I think they mean gentle as in "He drugged the girl and gently violated her" rather than "He beat the girl sensless with a baseball bat before having his way with her".
(the govt) should, and should have from the beginning but(ted) out.
You're right! They should have butted out over 200 years ago and never imposed copy restrictions to begin with. Copyrights have nothing to do with incentive, or even worse "property rights". When you think about it, they don't even help many people except say Madonna. They are simply a government imposed regulation on how people can copy and share information. 200 years ago when the term was only 14 years and every information work was attached to a physical item it was small enough of a social burden not to rip society apart at the seams. Today it is not, even though I dearly understand that the US founding fathers could not have anticipated this.
What we are seeing today is simply a poor belief system (copyrights) being brought to it's logical conclusion. It would have poped it's ugly head up one way or the other DMCA or not. You can't go telling people that they effectively have this "right" to restrict the free flow of information (which is what copyrights really are), and then expect them not to want to "secure" this "right" and bring it to it's logical end. Which is effectively what has happened.
The only real solution is to bite the bullet and cut the thorny vine off at the root. Get rid of copyrights all together and the poor belief system that goes along with them. Any other solution is just not workable and is tanamount to wattering the vine that is choking us off.
I believe on faith in 3 concepts, I believe that they are impossible to prove, but their truth means that an infinite God exists of their "nature".
The concepts are:
1) Logical Truth - this is basically scientific method, logical thought, a belief that existence is rational.
2) Free Will - this is the belief that existence is non-deterministic, (and it appears to manifest itself in "free will"), (which BTW implies things like law in society.)
3) Genuine Love - this is the belief that we and God have a genuine need to look out for other peoples best interest, and that we are inherently good. (Which implies things like no revenge, but justice is OK, to the greatest extent possible)
That is all. These are what I believe. It is on faith. Of course we are finite so we aren't a perfect manifestation of these concepts like God but this is what I believe.
well, what if God's nature spared them the sunami by making existence irrational. IMHO the irrational universe would be worse because the chaos wouldnt have meaning, predictability, or managability. Scientific method, math, logical thought, would not exist at all. The sunami was very unpleasing, but that unpleasingness comes thru the unpredictibility and unability to do anything to prevent the hurt that afflicted peoples lives. That's more a statement about us being finite than God failing to look out for our best interest.
I wish He would have said something, but then again. If I screamed out a sunami was comming, would anyone have listened to me?
Figuring out the next trend is always very easy. I figured it out with Linux in 95, and then I told managment that SCO was going to die and Linux was going to take over the marketplace - I was effectively humiliated and laughed out of the company.
The long term market always gravitates to the least proprietary technogy, while the short term market always creates intense pressure to use the most proprietary technology. This is why so many people always get suckered in and killed and left to sorrow and wallow in dead end careers.
I REPEAT! Not the prettiest technology (eg. Apple vs MS and Intel), not the fastest technology (eg. Cray, SGI), not the most financed technology (eg. Microsoft and OS2 before it), not the most elloquent design (eg. Motorolla chips vs Intel, also I renember Amigas rulled in that area), not the most efficient (renember token-ring), not the first to market (eg. UNIX). Not ones that seem free or "open" (eg. Java which could have grown faster than Linux if it was under the GPL but didn't, the same with BSD whose license gives forks the power to restrict other peoples freedom to downstream copy making it more proprietary than it could have been). Not even the ones that ride on non-porprietary trends (eg. Sun rode the internet wave, and Oracle is riding on Linux today). No, overall the market always favors the LEAST proprietary technology.
Free markets are about freedoms, especially from proprietary controll, because with freedoms come the flexability to grow outside the confines of one company, or consortium - none of wich can even touch the 10's and trillions produced anually by the gloabl economy and all the branches and directions that wealth can grow.
Moral, freedom matters. Tough it out and go against the grain as much as you can with the proprietary bullshit and things in the long run will be ok. It will be tough, and numb minds may make you sorry for it in the short term, but in the long term you will be so on top.
