
The whole theory of copyright is to provide an "incentive" to bring beneficial creations out into the open. Considering that it has been proven that MS violated this purpose, an appropiate punishment wouldn't require Microsoft to do anything - it would simply assert that Microsoft copyrights could no longer be enforced.
But as it is, the punishment that Microsoft gets is nothing compaired to the punishment we get as Microsoft still has the nearly unlimited right and leverage to squeese and sue us using copyright controlls - minus one or two exceptions. This "punishment" did not eliminate their ability to abuse, it enshrined it. However it is probably for the better, because the problem isn't Microsoft. They are just a symptom of the kinds of problems copyrights cause as they are brought to their logical conclusion. Get rid of copyrights and the other problems will solve themselves.
Yahoo can go to hell for all I care. The only good thing about yahoo is that there are alternatives to yahoo that don't have a record of imprisioning people yet. I have never been one for boycotts, but this is a classic exception. We should boycott because this is way beyond contracting to sweat shops, and there are so many easy and good alternatives. I wonder if yahoo would be so causal about it if people defended the victims by firebonbing yahoo headquarters. Maybe there's a legal difference, but I doubt anyone except yahoo would see a moral difference.
It may be easy for you to say quit and depending on where you live there may be a plethora of jobs available...
The rural setting, the opinions of a spouse, the job market, the competence and pay of the manager - they are irrelavent. Those may be compelling reasons to take action in some other way, but they don't change the fact that nobody owes us a living, a standard of life, a career. Understanding that will cause one to strugle thru the very kind of solutions that turn them into leaders.
Wha? I agree that individual rights are important, but where does this shit about 'countries have no rights' come from?
What RU talking about. The whole reason why people organize into governments in the first place is to secure rights that they already have.
Let me guess, an American who wonders why foreigners want their little countries protected from being trampled by the global capitalist Jihad, and thinks the "American Way" is all about individualism and "Fuck t3h n4nny state!!" Well, maybe you should realize that the documents you seem to worship as protecting your "inalianable rights" were written in order to create a new government, separate from the British one. While the government supposedly exists to serve the people, the concept of "America" as a nation (and the state identities, in 1776) undoubtedly exists independently. Violations of American soverignty are considered rather serious, and are not looked upon kindly in the states.
Did anyone here say that the US government is goody twoshoes? All things being the same, when push comes to shove, it is much rather be dealing with a government who can be voted out if they go overboard, and who'se laws say things like "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed", "the freedom of speech shall not be adbridged", "certain inaliable rights". Anyone who finds the US governments trashing these laws offensive, should be completely freaking out over the Chinese government. Hey, there is no equivalency relationship!
While I applaud people for helping to spread information to people in China, you should not pretend that you are not violating the soverignty of a nation in the process. This could actually become a legal problem if the U.S. government ever decides to go after 'eeevil hackers' that do such things, for then you might get extradicted to China. Which would not be very pleasant.
That sounds like a very compelling note that when people in China aren't free, then it is a threat to people everywhere who are free.
I for one, would not like to be Ms Hu Yingying when the revolution comes...
In all fairness, she will probably be killed or tortured by the corrupt government she is faithfull to long before she is killed by revolution. Tyrinannical governments have a tendency of doing this. When Stalin took power, the first thing he did was kill all his frends and allies to consolitate his rule. When the Chineese "land reform" led to the disasterous death of millions, the first thing they did was round up and arrest and torture all the teachers who were teaching the goodness of communisim and the goodness of the Chineese leadership. Ironically, the farmers who nearly revolted and forced a return of the private property system were not punished at all, but rewarded.
That is why US people, US companies, and the US government should be very weary about cooperating on any issue that involves taking away freedom from the Chineese people. The goose that has laid the golden egg in China is not the Chineese government, but the Chineese people inspite of the government. When we cooperate with the Chineese authorities, we cut off our nose inspite of our face.
In colonial India they had a tradition where when a man died, they threw his wife into a fire. Upon hearing this the British general said "well, we in Britian have a tradition too, we hang people who thow women in to fires, so you go a head with building your fire and we'll go ahead with building gallows next to your fire and after you carry out your tradition we'll carry out ours."
The point is that countries don't have rights, traditions and cultures don't have rights either, but individuals do. While everyone talks about respect for Chineese culture and Chineese traditions, they often seem to ignore how these same Chineese nationals adjust to the freedom in neighboring HK in a matter of days. It is not Chineese culture that is unable to adjust, it is China's communist government. I is not US expectations that are being judgemental and rash, it is the Chineese government. It is not only OK to help Chineese people find freedom and liberty, it is our duty as indivduals irrespective of US policy.
SSH has a SOCKS proxy built in, is on a large number of boxes by default, and everybody has to leave the port open anyhow because the only other option would be to use unencrypted access protocols and administration which would leave computer networks vulnerable.
Perhaps having public ssh accounts on secure VM's with a method of decentralized authentication or standardized access rules would work better. In theory they could even use full fledged x-windows apps over the internet leaving no trace of their activities on the local machines.
This is not one world where all people believe the same things. One nation should be allowed to keep its culture, even if another nation disagrees.
Nations and cultures do not have rights, indnviduals have rights, but the statement above is implying just the opposite. It also implies that individual rights are just some kind of culturial thing, and not inherent. What about HK? their culture strongly respects rights. But China does not want to respect those at all. Funny how Chineese citizens who go to HK seem to adjust in a matter of days.
Hey, "if not us, then who? if not now, then when?" This has nothing to do with US policy, it has to do with us and if we are willing to help people looking for freedom.
In all fairness, pharmacutical patents and medical regulations create a deep bias in the industry that make it so that the medical systems best interests are not aligned with our best interests. Just because a person doesn't trust the pharmacutical/medical system doesn't mean that they distrust scientific method or rational thought. The pharmacutical industry has earned this reputation, every year there is a new big mega lawsuit over some miracle drug whose side effects were covered up. Every year there is a new push to outlaw or regulate vitimans and natural herbs.
In many countries, they try to share medical info with the community. In the US they try to hide it and the only response you will ever get to a symptiom is - "go see a doctor". In many countries you can just walk into a store and pick up an antibiotic, here you need to go thru half a dozen specialists and a pharmacist.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/322/72 84/447
I hate to say this, but there is another option that should be mentioned: violence, or the threat of it. As bad as this sounds, some people imposing patents have acutally done worse.
Sometimes a few credible threats can do a lot more to hold back the patent dogs than years of litigation and petitioning.
Considering that some patents have held back medical innovation and have led to deaths, or safety devices that have also led to death. Or considering how pharmacuticals sued African nations to keep them from making generics and that led to countless AIDS deaths. Or the countless other small innovative companies that were sued out of esxistence, and all the families and related people who suffered greatly from that. It is not an out of the question option.
essay: A Violent Protest Against Patents
I think the problem is that we clearly have a system that is unworkable in the information age and instead of dealing with it, people sue, people complain, they cry "wahhh, how will I make money with my book", or "wahhh, how will I make money with my movie", or "think of the starving artists", or they want to "fix" it in some way - without accepting that by now copyrights are an all or nothing game.
In fact copyeight compromizes are the worst thing we could to. It's like the US conolists compromising with the Brits, it's like the slave states compromising with the free states. People who thought it was workable simply were in denial of the real world and real world forces that were in play.
I think it's often overlooked that open source is actually a free market force. The forces that are pushing open source, is not that it's free, but that as society enters the information age the service value of information becomes worth more than the content value. That's why it's biggest influences have been, and will continue to be in free market countries like the USA. It is actually sort if ironic that the countrys that are most able to afford proprietary software are actually the ones that are going to be under the most pressure to move to and use free software.
Funny thing is, I can take measures to protect my daughter from sex perverts, but how do I protect her from a government that is slowly turning into an orwellian police state?
Cooperating with who? Yahoo was not cooperating with the chineese people when they turned over a dissidnet to be thrown in jail. There is a big difference between cooperating with an oppressive government vs a people who are oppressed.
Those are compelling arguments for changing some things at home, not for sticking our head in the sand about China's police state. That 200 bln trade deficit is the punishment we get for using paper money instead of real money (eg gold), and that business shift to china is the punishment we get for having a welfare state. If we didn't have one, we would have no resistance to bringing in cheap labor so they could build the factories here, but today we can't do that because if we did they would all come here and sign up for freebies coerced at everyone elses expense and kill us.
I have no doubt that the US economy is getting ready to fall off a hyperinflationary debt cliff, but when it does it will probably kill they paper money system and kill the welfare state leaving us in a reasonably good competitive position to use real money and open the immigration flood gates.
That's no good. This puts a very hard cap on what even the top, most "succesful" content creators can earn.
The income that an individual may or may not earn is not a good way to judge the value of a belief system
Yeah, Linus, Alen Cox, are really sitting on their laurels.
I'll take my IP, thank you very much.
You're welcome, you can have your copy any time.
Without copyrights, what would keep MS from taking Linux and running with it?
Well that's the point though. The problem isn't that Microsoft can copy Linux, they already can, the problem is that we can't copy Microsoft.
Copyright has its right to exist. When someone creates something, he puts time and money behind it, develops it and he should have a chance to earn money that way.
What? Copyrights don't have rights, individuals have rights. Anyhow, if someone wants to make money from a creation, try giving a concert - not monopolizing the distribution channel and microregulating how every individual on the planet copys information at their disposal. If you want balance, then let content flow freely and charge for content related services. Content doesn't have a natural limit in supply vs demand, content related services do.
But it is. It's just a label, ...
By saying that China is "communist", what I am saying is that their political system is being held accountable to forces that are NOT in the interest of peoples liberty, or that temper abuses of government. The US had slaves on the plantation too, but accountability to fundamental political forces changed that as society moved on. Where are those forces in China? Answer, there are none other than from us and from resistance in China that we should not be helping the Chineese governemnt quell.
I don't know how you "know" that. I strongly suspect it ain't true. It's true without a shadow of a doubt that chinese, particularily those living in the more modern cities have *enormously* much better access to western news and communications today than they did 10 years ago. You're free to consider this real improvement irrelevant and go back to shouting "Communists!" offcourse.
Many of these changes were forced as people in China stood up to the Chineese government, now American businesses come in and don't want to stand up to the Chineese government. We had better, or the goose that has laid the golden egg will get killed.
Ok fine, they don't need to say the Chineese government is a "piece of shit", ... as if I literally ment they should say that anyhow. But as long as people refuse to insist that the problem IS the Chineese governemnt and act accordingly then they are helping noone.
What's your solution by the way ? Invade tomorrow ?
The solution for now is simply to not appease the Chineese government.
http://davidlita.googlepages.com/copyrights
Don't you think you should be worrying about the lies from your own government before critising others?
Why is it that just because my own government is trying to act criminal should it mean that I need to stick a bag over my head and pretend that other governments aren't being criminal even moreso?
This all leads to the simple conclusion, that communism (as much as capitalism or all other -isms) are just minor technicalities only mostly happy people with nothing better to do can worry about.
Philosophies like "statisim" and "libertarinisim" are not just some nice little philosophies that sit on the clouds. They involve belief systems, and these belief systems lead to chioces, and these choices have conesquences. If people don't care, it is only to the extent that they don't realise the consequences of their choices. Do the leaders at google, yahoo, and cisco really understand the consequences of their choices other then beyond the next quarterly report? It sure seems like they don't care, which means that we as customers must - or else.
like you haven't give a lot of your rights away recently.
The truth is that I do not trust any government to respect my liberties, but all else being equal ... I would much rather have a government whose foundation is built on laws like the right to bear arms, and the freedom of speech, than have one whose foundation is built on the right to take from people and controll them in the name of some nice sounding excuse like "stability" or freebies coerced at everyone elses loss.