The US Constitution makes it very clear that copyrights are not an inherent right, but merely a short term incentive designed to bring information into the public domain after a limited monopoly on copying is granted to the makers of a creative work.
Suggested Punishment:
It should be self evident that Microsoft has violated this trust, and as punishment the government should no longer be required to enforce their copyright holdings on the Windows NT/95,98 operating systems, Internet Explorer, and possibly MS Word.
This would be a very simple, but fair and effective punishment that would be self enforcing, require no oversight, and would provide intense motivation for this to never happen again.
From what I understand there are alot of new ways to convert to hydrogen from oil, methane, and gasolene.
Even if they had to just burn the feuls and use the energy to create hydrogen, it could done alot more efficently at a big central location, and having one place to controll emissions is more envirenmentally friendly too.
However, this goes way beyond oil though because it creates a hydrogen economey. Nuclear, solar, oil, methane, hydroelectric, would
for the first time ever be put on the same par in any energy market, ups and downs in any single supply would be much more managable to the consumer. The fact that hydrogen is so easy to convert back and forth from electricity is even better.
From those large unused frozen methane reserves in the ocean which could readially be converted to hydrogen, to nuclear power plants in unpopulated far off locations, to oil and coal fields, to solar panels on your roof - could all contribute to a universally interchangeable market.
As things stand now, an advance in solar technology or nuclear safety really wouldn't change your gasolene prices, just as advances in feul efficiency don't often reflect on your electricity bill. In a hodrogen economey, all this would change, and lead to a very dynamic and competitive market that would be much much harder to monopolize by any one company, country, or cartel. That in itself would drive down prices, boost economies, lead to more innovation which in turn would drive down prices more.
Now you can get black market stuff/drugs without halving to visit a dealer or them halving to know you. You walk arround with your cell phone (perpaid for privacy, of course, and with it's own stash of digital cash) When you get near the drug drop, it will indicate you are in a buying area and will allow you to put your digital cash in escro, upon payment you will get detailed instructions of how to get the stash and you will be prompted to release escro upon inspection.
For insurance measure, the stash could be connected to an acid/poison/ink discharge device
triggered by it's own cellphone that would destroy the commodity if not approved.
I haven't herd anyone point out that this is one reason why our intellectual property policy to China is so very dangerous.
Both the US and China are going to be pulled toward an Orwellian facisim as companies and powers desperate to force old-world ways of doing things will want to reach into every home to protect things like their "intellectual property" rights. However the US has a democracy and a partially working constitution that will make it much more difficult to take it to it's logical extreme - an Orwellian facisim. China does not, and by trying to break their cultural values about intellectual property rights, we are helping promote a very dangerous political situation for both them and us.
Seriously, we would all be better off, and AOL would benefit greatly beging a bonified member of the "hardware faction" rather than the "content faction". It would almost certainly put them up there with ATT and IBM. It may even make it so that geeks would like AOL, and promote open standards thru AOL? (Something I never thought I would concieve of in my lifetime, but what can you say - I never thought I would see the fall of communisim either)
Even so. It is questionable that the US should be imposing copyrights in the states. Imposing it overseas is just awfull, and the long term consequences could be devistating. If copyrights go to hell in the US, we still have a democracy and a constitution that protect us from an orwellian facisim that reaches into every home in the name of intellectual property protection. China and the Ukrane have no such stop gaps or weak ones, the consequences would have no limits as to how intrusive protection could get.
The fact is that the US has a lot of balls trying to impose these restrictions overseas when in fact they cant even do a good job of copyright enforcement at home. Why? Because Americans know it's a bullshit property right, and don't have one bit of guilt about copying freely. How many millions of illegal coppies did napster propigate? I bet you anything that it wasn't the Ukrane doing all those downloads.
It's true that many large companies are nearly as bad, but when push comes to shove - people still half to volunteer to give them money, that at least gives some sembalance of accountability.
Ironically, many large companies ar not totally accountable to market forces either because government tax and business regulations make it artifically difficult for competitors to start up or break into the market.
When I worked on a recent government contract, everyone I ran into just assumed that I would want to work there for the rest of my life. They also just assumed that I wanted a security clearence. I don't. I'd much rather be in an environment where I'm free to share what I know with whoever I want to share it with, and where every last anal probe of my private life is not imspected with a fine tooth comb to get some "elite" type of clearence that is likely to pigon-hole my career anyhow.
