In all fairness, we have the power to kill the DMCA right now without any help from the congress. The real prop that's holding up the DMCA is societies own belief in the copyright system, kill that and the DMCA will follow.
Don't atack the DMCA, attack the root
on
DMCA Abuse Widespread
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Attacking the DMCA is like attacking the leaves of a vine, and not the root of it. No matter how hard you pluck off those leaves, they will always grow back in some other form untill you attack the root.
The root of the problem here is societies own belief in copyrights. The DMCA is simply taking it to it's logical conclusion, along with the continuious extensions, and all the other abuses associated with copyright. People need to stop looking at copyrights as ever being a benefit, but rather as a burdon that was bearable 25 years ago when the biggest issue was copy machines and copyrights only lasted a few years. Not anymore. The burden copyrights require is too much to bear in the information age. Contrary to the hype, copyrights don't help many artists, and are anti free market. They are moral sewage that has robbed our culture and given it to hollywood, and they make it so that software companies who would otherwise strive to serve us - strive to controll us. The copyright system needs to die and take it's place on the trash heap of history.
Perhaps it's because I'm an ardent capitalist that I find the current situation of economic incentives appealing...
If the government granted personal monopolies on the supply of food for the sake of incentive, and then called shares of that monopoly a "property right" - any true capitalist could easially see:
1)That it isn't really a property 2)That it destroyes more opportunities than it creates 3)That is is harmfull to free markets and society
Well the same is true with patnet monopolies. While it is true that just respect of property rights leads to powerfull incentive. Coercion of incentive, does not necissairly lead to just rights or free markets, and in the big picture - that hurts researchers.
This isn't a troll... I'm genuinely wondering if anyone has a better way?
This isn't a troll etiher. Get rid of patents and copyrights and run for cover because society will experience the biggest freemarket explosion in innovation, invention, and artistic creation since the renissance. (which also happened without patnets and copyrights)
In fact, the internet is the biggest anti copyright tool ever created and it is easy to see the wealth and opportunities that it has brought to society. You can't tell me that this has hurt more researchers than it has helped.
These "peers" you speak of work for large corperations devoted to MAKING MONEY....But hey I'm sure they value their jobs money and freedom more than the lives of countless millions.....
Free markets are not about choking off supply by creating artificial restrictions for the sake of profit, but about freedom. When people are free from controll, they tend to use that freedom as an opportunity to create wealth and prosperity where non existed before. That's what pays for the jobs, and the business. An artifical monopoly though, by definition, almost never benefits but a few at the top.
If a patent holder does not maintain or provide his creation to the public in whatever capacity he deams fit he could loose control of the rights to that patent.
I presume that what you're trying to say is that an inventor will hide his creations from society if he doesn't get that monopoly. Well, perhaps I won't grow cotton unless I can own slaves on the plantation. The point is that the harm to society is far worse than the benefit, and even if it wasn't - you don't have that right. Considering that many inventions are progressive, incremental, and likely to happen anyhow - having that kind of controll is simply asking too much.
..these same nations are not willing to devote time and money to simple steps they can prevent the spread of AIDS, they want a magic pill...
So what are you saying? that since they treated their people so poorly, it's allright for us to compound the problem? Besides, I think that was 2 out of a dozen countries. The focus should be on prevention - that agrument can be made in the western world too.
FYI, it is arguable that over a million people in Africa died of AIDS that wouldn't have otherwise - if the African nations were not sued in the world cort for patent violations when they tried to make generics. And people being locked out from using safety devices, and pharmacuticals that have toxic side effects because non patentable cures are marginalized - these are not stores. They are murders and suffering that is happening now.
Extreme examples would be that of an AIDS vacine never being created because of patent A or company B wants to profit from forcing people to purchase drugs for the rest of their life.
And I quote again "Who do we blame when researchers seeking a cure for cancer encounter massive obstacles to sharing individual research for fear that their peers will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out!" - Same with AIDS - patents do far more to stop AIDS research than help it.
There seems to be this attitude that the suffering of slaves prior to 1850 was something that only happened back then. That it has nothing to do with now, that we are more civilized, more modern, more mature, and more sophisticated. With it comes the arrogance that what happened then, means nothing now, that what happened there has no value here, that the great torment and suffering back then can safely be ignored now as we blow off history and all the values that go with it in terms of understanding, freedom, markets, property, technology, and the coming replication age.