I totally agree with RMS about free software, but when it comes to the issue of economic freedom we split paths.
When I go into a store and buy something, noone takes a gun to my head and forces me to buy it, and noone takes a gun to theirs and forces them to sell it. We are engaging in a free activity.
Now maybe I can't get a better deal - that might be an argument for more economic freedoms that lead to more market activity, but that is not a reason to try and controll the prices people sell things at or where they get them from.
When I get a job, noone takes a gun to my employers head and forces him to hire me, and noone takes a gun to mine and forces me to work for them. It is a voluntary agreement, and an act of freedom.
Now maybe I can't do any better - that might be an argument for more freedoms and thus more opportunities, but not to make him hire people or coerce him to pay my salary even if it is deemed not be worth it for him any more.
The same is true when I hire someone from another country, or someone from another country hires me. Of if I buy and sell goods from another land.
RMS can clearly understand information freedoms, I wish he would understand economic freedoms too.
The rights you have as the creator of a work are called privacy rights, that is all. You also have integrity rights, like if I copy your work and then say I created it - then that would be fradulent to you and everyone else. ALl the rest is just over-reaching.
Once something gets put out there in the world, then it is no matter a right to controll the information at your disposal - because you still controll that information. Instead it becomes about controlling other people and how they use it. This act of controlling people is the crime, not copying.
Your counter argument is awfull - it is the same logical arguemnt as "if you don't like slavery, don't own slaves." While totally blowing off the nature of the institution that is behind it. In fact, it even sounds like the "slavery is a property right" argument too. Well property is about property, and controll is about controll, and just because people (or businesses) declare something a right, and even if they put money and effort into it, doesn't mean that it is.
I agree. I've known allot of people who "illegally copy" and allot of people in "shady orginasations" and allot of people who "hack" and even share "shady information". But I've never seen any top down super org that pulls all the strings behind the scenes. When I first read it a few days ago, I was laughing thru the whole thing, and shaking my head in disbelief that people would go thru all the effort to make this up.
Now maybe the RIAA, MPAA, and the Gov want to believe such an org exists, because that gives them a nice top down org to target for the kill. And they can understand big fat juicy top-down orgs, because they are one. And no doubt that people do self organize, after all that's why we have government. But this sounds too much like the way people in the govt organize, not the way people in the internet organize. You know, narrowly defined roles in super entrenched positions.
Knowing how the government works, I wouldn't be supprised if this was some type of setup. You know, luer interested people in, nail them, and then go on TV to justify their over-rated over-paid, under-productive jobs.
Another RED ALERT warning flag: It sems people who "rise up" in this org would be lewered away from difficult to track and enforce p2p technology to more direct, tracable, and accountable technologies. If that doesn't go against the grain, then I don't know what does.
Whether they know it or not, the vast majority of folks here on Slashdot would not object to copyright if it embodied the original ideals under which it was created, rather than the bastard system we have now that big companies hide behind to line their pockets at the expense of the true innovators.
I disagree, the smme thing was siad about marxisim - "if it was only done in a more enlightened way", bht the problems we are seeing now are copyrights simply being taken to their logical conclusion. The peoblems we are seeing now would pop their ugly head up one way or another no matter how enlightened we tried to make copyrights. No matter how you stack the deck - copyrights are about trying to controll information in the information age.
Allot of people here get mad at the RIAA and the MPAA, but the truth is you can't go telling people that they have some type of glorious right to controll how others use, distribute, and profit from information - but then not allow them to secure those "rights". It is hypocritical, but might have been workable when the biggest copyright issue was xerox machines, but now it is impossible to go back. Copyrights half to die.
Why exactly should not only mass market products, but even multi-user products exist, then?
I was going to let this thread die, but you sounded sincere.