I saw my dad slave away for the government for 30 years+ of bullshit and politics, and seeing billions wasted without tangable real-world results. I cant stand the thought of it.
People there don't understand - this is not a normal market institution. You can be more efficient, effective, and competent - but that will get you nowhere in government because they are accountable to political forces and not market forces. The only one meere advantage that they have is that in some minute areas they are non-propriatory. Well dammit, with linux out on the business world now - and the comodity PC, that is not even a real advantage anymore.
They are wrong, it is not the government that drives the market, they are the followers, free enterprize is the leaders because they are accountable to real economics.
You're saying that if we set the length of copyright to 5 years, then artists and publishers will push to make it 10 years. By that logic, if we remove copyright, then artists and publishers will push to bring it back. What's the difference?
The difference is that by allowing any type of copyright, you are in effect saying that the problem isn't copyrights in general, but how they're applied. This is not true. The problem *is* a publuc belief in copyrights. The philosophy that people are somehow entitled to own and controll information is the root of all these problems.
You can bet your bottom dollar that this is what the people in hollywood believe, and that they intend to, and will, force it until their methods are rendered powerless. Anything other than getting rid of copyrights - will allow their current business model to stay in place, and set the stage for this to happen all over again. If I am going to half to fight this battle, let it be once and for all.
For crying out loud. You can't go telling someone that they have some type of inherent right and then turn arround and expect them to never to try and secure that right. If you allow any copyrights at all, then people are always going to try and drive it to it's logical conclusion that we are seeing today. The treatment of copyrights not as an incentive but a property.
This has happened before in American history too. Renember how slavery started out as indentured servitude. It was short term, not inherited, deeded people private property, and for blacks and whites. However, a few hundred or so years later, there were still large numbers of smart people who thought that throwing out slavery all together was too radical. That the slave states could get along with the free states. That the problem wasn't the idea of slavery, but how slaves were treated. Many people who hoped that inventions like the cottin gyn would provide the justification to elminiate slavery were heart broken to find that was rather used to leverage it's expansion over 100 times more.
Today the same is true with copyrights. A copyright that grants any imposition on free copying is just that, an imposition that now days is just not acceptable anymore. However, even more so - like in the history of slaves, a limited copyright is a foolish proposition, because it is not for us to decide. We can only react to how hard they'll push it, and every evidence is that they are willing to push it all the way.
That often even those who accept that there is nothing wrong with copying, think that it is some kind of sin to profit off of anothers work. Why? even fair use is not fair.
The desire to profit and prosper is so human, and so is the desire to copy and immitate. Copying another persons work and profiting from it does not deprive the originator of any of the same opportunities. In fact, perhaps it would be a motivator, or benefit the creator because it would bring them reputation.
Dropping Solaris for Linux would really save money
on
No Solaris 9 for x86
·
· Score: 1
Lets face it. People who buy Sun's do it more for the hardware than for the software. They would be far better off raising the hardware price, dropping Solaris, and switching to Linux on all the Sparcs. It would be much more cost efficient for their engineers to focus on optimizing the Linux kernel for Sparc then to try and force it with Solaris.
Their CEO is just going to half to face it that Sun will never be another Microsoft.
Being from Calif, I can tell you how bad things get when the government oversees the utilities.
Look they've screwed up the spectrum market, the phone market(no local competition), the gas market, the electiricty market(nearly ran it into bankruptcy), even the trash(no competition) and sewage (overspills) and transportation(gridlock) markets. PLEEEEEASE do not let them screw up the internet anymore than they already have.
Also, who'se to say that if they oversee connectivity into every home, that they also wont start regulating inappropiate content. NO. We all know the political pressures they're under. Lets just avoid the whole problem and not go there. Were not talking about enlightened researchers anymore like with ARPANET, no it would be run by purebread bureauocrats. God only knows how they'd screw it up. Since we can do it without the gov, we would be raving lunatics to put our balls in their hands. no no no and no!
Everyone keeps talking about chineese opportunity and investment, but the simple fact is that India is more accountable to westerm values and ways. They are a lot easier to deal with and make profit with, and alot more english friendly, and alot more politically friendly to the US.