Surely anyone who claimed that there is no "incentive" go grow cotton without slaves on the plantation would be considered a barbaric. But if someone claims that there is no "incentive" to create intellectual and knowledge works without patents, then society calls them enlightened. If someone had said that the great wealth of America rested on slavery as a property right and the plantation system, they were a foolish idiot. But if someone says that the great wealth of societies in the coming replication ate rests on "Intellectual Property", then they are called wise. Anyone who says that slavery was about property rights and not control, is a liar. However, if they say that patents are not about control, but "Intellectual Property" then they are considered trustworthy. How about - if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, and if you don't like patents no one forces you to buy those creations. How about - if you don't believe in slavery, you must be an anarchist, if you don't believe in patents you must be some kind of a communist. How about - you are a thief if you free slaves from the plantation, you are a thief when you copy "Intellectual Property".
So why are we spoon-feed these poor logical explanations over and over again? Because, like the assassin who befriends and mis-places his victims heart medications, rather than pull out a rifle and pop a bullet in the head. Like the rapist who drugs his victim, rather than attack her overtly and violently where all the scars, blood, and bruises can be detected. Patents are the pinnacle of quiet violence, they seem so innocent, they seem so sincere, and it is so hard to see any direct evil. After all, what could be less harmless then providing an incentive to inventors, right? But do they really promote invention - or just lock out and tie up inventions and discoveries that were likely to happen anyhow? Do they really help inventors, or do they hinder collaboration and sharing in a way that would put a police state to shame?
Perhaps the old lady has none to blame when her patented medication is too expensive to afford anymore. Who can the workers blame when the patented technology they bet their career on becomes useless as society migrates to less controlling technologies. Who can a child in Africa blame when they are dying of AIDS, and there are no generics to treat it! Who do we blame when researchers seeking a cure for cancer encounter massive obstacles to sharing individual research for fear that their peers will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out! What do you do when a company buys up a patent on a safety device, but then decides not to use it nor let their competitors use it, other than watch people die who might not have otherwise. And all to often people just assume that every manufacturer having incompatible parts and appliances with every other manufacturer is a natural part of a free market, but is it? And does that really help our environment?
As people die because patents are either too costly and alternatives too sparse, and the needy go without, not because of genuine shortage, but because artificial human made restrictions. We must ask what will our role be in the pages of history as society enters into the replication age? Will it be like the lost souls who thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states who today think that patents can peacefully co-exist with freedoms. Or will we be like the plantat
Today's China is vastly different from the 1960s. It's like comparing today's American government with that of the 1800s where racism and bigotry was rampant.
Well that's the point though. The USA was able to change and improve because there was forced accountability to democratic principles. Where's that accountability in China? Answer. There is none, except perhaps external forces from western countries. Get it.
...People in China don't care much about political rights as long as the leaders are making their quality of living better....
When I read that, it reminded me of a lady teacher in China who was accused of teaching disloyality to the chineese leader. (Mau?) She was arrested and tortured. She was dazed and confused because she had always taught her students to love and cherish Mau, and she had always been faithfull to his leadership and the teachings of the Communist party.
Well the ironic thing was, it was her loyality to him that caused the Chnieese government to single her out for punishment. You see, Mau had created a socialist food policy that caused 30 million people to die of starvation in the Chineese country side. He could not blame the farmers and pesants who nearly revolted and forced him to change, he could not blame himself without causing himself political ruin, so that ment that the only people left were his dumb faithfull followers who he could just accuse of misdirecting his will and betraying him.
Anyhow, the point is that human rights and economic rights are inseperable. If you deprive economic rights, it always eventurally leads to human rights violations. If you deprive human rights, it always eventually leads economic rights violations. As the Chineese economy grows, it will create incredible pressures on the system, and those pressures must not go past human rights violations or we risk having another Nazi police state, and all the ugly economic and political consequences that go with it.
The problem with this is that it would lead to many more cases of the jury judging the victim, rather than the defendant or the law. We've had this happen before, such as when white juries would acquit white people accused of crimes against black people in the South, because the victim was black.