Mass marketed products that can be coppied exist all the time. Dell makes billions selling PC's that almost anybody could copy and make on their own. IBM's IBM compatable PC bios and interface was coppied by Compaq (and half a zillion ohter people) - this didn't disincentive IBM. Intel's chips instruction set and interface were coppied by AMD, this didnt' disincentive Intel. (in fact, they all competed more) The success of Linux shows what happens when things can be coppied and re-applied freely, it is anything but an industry killer. And do you think Madonna would turn down doing a concert to 50000 people who pay avg $50 each for 5 days if anything she made could be coppied without restriction. (Wrong, in fact - she would rely less on the copyright monopoly and more on entertaining fans growing the industry) In fact, Madonna is the story of copyrights - for every creator (if you want to call her that) that makes it big, there are tens of thousands that are locked out. In fact I would say that the small artist is far better off distributing whatever they can for free to make a name for themselves - something that the copyright system punsihes and kills.
Copyrights might help a few large businesses and publishers because they increase the barriers to entry by creating an environment that encourages locking the distribution channels. But overall, like most artificial rights and government granted monopolies, they lock out far more people then they lock in.
I really happy for people if they make a ton of money from their efforts, bit IMHO they should do it without the govt creating false rights at everyone elses expense. Copyrights are not a free market meca, they have nothing to do with normal property which has natural limits in supply and demmand. they make it so that information hype is more valued than information services. Normal services have limits in supply and demand which creates market value, copyrights destroy that and make it so that the information itself is a commodity, and so that those who controll it controll people.
And that's what the whole ruckus is about. You see, there's a small but vocal minority here on Slashdot that feel as though their "right" to be entertained for free via copyright infringement should supercede the rights of the copyright holders to make money from their copyrights.
Ok, my mistake about the DOI, but youre still wrong conceptually. This pp is your problem right there. There is no such thing as an inherent right to make money. There is an inherent right to own property, but copyrights are not even that in the slightest. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from physical limits and mutual respect, the foundation of copyrights derives from kings who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. Rights do not come about because a law says so, like copyrights, they exist above government.
Oh and BTW I didn't spend 5K of my own money to get a RHCE Linux certification in 2000 because I was greedy and wanted free technology. I did it because when you understand that copyright is a bullshit regulation rather than a free market property right you understand that the institutions that rely on copyright will die and those that don't will prosper. (ps that bet has paid off serveral times over in cold hard cash - I wish I could say the same for my MSCE friends) Yeah, MS has a market cap of 0.5 trillion, but when push comes to shove - the golbal econ. puts out 10's of trillions per year.
oops, my mistake, I should have just said - the "I put effort into it" argument is a bullshit argument, the "it's property" agrument is a bullshit argument, the "i have no incentive argument" is a bullshit argument.
ouch that hurts. I'm dying to hear how I "should" have argued. I wasn't the one who brought up the race issue red herring trying to discredit jefferson on other things he said - at that point it was just begging to be said. This isn't about trolling other people on copyrights, it is to put things back into perspective where they belong. What the hell, a mans going to jail here for copying and nothing else.
And speaking of poor arguing technique, I'm not a warez pup. In fact, I an RHCE and barely use proprietary stuff at all. And I'm plenty happy listening to the tons of freely offered music out there that's not restricted. noone gives a hell about warez here, it's not about warez, it's about political liberty in the information age. It's about false property rights rotating arround incentive instead of physical limits in supply and demand. It's about controll over other peoples freedoms and nothing else. Bottom line, someone is going to the can for copying and that is offensive.
I made my point wether no matter how many other posts that are brought into it - ok, try reading this one here
or try typing "bitter protest against copyrights" in any search engine. Simply put, I know what the hell I'm talking about. and fankly, you just need to be more forgiving in your redresses.
If I understand you correctly, writing a novel once, or developing a piece of software once, and selling multiple copies of same is bad. However, developing a web site once, and charging multiple people money to access the same web site isn't so bad? Seems the same to me: come up with an idea, implement it once, and then charge over and over again for the same thing.