As China grows, it is going to come under incredible political pressure as it's citizens become wealthier and have more expectations for freedom - the government will either become opressive internally or lash out (at Tiwan most likely) to channel this pressure away from the governemnt. In India this pressure will simply be channeled thru the democratic process.
Also, the US is far better off if China and India are struggeling against each other, than with the US.
There is a theoretical solution to this, using
quantum diodes and open source software it is possible to create an untapable system. The quantum diodes would be part of an optical based keyboard. When any photons are prematurely observed, the whole thing errors out.
The nature of open source software would make it difficult to add flaws that couldn't be detected if wanted. In fact, the encription program could do MD5 sums on the kernel and all parts of the OS that grap keystrokes making that impossible too.
Other ways like a video grab of the keyboard, or biometrics on the individual typing could be done too. But I think the simplest way would be with a smart card that had a mini ATM keyboard on it. The user would keep it in his wallet at all times, and key in a pin before using it - too many guesses would permanently disable it.
Stop posting lameass "boy this sucks" complaints on Slashdot, and, if you don't like this, complain.
This attitude is half the problem, it implies that any tenable solution comes via working thru the system - what a crock! The only way people are going to get real results is thru outright civil disobedience of intellectual property law.
When you just talk, that's all you're going to get back - bullshit. I am so sick and tired of self-proclaimed self-rightous clowns wanting me and others to direct our efforts to something so useless and so beholden to those who want to controll us. They would have Martin Luther King go on letter writing campaigns to klan funded congreeemen instead of gatherings and sit outs. No thank you.
Anybody who wants some real results will get far better milage by defying copyright laws, putting freenet servers on their systems, and doing the things you like doing for and with "free" (as in freedom) software as much as possible.
The REAL reason is because of currency trading
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
When you have a relatively small economic base (like say Hong Kong), and your currency is backed by the "good faith of the government" - it is possible for a group of billionaire investors to get together, call your bluff, and make a fortune when you can no longer back up your money. This is the real reason why everyone now has Euro fever. By putting everyone under one puffed up currency, "calling the bluff" takes allot more cash up-front and allot more risk. It is also the reason why strong economies like Britain and Switzerland are staying away.
The currency convince explanation is a farce. All the people who do real business in Europe have this automated by computer anyhow. Even though it will make things easier on the average citizen, it is actually poor economic and social policies that are holding Europe back.
Of course, the real solution is to have currencies backed by market value and not by the "good faith of governments". Eventually this is going to burn everybody, including the USA.
Another reason why copyrights must go
on
P2P in 2001
·
· Score: 2
Every indication is that the next generation internet is going to be P2P. Probably a freenet type model. If we have tough copyright enforcement, it will be at odds with this.
...
Knowledge should have no copyrights but there is a distinction to be made between a 'work' and the knowledge used to create that work. Those who simply immitate are doomed to mediocrity because we as people thrive on change and advancement....
Actually, after reading this I realized that you are right, but that copyrights lead to the immitation mediocrity that you're talking about. For example, if Linus kept controll over the copyright on the Linux kernel, then every kernel student after that would have started on their own kernel model from scratch, and his kernel (or their kernels) never would have evolved at such a high rate. The fact that he effectively gave up copyright controll over the kernel, and GPL'd it so that others could not fork off copyrights directly led to an exponentially larger knowledge base, so in that way the knowledge base is reverse proportional to the copyright base.
This would also explain how the large copyright base in the media is reverse proportional to its intellectual value.
Well, I have news for you. It is a birth right. The number one thing that all of us do from the day we're born is copy, take in, and immitate. There is nothing inherently wrong, destructive, or self centered about copying.
Copyrights are not what they're cracked up to be, and play ruin on those who have the most value to offer society. With a mathematician who could have otherwise coppied a math book and added a few of his own formulas, the copyright market forces him to waste his resources on creating an entirely new book as a seperate market offer. Meanwhile, the Madonna's of the world lavish in wealth while being a relatively unproductive tiny minority. Not that I care about her wealth, but am pissed that it comes at the expense of screwing over productive people.
and how MS leveraged them to lock out innovation all over the map
and how the music industry has used them to lock out any distribution channel that they don't approve of
and how the movie industry is trying to use them to region code the whole planet, and used them as an excuse to try and put a 15 year old who wanted to play DVD's on linux in jail
and how they lead to laws like the DMCA that have nothing to do with copying, but everything to do with speech
and about how they call it piracy, as if those who copy are aken to those who board ships beat and kill people
Yeah, I'm all for educating people!