The solution to that would be to find less baised jurors, not to deny jury nullification. Besides it goes both ways, without jurry nullification, jurors may be compelled to uphold and enforce racist laws. One of the reasons why they stopped telling jurors of jury nullification was that too many people were refusing to convict runnaway slaves.
The terrorists bomb things and kill people even though their targets have no strategic value. This is because they know full well that it will get the mass media readction they want.
And why does the media react that way, because they are competing over copyrighted content for the most publicity. Get rid of copyrights and the sensationalisim will go away overnight, and the effectiveness of terrorisim will dwindle as well.
Natural law doesn't mean the survival of the fittest, strongest, or do whatever you naturally feel like. Natural law makes an underlying assumption that individuals have a certain nature and rights which are assumed as a premise. Just as scientific method has an underlying assumption that existence is rational, natural law assumes that individuals are endowed with certain rights that exist above government.
There is no technology reason that I know of why someone would need a invatation only darknet to practice their right to share information freely. But this is the exact kind of orginisation that government people are trained to infilterate. The government is notorious for creating, or infilterating various gangs or club like groups so they can draw in suckers and arrest them in big sting opperations from time to time to justify their over paid budget.
This method also has the advantage of not hooking people who are 13, or grandpas whose kids did what they didn't want them to do, or people who had their computer hacked and didn't even know they were sharing files. Instead they get willing cooperating knowing accomplices who are easier to sue and prosicute and these structures also naturally form a leadership hierachy that they can attack.
So my question is, is this really the way things are going, or is this just the system trying to direct the flow in a way that they want it to go? Is it really going to be the next natural social structure, or is it designed to create a hireachial structure that government bureauocrats can infilterate and understand?
The only law that is law, is natural law. Everything else is just humans telling other humans what to do, and has no more barance than if I wrote a set of rules telling you what to do. The fact that a mob of humans might get together, and vote on a law is just a technicality difference. Of course that mob might have more coercive power, but then again it might vote itself orders to jump off a cliff and fly away. In the end natural law always wins out. Laws that match natural law are good laws, laws that don't are bad laws and always have bad consequences.
Well first off, the US really is in deep dodo. Especially economics wise, (the debt is reaching Argentine levels) but unfortunately we will probably take down europe with us.
But in the big picture, I think what you are seeing is that the US is going thru the birthing pains of the information age. All the people who were used to controlling information are panacking, and the peoples of the world who have been exposed to US cluture via the internet are suffering culture shock all over the planet - causing many to lash out at us, and a lot of islamic reactionisim.
In fact, something similar happened during the industrial revolution as new transportation technology caused US, inidian, and Mexican cultures to mingle like never before and completely clash. Not to mention the thought of the plantation masters who freaked at the thought of loosing their labor force as labor in the North became mobile. Now, information is becomming commoditized and large industries are threatened with complete loss of control. (over information, implying the death of the copyright system)
We haven't had a transformation like this since the civil war. IMHO, it's just the beginning and all freakin hell is about to break loose.
This is really nothing more than another Microsoft expression of arrogance.
I mean they do have the singularity OS....
You're telling me. FYI, there was once a large retailer who had over 1000 stores whose customer value cards authed thru a central farm of NT servers. The problem was that these servers would crash on a regular basis and arguably cost the company over a million dollars per hour in downtime when it happened.
To get to the root of them problem, they bought expensive specialized hardware, put up big money for a custom tcp/ip stack, and scheduled nightly reboots, but still nothing helped. So they flew in experts from all over thw world, who eventually came back to them and said there was a flaw on the OS. Then they went to Microsoft, and in not so many words got the finger even though they would have certainly been willing to pay big bucks to fix it if they could.
So how do I know about this? because I was one of the people hired to help the move over to Solaris at great great! expense to them. But their reboot problem was finally resolved.
So really, at least Red Hat is willing to take your money and not leave you screwed. And why is that? Because if RedHat won't do it someone elese would because Linux is FOSS and that forces people to compete off of merits and not by giving customers the finger when service and support don't fit into a companies master monopoly strategy.
So excuse me, but this has got to rank as the most blazing hypocracy I've ever seen. I'm sorry to see that your post is rated as flamebait at this time, because Microsoft truely is ARROGANT by the words very definition. They're gonna get what's comming to them, and nobody is going to cry a tear.