I don't really have a problem with people controlling information at their disposal, but that's not what they want. They want to let the cat out of the bag, and have the right to sue crimanalize and harass everyone else in the universe who happens to make use or get ahold of that information after the fact. That paradigm might have been workable when the biggest copying issue was xerox machines, but it is totally unworkable in the information age.
no my analogy isn't flawed, people put hard work into allot of things, but that doesn't mean they have a god given right to a government imposed monopoly. the plantation master spent millions in resources importing slaves from africa - funny thing is, it wasn't about incentive, or property, but controll.
Ok, here's a fact. Not everybody can use something at the same time - to deal with that we come up with a set of rules called property. Deriving rights from incentives is a feeling , deriving right's from physical reality is a fact. Trying to treat something that is intangable just like something that isn't is the real bullshit morality and the definition of a fake scenario.
that doesn't sound like a royality, or at least it doesn't sound like you make money by using the force of government to coerce what other people can or can not copy.
Black people and people who might want to make money off of their intellectual endeavors have two things in common: they're glad that Thomas Jefferson isn't around to make laws today.
Funny thing is, about copyrights, I would think black people would know more than anybody that just because an institution calls somthing a property right or an incentive, and that it's healthy for the industry - it is a bullshit reason to have it. How about offering some other explanation other than "I want to sit on my ass an collect royalities."
maybe you worked your ass off 20 years to make mud pies. maybe you feel violated if someone copys one. so what - rights don't derive arround feelings. get used to it.
sounds dead on. That I am left with a copy of my property changes the meaning not the slighest.
What the hell are you talking about. If someone "stole" a replica of my car, you think I care. I can still get to work, I can still go to the store. If someone stole a replica of my jeans, you think I care, I won't be walking in to work naked tommorow.
what type of property rights have an expiration date anyhow? Copyrights are not a property right, they are a government granted monopoly - and while I can see why some people might want to just sit on their ass and collect royalities rather then face that their real services have less value then they think they do. This is not a right, and it is certainly not a property, and it is even less so workable in the information age.
The difference between cars and digital bits, are in the ease of duplicating and distributing exact copys of the original. If ST's replicator ever comes true. This truth will immediately become obvious.
I'm glad you mentioned that. Cuase if you stole my custom made house - I would be very violated, but if you stole a copy, then hell have two, im flatterted... No one is really violated (other than mabye an ego or two), It's bullshit morality. That is unless one believes that rights derive from perceptions and not facts.
maybe people will think this is a troll too. Do you own slaves? It amazes me how many time people half to have it pounded and pounded and beat into them that just because a system or institution calls somthing a free market property right - does not mean that it is. It would be more accurate to call copyrights a government regulation restricting how people can use information at their disposal.
Bringing the GPL into this is a red herring, the entire prupose of the GPL was to undo some of the damage caused by copyrights with copyrights. Fight fire with fire.
Finally, big companies who do not innovate use IP to lock out innovative competition far more than the other way arround. In fact, people who "do it for the money" are usually not good innovators. It's the people who do it for the meaning that innovate. Give them access to 10'million innovations that they didn't have access to before - stand back and watch what happens. Actually, you don't need to, it's happening now with Linux, p2p, and the internet.
Evidently this numbnut thought the payoff was worth the risk of punishment, so yes.
Since when does that have anything to do with the justice of the punishment. Some people get shot in the head for practicing the wrong religion, yeah they were willing to take the risk anyhow, so what?
If this dude was doing it for profit then he's no different in motivation to the corporations you're ranting about.
First, I don't care if he did it for profit, any more than I care if Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus for reward money. Illegal copying is illegal, but violates nobody, anyone who tells you otherwise is full of it.
Second, I don't care if a corporation does somthing for profit - if they do so without violating anyone else. However, if a corporation terrorizes and gets people imprisoned because they think they have a God given right to controll how people distribute certain pieces of information, then that violates all of us and should be punished.
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I think they mean gentle as in "He drugged the girl and gently violated her" rather than "He beat the girl sensless with a baseball bat before having his way with her".
Thanks, but no thanks.
(the govt) should, and should have from the beginning but(ted) out.
You're right! They should have butted out over 200 years ago and never imposed copy restrictions to begin with. Copyrights have nothing to do with incentive, or even worse "property rights". When you think about it, they don't even help many people except say Madonna. They are simply a government imposed regulation on how people can copy and share information. 200 years ago when the term was only 14 years and every information work was attached to a physical item it was small enough of a social burden not to rip society apart at the seams. Today it is not, even though I dearly understand that the US founding fathers could not have anticipated this.
What we are seeing today is simply a poor belief system (copyrights) being brought to it's logical conclusion. It would have poped it's ugly head up one way or the other DMCA or not. You can't go telling people that they effectively have this "right" to restrict the free flow of information (which is what copyrights really are), and then expect them not to want to "secure" this "right" and bring it to it's logical end. Which is effectively what has happened.
The only real solution is to bite the bullet and cut the thorny vine off at the root. Get rid of copyrights all together and the poor belief system that goes along with them. Any other solution is just not workable and is tanamount to wattering the vine that is choking us off.
I believe on faith in 3 concepts, I believe that they are impossible to prove, but their truth means that an infinite God exists of their "nature".
The concepts are:
1) Logical Truth - this is basically scientific method, logical thought, a belief that existence is rational.
2) Free Will - this is the belief that existence is non-deterministic, (and it appears to manifest itself in "free will"), (which BTW implies things like law in society.)
3) Genuine Love - this is the belief that we and God have a genuine need to look out for other peoples best interest, and that we are inherently good. (Which implies things like no revenge, but justice is OK, to the greatest extent possible)
That is all. These are what I believe. It is on faith. Of course we are finite so we aren't a perfect manifestation of these concepts like God but this is what I believe.
well, what if God's nature spared them the
sunami by making existence irrational. IMHO the irrational universe would be worse because the chaos wouldnt have meaning, predictability, or managability. Scientific method, math, logical thought, would not exist at all. The sunami was very unpleasing, but that unpleasingness comes thru the unpredictibility and unability to do anything to prevent the hurt that afflicted peoples lives. That's more a statement about us being finite than God failing to look out for our best interest.
I wish He would have said something, but then again. If I screamed out a sunami was comming, would anyone have listened to me?
Figuring out the next trend is always very easy.
I figured it out with Linux in 95, and then I told managment that SCO was going to die and Linux was going to take over the marketplace - I was effectively humiliated and laughed out of the company.
The long term market always gravitates to the least proprietary technogy, while the short term market always creates intense pressure to use the most proprietary technology. This is why so many people always get suckered in and killed and left to sorrow and wallow in dead end careers.
I REPEAT! Not the prettiest technology (eg. Apple vs MS and Intel), not the fastest technology (eg. Cray, SGI), not the most financed technology (eg. Microsoft and OS2 before it), not the most elloquent design (eg. Motorolla chips vs Intel, also I renember Amigas rulled in that area), not the most efficient (renember token-ring), not the first to market (eg. UNIX). Not ones that seem free or "open" (eg. Java which could have grown faster than Linux if it was under the GPL but didn't, the same with BSD whose license gives forks the power to restrict other peoples freedom to downstream copy making it more proprietary than it could have been). Not even the ones that ride on non-porprietary trends (eg. Sun rode the internet wave, and Oracle is riding on Linux today). No, overall the market always favors the LEAST proprietary technology.
Free markets are about freedoms, especially from proprietary controll, because with freedoms come the flexability to grow outside the confines of one company, or consortium - none of wich can even touch the 10's and trillions produced anually by the gloabl economy and all the branches and directions that wealth can grow.
Moral, freedom matters. Tough it out and go against the grain as much as you can with the proprietary bullshit and things in the long run will be ok. It will be tough, and numb minds may make you sorry for it in the short term, but in the long term you will be so on top.
I totally agree with RMS about free software, but when it comes to the issue of economic freedom we split paths.
When I go into a store and buy something, noone takes a gun to my head and forces me to buy it, and noone takes a gun to theirs and forces them to sell it. We are engaging in a free activity.
Now maybe I can't get a better deal - that might be an argument for more economic freedoms that lead to more market activity, but that is not a reason to try and controll the prices people sell things at or where they get them from.
When I get a job, noone takes a gun to my employers head and forces him to hire me, and noone takes a gun to mine and forces me to work for them. It is a voluntary agreement, and an act of freedom.
Now maybe I can't do any better - that might be an argument for more freedoms and thus more opportunities, but not to make him hire people or coerce him to pay my salary even if it is deemed not be worth it for him any more.
The same is true when I hire someone from another country, or someone from another country hires me. Of if I buy and sell goods from another land.
RMS can clearly understand information freedoms, I wish he would understand economic freedoms too.
The rights you have as the creator of a work are called privacy rights, that is all. You also have integrity rights, like if I copy your work and then say I created it - then that would be fradulent to you and everyone else. ALl the rest is just over-reaching.
Once something gets put out there in the world, then it is no matter a right to controll the information at your disposal - because you still controll that information. Instead it becomes about controlling other people and how they use it. This act of controlling people is the crime, not copying.
Your counter argument is awfull - it is the same logical arguemnt as "if you don't like slavery, don't own slaves." While totally blowing off the nature of the institution that is behind it. In fact, it even sounds like the "slavery is a property right" argument too. Well property is about property, and controll is about controll, and just because people (or businesses) declare something a right, and even if they put money and effort into it, doesn't mean that it is.
I agree. I've known allot of people who "illegally copy" and allot of people in "shady orginasations" and allot of people who "hack" and even share "shady information". But I've never seen any top down super org that pulls all the strings behind the scenes. When I first read it a few days ago, I was laughing thru the whole thing, and shaking my head in disbelief that people would go thru all the effort to make this up.
Now maybe the RIAA, MPAA, and the Gov want to believe such an org exists, because that gives them a nice top down org to target for the kill. And they can understand big fat juicy top-down orgs, because they are one. And no doubt that people do self organize, after all that's why we have government. But this sounds too much like the way people in the govt organize, not the way people in the internet organize. You know, narrowly defined roles in super entrenched positions.
Knowing how the government works, I wouldn't be supprised if this was some type of setup. You know, luer interested people in, nail them, and then go on TV to justify their over-rated over-paid, under-productive jobs.
Another RED ALERT warning flag: It sems people who "rise up" in this org would be lewered away from difficult to track and enforce p2p technology to more direct, tracable, and accountable technologies. If that doesn't go against the grain, then I don't know what does.
Whether they know it or not, the vast majority of folks here on Slashdot would not object to copyright if it embodied the original ideals under which it was created, rather than the bastard system we have now that big companies hide behind to line their pockets at the expense of the true innovators.
I disagree, the smme thing was siad about marxisim - "if it was only done in a more enlightened way", bht the problems we are seeing now are copyrights simply being taken to their logical conclusion. The peoblems we are seeing now would pop their ugly head up one way or another no matter how enlightened we tried to make copyrights. No matter how you stack the deck - copyrights are about trying to controll information in the information age.
Allot of people here get mad at the RIAA and the MPAA, but the truth is you can't go telling people that they have some type of glorious right to controll how others use, distribute, and profit from information - but then not allow them to secure those "rights". It is hypocritical, but might have been workable when the biggest copyright issue was xerox machines, but now it is impossible to go back. Copyrights half to die.
Why exactly should not only mass market products, but even multi-user products exist, then?
I was going to let this thread die, but you sounded sincere.