1) It must be obvious to everyone that the DMCA is unconstitutional
2) DMCA type laws are never going to go away till we attack the root of the problem, copyrights
Unless you think that we're going to conjure up a propaganda machine the size of the movie industry, or that the government will suddenly start protecting liberties again, civil disobedience is the only way to go.
With copyrights it's not only easy, but is relatively low risk and does not require any violence at all. And I would argue that it doesn't even wrong creators and artists, it's not like it's plagiarism or that market share is some kind of moral right, or that copyrights even benefit artists more than publishers and distributors.
And when they throw the book at people who make coppies, it's likely to generate more and more backlash. I really think we should attack copyrights haed on, instead of the DMCA, because this is where the root of the problem is. As long as you have copyrights people are going to try to extend and secure them, hence the DMCA.
Hogwash. My view is espoused by vast numbers of people who create art, music and other forms of IP that often has immense value. Your view is espoused by people who want to deny creators the right to reap the fair market value of their work, as if you have some sort of God-given right to the product of MY talents and to use MY work for whatever purpose you see fit.
Yes I do, me making a copy doesn't deprive you of your work or the product of your talents in any way what so-ever. And that fact won't change because "vast numbers of people who create art, music and other forms of IP that often has immense value" believe otherwise. Nor does it change the fact that IP works against value creators at the expense of attention creators.
Your second point is even less cogent. The kind of information to which I refer isn't some generic product available in unlimited quantities, it is a finite amount of work produced by individual authors. As such, it not only has the prerequisite scarcity that determines value in the market, but qualitative value based on how "good" or "bad" the market perceives it to be. That's why an original Ansel Adams print will set you back a couple hundred thou, whilst a print of my latest masterpiece can be had for a couple hundred bucks.
And why a copy of Ansel Adams can be had for free at the same price as a copy of your latest masterpiece. Charging for something you do or physically have is alot differnet than charging everytime a 3rd party makes a copy. One has limited supply and the other nearly doesn't. If you can't deal with that reality, then you shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag.
Slashdot Mirror
Heres a copy of my letter:
Preface:
The US Constitution makes it very clear that copyrights are not an inherent right, but merely a short term incentive designed to bring information into the public domain after a limited monopoly on copying is granted to the makers of a creative work.
Suggested Punishment:
It should be self evident that Microsoft has violated this trust, and as punishment the government should no longer be required to enforce their copyright holdings on the Windows NT/95,98 operating systems, Internet Explorer, and possibly MS Word.
This would be a very simple, but fair and effective punishment that would be self enforcing, require no oversight, and would provide intense motivation for this to never happen again.
From what I understand there are alot of new ways to convert to hydrogen from oil, methane, and gasolene.
Even if they had to just burn the feuls and use the energy to create hydrogen, it could done alot more efficently at a big central location, and having one place to controll emissions is more envirenmentally friendly too.
However, this goes way beyond oil though because it creates a hydrogen economey. Nuclear, solar, oil, methane, hydroelectric, would for the first time ever be put on the same par in any energy market, ups and downs in any single supply would be much more managable to the consumer. The fact that hydrogen is so easy to convert back and forth from electricity is even better.
From those large unused frozen methane reserves in the ocean which could readially be converted to hydrogen, to nuclear power plants in unpopulated far off locations, to oil and coal fields, to solar panels on your roof - could all contribute to a universally interchangeable market.
As things stand now, an advance in solar technology or nuclear safety really wouldn't change your gasolene prices, just as advances in feul efficiency don't often reflect on your electricity bill. In a hodrogen economey, all this would change, and lead to a very dynamic and competitive market that would be much much harder to monopolize by any one company, country, or cartel. That in itself would drive down prices, boost economies, lead to more innovation which in turn would drive down prices more.
Now you can get black market stuff/drugs without halving to visit a dealer or them halving to know you. You walk arround with your cell phone (perpaid for privacy, of course, and with it's own stash of digital cash) When you get near the drug drop, it will indicate you are in a buying area and will allow you to put your digital cash in escro, upon payment you will get detailed instructions of how to get the stash and you will be prompted to release escro upon inspection.