During the 1850's most astute businessmen saw production as a 2n'd class industry - all the big wealth was in plantations and farming. But unfortunately for them, the industrial revolution forced the commoditisation of the labor force and the death of the plantation system.
Today many people see serivces as a loosers industry. All the big money is in factories and content "ownership". Unfortunately for them, the information age is doing for services what the industrial revolution did for production. The information age is forcing the commoditisation of information and the death of the copyright system.
Last time, there was a civil war. This time, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know for sure that all hell is starting to break loose.
If they release a product and it works then people have to take them seriously.
Not necissiarly, I renember back in the 80's some engineer invented a machine that was supposed to supply unlimited energy, it was based off of a 'new physics'.
Well it worked!!! The only problem was that the machine worked by creating a series of sharp and short spikes in the electricity supply (that 'primed' it). Under those conditions the electricity meter didn't register the spike, so it looked like it was producing more energy than it took in. Bzzt. Wrong! He he, I think they eventually tacked a big induction coil onto the meter and the whole thing went to hell.
It sounds like something very similar could be going on here.
Take copyright away, however, and you destroy all free markets that are based on creating anything that is not a physical good or service.
Which means: don't code or write for a living. Don't make movies, don't make albums. Get a job as a check out clerk, or go dig ditches, or make chairs.
Not a good solution if your skills and talent lie in any of the things that will go away. Or do you want to go back to the original royalty system - where only a few star people were paid by the rich to do things for them?
FYI, it's a well known fact that 75% of software developers work inhouse for companies that don't sell software. They would be unaffected by the death of copyright, with the exception that they might become worth more as has happened in the Linux sector because it increases their productivity without increasing costs. It is also well known that 99% of creative artists and writers don't make money from copyrights as the system is now while 1% make it big. A return to a serice model would certainly change that.
Yes, I want it service based. This isn't 1200 AD anymore, but copyrights wouldn't have helped them then either.
While his argument about copyrights was genius, I didn't really like the way the conclusion seemed to force a choice between closed software and socialist government. IMHO, we are better off with neither.
I hate to tell you this, but google and amazon, the stock market traders make heavy use of Linux. Hell even the movie industry does. Unlike this guy, I don't want a government handout, but in all fairness that's what copyrights are. They are certainly not a free market property right. copyrights: government regulation reguarding the supply and demand of information - hmmm sounds pretty socialist to me.
I don't really see the document listing the impact to the economy if you did this all at once. A lot more than 20,000 programmers are employed writing and supporting software they're trying to phase out.
If a million people were employed making mud pies, it might look like and economic hit when they all loose their jobs, but the reality is that all money being used for their salaries is now immediately being used more efficiently somewhere esle. And they are now on the fast track to having skills that the economy can use more effectively - which is good for them and for us. Sure it will hurt, but that's why we as individuals have a responsibility to identify and avoid bad paradigms (like copyright) to begin with. (In all fairness, I've tried warning lots of people that copyrights are trash, and anti free-market and got a big "Fuck you!" many times. Now they want me to baby them when that reality kicks their ass???)
I have always been a proponent of go with whatever is the best model. Yet it seems that governments all over the world are trying to prop up open source to try and put companies (mostly Microsoft) out of business. If the product is better and the model works - why does the government have to get involved at all?
Since when is it the job of the government to promote open source?
Do we really want the government to actively go about picking winners and losers in entire areas of the worldwide economy?
While I agree that free and open source software is fine without the governments help (in fact, we don't need it or want it), since when is it the job of the government to enforce and impose restrictions on copying for the sake of large media companies??
This first paragraph....
Copyrights and patents are forms of government
intervention in the market that are relics of the medieval
guild system. They are an outdated and inefficient means
to support creative and innovative work in the 21s t
century. These government-granted monopolies lead
protected software to sell at prices that are far above the
free-market price. In most cases, in the absence of
copyright and patent protection, software would be
available over the Internet at zero cost.
.. blew me away and is probably the most insightfull thing I've ever read in a government publication. What a hero, the author will probably get fired for such blatnet honesty.
In all fairness, nuclear power is so cheap and efficient, you could probably use it to process CO2 and convert it into oil at a cheaper price than oil is now.