Mass marketed products that can be coppied exist all the time. Dell makes billions selling PC's that almost anybody could copy and make on their own. IBM's IBM compatable PC bios and interface was coppied by Compaq (and half a zillion ohter people) - this didn't disincentive IBM. Intel's chips instruction set and interface were coppied by AMD, this didnt' disincentive Intel. (in fact, they all competed more) The success of Linux shows what happens when things can be coppied and re-applied freely, it is anything but an industry killer. And do you think Madonna would turn down doing a concert to 50000 people who pay avg $50 each for 5 days if anything she made could be coppied without restriction. (Wrong, in fact - she would rely less on the copyright monopoly and more on entertaining fans growing the industry) In fact, Madonna is the story of copyrights - for every creator (if you want to call her that) that makes it big, there are tens of thousands that are locked out. In fact I would say that the small artist is far better off distributing whatever they can for free to make a name for themselves - something that the copyright system punsihes and kills.
Copyrights might help a few large businesses and publishers because they increase the barriers to entry by creating an environment that encourages locking the distribution channels. But overall, like most artificial rights and government granted monopolies, they lock out far more people then they lock in.
I really happy for people if they make a ton of money from their efforts, bit IMHO they should do it without the govt creating false rights at everyone elses expense. Copyrights are not a free market meca, they have nothing to do with normal property which has natural limits in supply and demmand. they make it so that information hype is more valued than information services. Normal services have limits in supply and demand which creates market value, copyrights destroy that and make it so that the information itself is a commodity, and so that those who controll it controll people.
If you for real, you can see here
and here for more on my take
And that's what the whole ruckus is about. You see, there's a small but vocal minority here on Slashdot that feel as though their "right" to be entertained for free via copyright infringement should supercede the rights of the copyright holders to make money from their copyrights.
Ok, my mistake about the DOI, but youre still wrong conceptually. This pp is your problem right there. There is no such thing as an inherent right to make money. There is an inherent right to own property, but copyrights are not even that in the slightest. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from physical limits and mutual respect, the foundation of copyrights derives from kings who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. Rights do not come about because a law says so, like copyrights, they exist above government.
Oh and BTW I didn't spend 5K of my own money to get a RHCE Linux certification in 2000 because I was greedy and wanted free technology. I did it because when you understand that copyright is a bullshit regulation rather than a free market property right you understand that the institutions that rely on copyright will die and those that don't will prosper. (ps that bet has paid off serveral times over in cold hard cash - I wish I could say the same for my MSCE friends) Yeah, MS has a market cap of 0.5 trillion, but when push comes to shove - the golbal econ. puts out 10's of trillions per year.
oops, my mistake, I should have just said - the "I put effort into it" argument is a bullshit argument, the "it's property" agrument is a bullshit argument, the "i have no incentive argument" is a bullshit argument.
ouch that hurts. I'm dying to hear how I "should" have argued. I wasn't the one who brought up the race issue red herring trying to discredit jefferson on other things he said - at that point it was just begging to be said. This isn't about trolling other people on copyrights, it is to put things back into perspective where they belong. What the hell, a mans going to jail here for copying and nothing else.
And speaking of poor arguing technique, I'm not a warez pup. In fact, I an RHCE and barely use proprietary stuff at all. And I'm plenty happy listening to the tons of freely offered music out there that's not restricted. noone gives a hell about warez here, it's not about warez, it's about political liberty in the information age. It's about false property rights rotating arround incentive instead of physical limits in supply and demand. It's about controll over other peoples freedoms and nothing else. Bottom line, someone is going to the can for copying and that is offensive.
I made my point wether no matter how many other posts that are brought into it - ok, try reading this one here or try typing "bitter protest against copyrights" in any search engine. Simply put, I know what the hell I'm talking about. and fankly, you just need to be more forgiving in your redresses.
If I understand you correctly, writing a novel once, or developing a piece of software once, and selling multiple copies of same is bad. However, developing a web site once, and charging multiple people money to access the same web site isn't so bad? Seems the same to me: come up with an idea, implement it once, and then charge over and over again for the same thing.
I don't really have a problem with people controlling information at their disposal, but that's not what they want. They want to let the cat out of the bag, and have the right to sue crimanalize and harass everyone else in the universe who happens to make use or get ahold of that information after the fact. That paradigm might have been workable when the biggest copying issue was xerox machines, but it is totally unworkable in the information age.
no my analogy isn't flawed, people put hard work into allot of things, but that doesn't mean they have a god given right to a government imposed monopoly. the plantation master spent millions in resources importing slaves from africa - funny thing is, it wasn't about incentive, or property, but controll.
Ok, here's a fact. Not everybody can use something at the same time - to deal with that we come up with a set of rules called property. Deriving rights from incentives is a feeling , deriving right's from physical reality is a fact. Trying to treat something that is intangable just like something that isn't is the real bullshit morality and the definition of a fake scenario.
so you would have no problems with me coming over and stealing your car...
YES Please, do it. You can "steal" a COPY of my car any time.
What? You think you have a god given right to actually have exclusive use of your property?
you think you have a god given right to call whatever the hell you want "property".
that doesn't sound like a royality, or at least it doesn't sound like you make money by using the force of government to coerce what other people can or can not copy.
All are examples of were the decision to "give to the community" was made by the creator, instead of made "for them" by a pirate.
so what? and your point? they made that decision when they put their work out there in the big world to begin with.
Black people and people who might want to make money off of their intellectual endeavors have two things in common: they're glad that Thomas Jefferson isn't around to make laws today.
Funny thing is, about copyrights, I would think black people would know more than anybody that just because an institution calls somthing a property right or an incentive, and that it's healthy for the industry - it is a bullshit reason to have it. How about offering some other explanation other than "I want to sit on my ass an collect royalities."
maybe you worked your ass off 20 years to make mud pies. maybe you feel violated if someone copys one. so what - rights don't derive arround feelings. get used to it.
sounds dead on. That I am left with a copy of my property changes the meaning not the slighest.
What the hell are you talking about. If someone "stole" a replica of my car, you think I care. I can still get to work, I can still go to the store. If someone stole a replica of my jeans, you think I care, I won't be walking in to work naked tommorow.
what type of property rights have an expiration date anyhow? Copyrights are not a property right, they are a government granted monopoly - and while I can see why some people might want to just sit on their ass and collect royalities rather then face that their real services have less value then they think they do. This is not a right, and it is certainly not a property, and it is even less so workable in the information age.
The difference between cars and digital bits, are in the ease of duplicating and distributing exact copys of the original. If ST's replicator ever comes true. This truth will immediately become obvious.
I'm glad you mentioned that. Cuase if you stole my custom made house - I would be very violated, but if you stole a copy, then hell have two, im flatterted... No one is really violated (other than mabye an ego or two), It's bullshit morality. That is unless one believes that rights derive from perceptions and not facts.
maybe people will think this is a troll too. Do you own slaves? It amazes me how many time people half to have it pounded and pounded and beat into them that just because a system or institution calls somthing a free market property right - does not mean that it is. It would be more accurate to call copyrights a government regulation restricting how people can use information at their disposal.
Bringing the GPL into this is a red herring, the entire prupose of the GPL was to undo some of the damage caused by copyrights with copyrights. Fight fire with fire.
Finally, big companies who do not innovate use IP to lock out innovative competition far more than the other way arround. In fact, people who "do it for the money" are usually not good innovators. It's the people who do it for the meaning that innovate. Give them access to 10'million innovations that they didn't have access to before - stand back and watch what happens. Actually, you don't need to, it's happening now with Linux, p2p, and the internet.
Evidently this numbnut thought the payoff was worth the risk of punishment, so yes.
Since when does that have anything to do with the justice of the punishment. Some people get shot in the head for practicing the wrong religion, yeah they were willing to take the risk anyhow, so what?
If this dude was doing it for profit then he's no different in motivation to the corporations you're ranting about.
First, I don't care if he did it for profit, any more than I care if Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus for reward money. Illegal copying is illegal, but violates nobody, anyone who tells you otherwise is full of it.
Second, I don't care if a corporation does somthing for profit - if they do so without violating anyone else. However, if a corporation terrorizes and gets people imprisoned because they think they have a God given right to controll how people distribute certain pieces of information, then that violates all of us and should be punished.