For insurance measure, the stash could be connected to an acid/poison/ink discharge device triggered by it's own cellphone that would destroy the commodity if not approved.
Just a thought.
I haven't herd anyone point out that this is one reason why our intellectual property policy to China is so very dangerous.
Both the US and China are going to be pulled toward an Orwellian facisim as companies and powers desperate to force old-world ways of doing things will want to reach into every home to protect things like their "intellectual property" rights. However the US has a democracy and a partially working constitution that will make it much more difficult to take it to it's logical extreme - an Orwellian facisim. China does not, and by trying to break their cultural values about intellectual property rights, we are helping promote a very dangerous political situation for both them and us.
FREE YOUR CONTENT!!!!
Seriously, we would all be better off, and AOL would benefit greatly beging a bonified member of the "hardware faction" rather than the "content faction". It would almost certainly put them up there with ATT and IBM. It may even make it so that geeks would like AOL, and promote open standards thru AOL? (Something I never thought I would concieve of in my lifetime, but what can you say - I never thought I would see the fall of communisim either)
Even so. It is questionable that the US should be imposing copyrights in the states. Imposing it overseas is just awfull, and the long term consequences could be devistating. If copyrights go to hell in the US, we still have a democracy and a constitution that protect us from an orwellian facisim that reaches into every home in the name of intellectual property protection. China and the Ukrane have no such stop gaps or weak ones, the consequences would have no limits as to how intrusive protection could get.
The fact is that the US has a lot of balls trying to impose these restrictions overseas when in fact they cant even do a good job of copyright enforcement at home. Why? Because Americans know it's a bullshit property right, and don't have one bit of guilt about copying freely. How many millions of illegal coppies did napster propigate? I bet you anything that it wasn't the Ukrane doing all those downloads.
It's true that many large companies are nearly as bad, but when push comes to shove - people still half to volunteer to give them money, that at least gives some sembalance of accountability.
Ironically, many large companies ar not totally accountable to market forces either because government tax and business regulations make it artifically difficult for competitors to start up or break into the market.
When I worked on a recent government contract, everyone I ran into just assumed that I would want to work there for the rest of my life. They also just assumed that I wanted a security clearence. I don't. I'd much rather be in an environment where I'm free to share what I know with whoever I want to share it with, and where every last anal probe of my private life is not imspected with a fine tooth comb to get some "elite" type of clearence that is likely to pigon-hole my career anyhow.
I saw my dad slave away for the government for 30 years+ of bullshit and politics, and seeing billions wasted without tangable real-world results. I cant stand the thought of it.
People there don't understand - this is not a normal market institution. You can be more efficient, effective, and competent - but that will get you nowhere in government because they are accountable to political forces and not market forces. The only one meere advantage that they have is that in some minute areas they are non-propriatory. Well dammit, with linux out on the business world now - and the comodity PC, that is not even a real advantage anymore.
They are wrong, it is not the government that drives the market, they are the followers, free enterprize is the leaders because they are accountable to real economics.
You're saying that if we set the length of copyright to 5 years, then artists and publishers will push to make it 10 years. By that logic, if we remove copyright, then artists and publishers will push to bring it back. What's the difference?
The difference is that by allowing any type of copyright, you are in effect saying that the problem isn't copyrights in general, but how they're applied. This is not true. The problem *is* a publuc belief in copyrights. The philosophy that people are somehow entitled to own and controll information is the root of all these problems.
You can bet your bottom dollar that this is what the people in hollywood believe, and that they intend to, and will, force it until their methods are rendered powerless. Anything other than getting rid of copyrights - will allow their current business model to stay in place, and set the stage for this to happen all over again. If I am going to half to fight this battle, let it be once and for all.
For crying out loud. You can't go telling someone that they have some type of inherent right and then turn arround and expect them to never to try and secure that right. If you allow any copyrights at all, then people are always going to try and drive it to it's logical conclusion that we are seeing today. The treatment of copyrights not as an incentive but a property.