Slashdot Mirror
In all fairness, we have the power to kill the DMCA right now without any help from the congress. The real prop that's holding up the DMCA is societies own belief in the copyright system, kill that and the DMCA will follow.
Attacking the DMCA is like attacking the leaves of a vine, and not the root of it. No matter how hard you pluck off those leaves, they will always grow back in some other form untill you attack the root.
The root of the problem here is societies own belief in copyrights. The DMCA is simply taking it to it's logical conclusion, along with the continuious extensions, and all the other abuses associated with copyright. People need to stop looking at copyrights as ever being a benefit, but rather as a burdon that was bearable 25 years ago when the biggest issue was copy machines and copyrights only lasted a few years. Not anymore. The burden copyrights require is too much to bear in the information age. Contrary to the hype, copyrights don't help many artists, and are anti free market. They are moral sewage that has robbed our culture and given it to hollywood, and they make it so that software companies who would otherwise strive to serve us - strive to controll us. The copyright system needs to die and take it's place on the trash heap of history.
Perhaps it's because I'm an ardent capitalist that I find the current situation of economic incentives appealing...
... I'm genuinely wondering if anyone has a better way?
If the government granted personal monopolies on the supply of food for the sake of incentive, and then called shares of that monopoly a "property right" - any true capitalist could easially see:
1)That it isn't really a property
2)That it destroyes more opportunities than it creates
3)That is is harmfull to free markets and society
Well the same is true with patnet monopolies. While it is true that just respect of property rights leads to powerfull incentive. Coercion of incentive, does not necissairly lead to just rights or free markets, and in the big picture - that hurts researchers.
This isn't a troll
This isn't a troll etiher. Get rid of patents and copyrights and run for cover because society will experience the biggest freemarket explosion in innovation, invention, and artistic creation since the renissance. (which also happened without patnets and copyrights)
In fact, the internet is the biggest anti copyright tool ever created and it is easy to see the wealth and opportunities that it has brought to society. You can't tell me that this has hurt more researchers than it has helped.
These "peers" you speak of work for large corperations devoted to MAKING MONEY....But hey I'm sure they value their jobs money and freedom more than the lives of countless millions.....
Free markets are not about choking off supply by creating artificial restrictions for the sake of profit, but about freedom. When people are free from controll, they tend to use that freedom as an opportunity to create wealth and prosperity where non existed before. That's what pays for the jobs, and the business. An artifical monopoly though, by definition, almost never benefits but a few at the top.
If a patent holder does not maintain or provide his creation to the public in whatever capacity he deams fit he could loose control of the rights to that patent.
I presume that what you're trying to say is that an inventor will hide his creations from society if he doesn't get that monopoly. Well, perhaps I won't grow cotton unless I can own slaves on the plantation. The point is that the harm to society is far worse than the benefit, and even if it wasn't - you don't have that right. Considering that many inventions are progressive, incremental, and likely to happen anyhow - having that kind of controll is simply asking too much.
So what are you saying? that since they treated their people so poorly, it's allright for us to compound the problem? Besides, I think that was 2 out of a dozen countries. The focus should be on prevention - that agrument can be made in the western world too.
FYI, it is arguable that over a million people in Africa died of AIDS that wouldn't have otherwise - if the African nations were not sued in the world cort for patent violations when they tried to make generics. And people being locked out from using safety devices, and pharmacuticals that have toxic side effects because non patentable cures are marginalized - these are not stores. They are murders and suffering that is happening now.
Extreme examples would be that of an AIDS vacine never being created because of patent A or company B wants to profit from forcing people to purchase drugs for the rest of their life.
And I quote again "Who do we blame when researchers seeking a cure for cancer encounter massive obstacles to sharing individual research for fear that their peers will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out!" - Same with AIDS - patents do far more to stop AIDS research than help it.
I was protesting against copyrights since 98, too. Funny, how as each year goes by, it seems to become more and more true.
There seems to be this attitude that the suffering of slaves prior to 1850 was something that only happened back then. That it has nothing to do with now, that we are more civilized, more modern, more mature, and more sophisticated. With it comes the arrogance that what happened then, means nothing now, that what happened there has no value here, that the great torment and suffering back then can safely be ignored now as we blow off history and all the values that go with it in terms of understanding, freedom, markets, property, technology, and the coming replication age.
Surely anyone who claimed that there is no "incentive" go grow cotton without slaves on the plantation would be considered a barbaric. But if someone claims that there is no "incentive" to create intellectual and knowledge works without patents, then society calls them enlightened. If someone had said that the great wealth of America rested on slavery as a property right and the plantation system, they were a foolish idiot. But if someone says that the great wealth of societies in the coming replication ate rests on "Intellectual Property", then they are called wise. Anyone who says that slavery was about property rights and not control, is a liar. However, if they say that patents are not about control, but "Intellectual Property" then they are considered trustworthy. How about - if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, and if you don't like patents no one forces you to buy those creations. How about - if you don't believe in slavery, you must be an anarchist, if you don't believe in patents you must be some kind of a communist. How about - you are a thief if you free slaves from the plantation, you are a thief when you copy "Intellectual Property".
So why are we spoon-feed these poor logical explanations over and over again? Because, like the assassin who befriends and mis-places his victims heart medications, rather than pull out a rifle and pop a bullet in the head. Like the rapist who drugs his victim, rather than attack her overtly and violently where all the scars, blood, and bruises can be detected. Patents are the pinnacle of quiet violence, they seem so innocent, they seem so sincere, and it is so hard to see any direct evil. After all, what could be less harmless then providing an incentive to inventors, right? But do they really promote invention - or just lock out and tie up inventions and discoveries that were likely to happen anyhow? Do they really help inventors, or do they hinder collaboration and sharing in a way that would put a police state to shame?
Perhaps the old lady has none to blame when her patented medication is too expensive to afford anymore. Who can the workers blame when the patented technology they bet their career on becomes useless as society migrates to less controlling technologies. Who can a child in Africa blame when they are dying of AIDS, and there are no generics to treat it! Who do we blame when researchers seeking a cure for cancer encounter massive obstacles to sharing individual research for fear that their peers will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out! What do you do when a company buys up a patent on a safety device, but then decides not to use it nor let their competitors use it, other than watch people die who might not have otherwise. And all to often people just assume that every manufacturer having incompatible parts and appliances with every other manufacturer is a natural part of a free market, but is it? And does that really help our environment?
As people die because patents are either too costly and alternatives too sparse, and the needy go without, not because of genuine shortage, but because artificial human made restrictions. We must ask what will our role be in the pages of history as society enters into the replication age? Will it be like the lost souls who thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states who today think that patents can peacefully co-exist with freedoms. Or will we be like the plantat
Why not put the index on more attack proof networks like freenet, and use a faster p2p app for the actual downloading.
Today's China is vastly different from the 1960s. It's like comparing today's American government with that of the 1800s where racism and bigotry was rampant.
Well that's the point though. The USA was able to change and improve because there was forced accountability to democratic principles. Where's that accountability in China? Answer. There is none, except perhaps external forces from western countries. Get it.
When I read that, it reminded me of a lady teacher in China who was accused of teaching disloyality to the chineese leader. (Mau?) She was arrested and tortured. She was dazed and confused because she had always taught her students to love and cherish Mau, and she had always been faithfull to his leadership and the teachings of the Communist party.
Well the ironic thing was, it was her loyality to him that caused the Chnieese government to single her out for punishment. You see, Mau had created a socialist food policy that caused 30 million people to die of starvation in the Chineese country side. He could not blame the farmers and pesants who nearly revolted and forced him to change, he could not blame himself without causing himself political ruin, so that ment that the only people left were his dumb faithfull followers who he could just accuse of misdirecting his will and betraying him.
Anyhow, the point is that human rights and economic rights are inseperable. If you deprive economic rights, it always eventurally leads to human rights violations. If you deprive human rights, it always eventually leads economic rights violations. As the Chineese economy grows, it will create incredible pressures on the system, and those pressures must not go past human rights violations or we risk having another Nazi police state, and all the ugly economic and political consequences that go with it.
The problem with this is that it would lead to many more cases of the jury judging the victim, rather than the defendant or the law. We've had this happen before, such as when white juries would acquit white people accused of crimes against black people in the South, because the victim was black.
The solution to that would be to find less baised jurors, not to deny jury nullification. Besides it goes both ways, without jurry nullification, jurors may be compelled to uphold and enforce racist laws. One of the reasons why they stopped telling jurors of jury nullification was that too many people were refusing to convict runnaway slaves.
The terrorists bomb things and kill people even though their targets have no strategic value. This is because they know full well that it will get the mass media readction they want.
And why does the media react that way, because they are competing over copyrighted content for the most publicity. Get rid of copyrights and the sensationalisim will go away overnight, and the effectiveness of terrorisim will dwindle as well.
Natural law doesn't mean the survival of the fittest, strongest, or do whatever you naturally feel like. Natural law makes an underlying assumption that individuals have a certain nature and rights which are assumed as a premise. Just as scientific method has an underlying assumption that existence is rational, natural law assumes that individuals are endowed with certain rights that exist above government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
There is no technology reason that I know of why someone would need a invatation only darknet to practice their right to share information freely. But this is the exact kind of orginisation that government people are trained to infilterate. The government is notorious for creating, or infilterating various gangs or club like groups so they can draw in suckers and arrest them in big sting opperations from time to time to justify their over paid budget.
This method also has the advantage of not hooking people who are 13, or grandpas whose kids did what they didn't want them to do, or people who had their computer hacked and didn't even know they were sharing files. Instead they get willing cooperating knowing accomplices who are easier to sue and prosicute and these structures also naturally form a leadership hierachy that they can attack.
So my question is, is this really the way things are going, or is this just the system trying to direct the flow in a way that they want it to go? Is it really going to be the next natural social structure, or is it designed to create a hireachial structure that government bureauocrats can infilterate and understand?
The law is the law is the law!
The only law that is law, is natural law. Everything else is just humans telling other humans what to do, and has no more barance than if I wrote a set of rules telling you what to do. The fact that a mob of humans might get together, and vote on a law is just a technicality difference. Of course that mob might have more coercive power, but then again it might vote itself orders to jump off a cliff and fly away. In the end natural law always wins out. Laws that match natural law are good laws, laws that don't are bad laws and always have bad consequences.
Well first off, the US really is in deep dodo. Especially economics wise, (the debt is reaching Argentine levels) but unfortunately we will probably take down europe with us.
But in the big picture, I think what you are seeing is that the US is going thru the birthing pains of the information age. All the people who were used to controlling information are panacking, and the peoples of the world who have been exposed to US cluture via the internet are suffering culture shock all over the planet - causing many to lash out at us, and a lot of islamic reactionisim.
In fact, something similar happened during the industrial revolution as new transportation technology caused US, inidian, and Mexican cultures to mingle like never before and completely clash. Not to mention the thought of the plantation masters who freaked at the thought of loosing their labor force as labor in the North became mobile. Now, information is becomming commoditized and large industries are threatened with complete loss of control. (over information, implying the death of the copyright system)
We haven't had a transformation like this since the civil war. IMHO, it's just the beginning and all freakin hell is about to break loose.
This is really nothing more than another Microsoft expression of arrogance.
I mean they do have the singularity OS....
You're telling me. FYI, there was once a large retailer who had over 1000 stores whose customer value cards authed thru a central farm of NT servers. The problem was that these servers would crash on a regular basis and arguably cost the company over a million dollars per hour in downtime when it happened.
To get to the root of them problem, they bought expensive specialized hardware, put up big money for a custom tcp/ip stack, and scheduled nightly reboots, but still nothing helped. So they flew in experts from all over thw world, who eventually came back to them and said there was a flaw on the OS. Then they went to Microsoft, and in not so many words got the finger even though they would have certainly been willing to pay big bucks to fix it if they could.
So how do I know about this? because I was one of the people hired to help the move over to Solaris at great great! expense to them. But their reboot problem was finally resolved.
So really, at least Red Hat is willing to take your money and not leave you screwed. And why is that? Because if RedHat won't do it someone elese would because Linux is FOSS and that forces people to compete off of merits and not by giving customers the finger when service and support don't fit into a companies master monopoly strategy.
So excuse me, but this has got to rank as the most blazing hypocracy I've ever seen. I'm sorry to see that your post is rated as flamebait at this time, because Microsoft truely is ARROGANT by the words very definition. They're gonna get what's comming to them, and nobody is going to cry a tear.
During the 1850's most astute businessmen saw production as a 2n'd class industry - all the big wealth was in plantations and farming. But unfortunately for them, the industrial revolution forced the commoditisation of the labor force and the death of the plantation system.
Today many people see serivces as a loosers industry. All the big money is in factories and content "ownership". Unfortunately for them, the information age is doing for services what the industrial revolution did for production. The information age is forcing the commoditisation of information and the death of the copyright system.
Last time, there was a civil war. This time, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know for sure that all hell is starting to break loose.
If they release a product and it works then people have to take them seriously.
Not necissiarly, I renember back in the 80's some engineer invented a machine that was supposed to supply unlimited energy, it was based off of a 'new physics'.
Well it worked!!! The only problem was that the machine worked by creating a series of sharp and short spikes in the electricity supply (that 'primed' it). Under those conditions the electricity meter didn't register the spike, so it looked like it was producing more energy than it took in. Bzzt. Wrong! He he, I think they eventually tacked a big induction coil onto the meter and the whole thing went to hell.
It sounds like something very similar could be going on here.
Take copyright away, however, and you destroy all free markets that are based on creating anything that is not a physical good or service.
Which means: don't code or write for a living. Don't make movies, don't make albums. Get a job as a check out clerk, or go dig ditches, or make chairs.
Not a good solution if your skills and talent lie in any of the things that will go away. Or do you want to go back to the original royalty system - where only a few star people were paid by the rich to do things for them?
FYI, it's a well known fact that 75% of software developers work inhouse for companies that don't sell software. They would be unaffected by the death of copyright, with the exception that they might become worth more as has happened in the Linux sector because it increases their productivity without increasing costs. It is also well known that 99% of creative artists and writers don't make money from copyrights as the system is now while 1% make it big. A return to a serice model would certainly change that.
Yes, I want it service based. This isn't 1200 AD anymore, but copyrights wouldn't have helped them then either.
While his argument about copyrights was genius, I didn't really like the way the conclusion seemed to force a choice between closed software and socialist government. IMHO, we are better off with neither.
I hate to tell you this, but google and amazon, the stock market traders make heavy use of Linux. Hell even the movie industry does. Unlike this guy, I don't want a government handout, but in all fairness that's what copyrights are. They are certainly not a free market property right. copyrights: government regulation reguarding the supply and demand of information - hmmm sounds pretty socialist to me.
I don't really see the document listing the impact to the economy if you did this all at once. A lot more than 20,000 programmers are employed writing and supporting software they're trying to phase out.
If a million people were employed making mud pies, it might look like and economic hit when they all loose their jobs, but the reality is that all money being used for their salaries is now immediately being used more efficiently somewhere esle. And they are now on the fast track to having skills that the economy can use more effectively - which is good for them and for us. Sure it will hurt, but that's why we as individuals have a responsibility to identify and avoid bad paradigms (like copyright) to begin with. (In all fairness, I've tried warning lots of people that copyrights are trash, and anti free-market and got a big "Fuck you!" many times. Now they want me to baby them when that reality kicks their ass???)
I have always been a proponent of go with whatever is the best model. Yet it seems that governments all over the world are trying to prop up open source to try and put companies (mostly Microsoft) out of business. If the product is better and the model works - why does the government have to get involved at all?
They don't and they shouldn't.
Since when is it the job of the government to promote open source?
Do we really want the government to actively go about picking winners and losers in entire areas of the worldwide economy?
While I agree that free and open source software is fine without the governments help (in fact, we don't need it or want it), since when is it the job of the government to enforce and impose restrictions on copying for the sake of large media companies??
This first paragraph ....
Copyrights and patents are forms of government intervention in the market that are relics of the medieval guild system. They are an outdated and inefficient means to support creative and innovative work in the 21s t century. These government-granted monopolies lead protected software to sell at prices that are far above the free-market price. In most cases, in the absence of copyright and patent protection, software would be available over the Internet at zero cost.
.. blew me away and is probably the most insightfull thing I've ever read in a government publication. What a hero, the author will probably get fired for such blatnet honesty.
In all fairness, nuclear power is so cheap and efficient, you could probably use it to process CO2 and convert it into oil at a cheaper price than oil is now.