This has happened before in American history too. Renember how slavery started out as indentured servitude. It was short term, not inherited, deeded people private property, and for blacks and whites. However, a few hundred or so years later, there were still large numbers of smart people who thought that throwing out slavery all together was too radical. That the slave states could get along with the free states. That the problem wasn't the idea of slavery, but how slaves were treated. Many people who hoped that inventions like the cottin gyn would provide the justification to elminiate slavery were heart broken to find that was rather used to leverage it's expansion over 100 times more.
Today the same is true with copyrights. A copyright that grants any imposition on free copying is just that, an imposition that now days is just not acceptable anymore. However, even more so - like in the history of slaves, a limited copyright is a foolish proposition, because it is not for us to decide. We can only react to how hard they'll push it, and every evidence is that they are willing to push it all the way.
That often even those who accept that there is nothing wrong with copying, think that it is some kind of sin to profit off of anothers work. Why? even fair use is not fair.
The desire to profit and prosper is so human, and so is the desire to copy and immitate. Copying another persons work and profiting from it does not deprive the originator of any of the same opportunities. In fact, perhaps it would be a motivator, or benefit the creator because it would bring them reputation.
Lets face it. People who buy Sun's do it more for the hardware than for the software. They would be far better off raising the hardware price, dropping Solaris, and switching to Linux on all the Sparcs. It would be much more cost efficient for their engineers to focus on optimizing the Linux kernel for Sparc then to try and force it with Solaris.
Their CEO is just going to half to face it that Sun will never be another Microsoft.
Being from Calif, I can tell you how bad things get when the government oversees the utilities. Look they've screwed up the spectrum market, the phone market(no local competition), the gas market, the electiricty market(nearly ran it into bankruptcy), even the trash(no competition) and sewage (overspills) and transportation(gridlock) markets. PLEEEEEASE do not let them screw up the internet anymore than they already have.
Also, who'se to say that if they oversee connectivity into every home, that they also wont start regulating inappropiate content. NO. We all know the political pressures they're under. Lets just avoid the whole problem and not go there. Were not talking about enlightened researchers anymore like with ARPANET, no it would be run by purebread bureauocrats. God only knows how they'd screw it up. Since we can do it without the gov, we would be raving lunatics to put our balls in their hands. no no no and no!
Everyone keeps talking about chineese opportunity and investment, but the simple fact is that India is more accountable to westerm values and ways. They are a lot easier to deal with and make profit with, and alot more english friendly, and alot more politically friendly to the US.
As China grows, it is going to come under incredible political pressure as it's citizens become wealthier and have more expectations for freedom - the government will either become opressive internally or lash out (at Tiwan most likely) to channel this pressure away from the governemnt. In India this pressure will simply be channeled thru the democratic process.
Also, the US is far better off if China and India are struggeling against each other, than with the US.
There is a theoretical solution to this, using quantum diodes and open source software it is possible to create an untapable system. The quantum diodes would be part of an optical based keyboard. When any photons are prematurely observed, the whole thing errors out.
The nature of open source software would make it difficult to add flaws that couldn't be detected if wanted. In fact, the encription program could do MD5 sums on the kernel and all parts of the OS that grap keystrokes making that impossible too.
Other ways like a video grab of the keyboard, or biometrics on the individual typing could be done too. But I think the simplest way would be with a smart card that had a mini ATM keyboard on it. The user would keep it in his wallet at all times, and key in a pin before using it - too many guesses would permanently disable it.
Stop posting lameass "boy this sucks" complaints on Slashdot, and, if you don't like this, complain.
This attitude is half the problem, it implies that any tenable solution comes via working thru the system - what a crock! The only way people are going to get real results is thru outright civil disobedience of intellectual property law.
When you just talk, that's all you're going to get back - bullshit. I am so sick and tired of self-proclaimed self-rightous clowns wanting me and others to direct our efforts to something so useless and so beholden to those who want to controll us. They would have Martin Luther King go on letter writing campaigns to klan funded congreeemen instead of gatherings and sit outs. No thank you.
Anybody who wants some real results will get far better milage by defying copyright laws, putting freenet servers on their systems, and doing the things you like doing for and with "free" (as in freedom) software as much as possible.
When you have a relatively small economic base (like say Hong Kong), and your currency is backed by the "good faith of the government" - it is possible for a group of billionaire investors to get together, call your bluff, and make a fortune when you can no longer back up your money. This is the real reason why everyone now has Euro fever. By putting everyone under one puffed up currency, "calling the bluff" takes allot more cash up-front and allot more risk. It is also the reason why strong economies like Britain and Switzerland are staying away.
The currency convince explanation is a farce. All the people who do real business in Europe have this automated by computer anyhow. Even though it will make things easier on the average citizen, it is actually poor economic and social policies that are holding Europe back.
Of course, the real solution is to have currencies backed by market value and not by the "good faith of governments". Eventually this is going to burn everybody, including the USA.
Every indication is that the next generation internet is going to be P2P. Probably a freenet type model. If we have tough copyright enforcement, it will be at odds with this.
Actually, after reading this I realized that you are right, but that copyrights lead to the immitation mediocrity that you're talking about. For example, if Linus kept controll over the copyright on the Linux kernel, then every kernel student after that would have started on their own kernel model from scratch, and his kernel (or their kernels) never would have evolved at such a high rate. The fact that he effectively gave up copyright controll over the kernel, and GPL'd it so that others could not fork off copyrights directly led to an exponentially larger knowledge base, so in that way the knowledge base is reverse proportional to the copyright base.
This would also explain how the large copyright base in the media is reverse proportional to its intellectual value.
Well, I have news for you. It is a birth right. The number one thing that all of us do from the day we're born is copy, take in, and immitate. There is nothing inherently wrong, destructive, or self centered about copying.
Copyrights are not what they're cracked up to be, and play ruin on those who have the most value to offer society. With a mathematician who could have otherwise coppied a math book and added a few of his own formulas, the copyright market forces him to waste his resources on creating an entirely new book as a seperate market offer. Meanwhile, the Madonna's of the world lavish in wealth while being a relatively unproductive tiny minority. Not that I care about her wealth, but am pissed that it comes at the expense of screwing over productive people.
and how MS leveraged them to lock out innovation all over the map
and how the music industry has used them to lock out any distribution channel that they don't approve of
and how the movie industry is trying to use them to region code the whole planet, and used them as an excuse to try and put a 15 year old who wanted to play DVD's on linux in jail
and how they lead to laws like the DMCA that have nothing to do with copying, but everything to do with speech
and about how they call it piracy, as if those who copy are aken to those who board ships beat and kill people Yeah, I'm all for educating people!
This proves two things:
1) It must be obvious to everyone that the DMCA is unconstitutional
2) DMCA type laws are never going to go away till we attack the root of the problem, copyrights
Unless you think that we're going to conjure up a propaganda machine the size of the movie industry, or that the government will suddenly start protecting liberties again, civil disobedience is the only way to go.
With copyrights it's not only easy, but is relatively low risk and does not require any violence at all. And I would argue that it doesn't even wrong creators and artists, it's not like it's plagiarism or that market share is some kind of moral right, or that copyrights even benefit artists more than publishers and distributors.
And when they throw the book at people who make coppies, it's likely to generate more and more backlash. I really think we should attack copyrights haed on, instead of the DMCA, because this is where the root of the problem is. As long as you have copyrights people are going to try to extend and secure them, hence the DMCA.
Hogwash. My view is espoused by vast numbers of people who create art, music and other forms of IP that often has immense value. Your view is espoused by people who want to deny creators the right to reap the fair market value of their work, as if you have some sort of God-given right to the product of MY talents and to use MY work for whatever purpose you see fit.
Yes I do, me making a copy doesn't deprive you of your work or the product of your talents in any way what so-ever. And that fact won't change because "vast numbers of people who create art, music and other forms of IP that often has immense value" believe otherwise. Nor does it change the fact that IP works against value creators at the expense of attention creators.
Your second point is even less cogent. The kind of information to which I refer isn't some generic product available in unlimited quantities, it is a finite amount of work produced by individual authors. As such, it not only has the prerequisite scarcity that determines value in the market, but qualitative value based on how "good" or "bad" the market perceives it to be. That's why an original Ansel Adams print will set you back a couple hundred thou, whilst a print of my latest masterpiece can be had for a couple hundred bucks.
And why a copy of Ansel Adams can be had for free at the same price as a copy of your latest masterpiece. Charging for something you do or physically have is alot differnet than charging everytime a 3rd party makes a copy. One has limited supply and the other nearly doesn't. If you can't deal with that reality, then you shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag.