Who cares if you find it interesting? That's not the point. Here's the point: If Wikipedia publishes something that libels me, I ought to be able to sue both Wikipedia and the person that wrote that article. There is no reason why publications that use the net rather than newsprint should be exempt from the law.
As for me, it only takes one lie for me to walk away from a source. That's why i walked away from Wikipedia a long time ago. It seems a lot of Slashdot lovers defend it because they support the lame con-job philosophy behind it. They're suckers.
It isn't a matter of taking an engineering approach and counting errors.
It is a matter of publications like Wikipedia and Slashdot attempting to escape legal responsibility for inaccurate and libelous content that they publish. The only difference between publishing on the Internet versus publishing on paper is the difference in media. The net uses servers instead of paper. The notion that the net is a commn carrier is irrelevant. The net is just a bunch of fiber and cable.
Go one bellieving the on jobs foisted on investors, advertisers and customers. (Community? What community? Publications like Slashdot and Wikipedia are just like any other newspaper or magazine: they're in business to make money selling advertising. Just because they publish on a different medium doesn't obrogate their responsibilities. If someone started a hardcopy publication and said anyone can anonymously print anything and no editor will review, approve or reject it, and they'll depend solely on other anonymous people to edit and correct any false content...and then claim no legal responsiblity for any of that content, well, they'd be luahged at. And then victims of their lies would start suing. Just as victims of Wikipedia's lies should sue.
>> If you want a perfect ideal then instead of whining 'boycott it', propose something that would be perfect in all cases.
Typical moronic open source cant. it is not my responsibility to propose something "perfect". (Thaat's a word I didnt use, as you well know.) But, since you asked, for starters Wikipedia might hire professional editors and professional factcheckers who get paid to review copy for accuracy and avoidance of libel and sslander prior to publication.
>> there's quite a few places in the world where even Britanica is looked at as Western propaganda.
So what? If people want to believe their own lies, let them.
>. visit Wikipedia pretty much everyday to see what interesting...
If you want to be entertained, watch TV or buy an iPod or a comic book. An encyclopedia is supposed to be accurate, not "interesting".
I didn't call for Wikipedia to be closed. I just said ignore it.
By definition, an encyclopedia is where you go to learn somethng you don't know. If I go to Wikipedia and find lies and inaccuracies about things I do know, why should I trust it to inform me about things I don't know?
If you believe you're local newspaper has more lies and inaccuraccies than Wikipedia (I doubt it, since adults and professionals run your newspaper), then stop reading it.
Of course, he's right. Wikipedia allows anyone to publish anything on its global platform, with no assurance that the post is in any way accurate and truthful.
Wikipedia's apologists here have already mounted the usual lame retort: If you don't like it, just edit it. (An uncanny parallel to to equally lame rant frequently heard coming from the mouths and pens of equally arrogant and equally naive open source software fanatics: If you don't like it, just edit the code.)
People who purport to be running an online encyclopedia have a responsibilty to the public to ensure that their publication is accurate and free of libel and slander before it is released. Arguing that anyone can edit Wikipedia is equivalent to arguing that conventional newspapers can publish lies, libel and slander because their readers will "fix" it by complaining to the editors.
Wikipedia is premised on a bad idea poorly implemented, Wikipedia publishes lies and inaccuracies. Wikipedia has earned our mistrust and contempt. It is time to pull the plug: boycott it.
>> The rights did not exist before copyright became law, except as part of what society general grants...
Of course, these rights existed prior to copyright law. That's what a statement like "copyright only recognizes existing rights" means. You say you agree with that, and proceed to assert the opposite.
Society grants no rights, because it has no rights to give or to withhold. Our rights do not depend on society's largesse.
it is impossible for you to prevent me from making a copy of a work of your creation.
Not necessarily. In any case, someone's ability to commit a particular act, and someone else's inability to prevent them from acting in that way, have no bearing on the morality or legality of that action. You are prescribing an "If you can get away with it, it's OK" scenario.
Morally, as long as I do not try to either claim it as my own creation, or pass it off as being your original work, there is nothing wrong with this either, because absent prior arrangement there is no reason for you to expect that I wouldn't.
See above.
Most of your arguments are specious and peripheral. You have yet to explain how you acquire the right to do anything with something I make unless I transfer that right to you. It seems clear to me that, to refute my argument, you need to demonstrate how you acquire rights to an object I have not yet made. That is, you need to demonstrate how you acquire rights to my work either before I have made it or at the instant of its creation. I believe that demonstration is impossible.
>> Why would you claim ownership of a copy I make of something that you made. I clearly own it, as I made it."
Sophism.
Absent fair use, if I didn't give or sell to you the right to make that copy, then you don't have rights to it. That's the point: The creator of a work controls more than just the physical entity itself. The creator of a work also holds all the rights inherent in the work. The only way someone can acquire any of those rights is by transfer from the creator, either directly or through an intermediary such as a publisher who buys the rights from the creator.
So, if you have't acquired the right to make a copy of my work (which you do not acquire by buying it unless that right is explicity transferred), then the copy you make is illicit and unethical, and you clearly do not legitimately own it.
1. If you make something that is not origynal, it is not yours.
2. If you make a superficial alteration in something you did not create, it is not yours.
3. I do not insist that copyright grants any such rights. To the contrary, I insist that copyright only recognizes existing rights.
4. Legal systems have nothing to do with it.,
5. You have danced aroind the periphery, failing to address my core argument: That absent a prior arrangement, it is impossible for you to own, or claim rights to, an original wotk of my creation.
Why "either"? And why the continuing reference to copytight when my argument has nothing to do with copyright?
Copyright law -- it is only a law -- does not bear on who owns a created work at the moment of its creation. The examples you cite are instances of things that are either unoriginal, i.e., not created, or that cannot be published, i.e. "not fixeed in a tangible form of expression".
What copyright law does do is codify protection that a society gives to an original work's creator. That protection, as well as society's rights in the matter, all flow from the fundamental and natural fact that a work's creator owns and holds al rights to his work when he creates. In simplistic terms, if I make something, I own it. You can't own it unless ownership is transferred from me. You have no rights regarding anything I make unless those rights are transferred from me. Copyright law is the legal fframework by which those transfers are made.
Intellectual property, to me, is just as "real" as any other property. Whether or not "overly broad patents" are "stifling" innovation or whether or not DRM is responsible for the "gradual death" of fair use are other issues that are debatable and, frankly, interest me little. I do not question that abuse of the patent system exists and needs to be remedied; it is not an issue that concerns me. However, the existence of those abuses does not in any way justify taking a stance that asserts IP does not exist.
I don't accept you alteration of my analogy. The original post blamed the alleged problems caused by IP for the illegal and/or unethical activity of many people surrounding IP. That is absurd, of course, and is directly parallel with the assertion by supporters of any other criminal activity that the prpobem is not the crime but the law the criminalizes their behavior. E.g., decriminalize murder and, as if by magic, murder will cease to exist.
I'm not talking about ideas. Ideas do not equate to created works. Created works -- art, sheet music, recordings, novels, etc., -- are very real physcial objects. At some point in time, only a single, original copy of such a work exists. As I've explained, ownership of that object and all rights to it belong, at that point in time, to the work's creator. The only possible way for any of those rights or any degree of ownership of that orignal work to pass to anyone else is by transfer from the work's creator. That includes the right to make and distribute copies. (A work cannot exist in to places at once, no more than you or I can exist in two places at once. Copies of a work can obviously exist in man different places at the same time, but that is entirely different.)
Look, this is simple. It has nothing to do with copyright.
Before I can sell, give, or otherwise transfer something, I must, first, own it. I cannot give, sell or transfer that which I do not own. Neither can that larger collection of individuals called "society". If I make something, i.e., if it does not exist until I create it, it follows that, first, I must own it as well as possess all rights inherent in that work, and, second, no one else can own it or hold any rights to it, because it is impossible to own or hold rights to something that does not exist.
Therefore, if someone is is to acquire any degree of ownership of my creation, or any rights to it, they must receive them from me. All rights, all degrees of ownership, must come from the work's creator; there is simply no other place where they can originate. (You acknolwdge this by use of the word "relinquish".) If I choose not to relinquish my ownership or transfer any rights, then my creation, in the context of this discussion, remains "unfree".
All rights to a creation intially belong exclusively to the work's creator, they are private, and no one else can acquire any of those rights unless they are transferred by the work's creator. It is pointless to discuss a societal grant of rights to a work's creator, because any rights society may hold to a work originated with the work's creator, and were tranferred to society by that individual.
The public, or society, cannot grant rights to an author, for any reason, because, in this instance, society has no rights to grant. How can society grant rights to a creation unless it holds those rights in the first place? The answer: it cannot, because society cannot hold rights to a work authored by an individual unless that individual transfer rights to it. The rights come into existence only when the work is created. Society creates no works, therefore it creates no rights.
The issue isn't "problems being caused by the concept of 'intellectual property'". That's tantamount to declaring the problem of theft is due to the concept of ownership.
The problem is a lot of people are justifying abuse of property they do not own and the exercise of rights they do not have by pointing to legitimate concepts of openness that have been deliberately bastardized to serve their own selfish interests.
All information is unfree at the moment of creation. Whatever degree of right and ownership the rest of us may later obtain is solely determined by the information's creator. Even the code written by Richard Stallman is unfree at the moment he writes it. The code is his exclusive intellecctual property and it beomes free only when he makes it. No one else has that power.
Only the fact that authors like Stallman have these exclusive rights allows them to relinquish or transfer those rights to others, because you cannot give away soemthing that you do not possess.
Claims that people who buy a book or DVD own that property and can do with it what they please are true. But, they only own a stack of paper with words printed on it, or a piece of plastic with digital code embedded on it. They do not own the story created by the author of the book, or the music and melody created by the artists on that DVD. Those are the true creative IP of their creators, and they are much different than random symbols printed on paper or random digital bits embedded on a plastic wafer. Anyone can scribble out millions of lines of Lisp sytnax, but Stallman's emacs is the result of his creative effort, not his ability to bang out random Lisp suntax on a keyboard. Stalman has chosen to make the code to his emacs free, according to the conditions of his license. But, emacs itself remains his.
Stallman chose to relinquish most of the rights to his code. That was only possible because he owned all those rights. Other creators of information choose, likewise, to relinquish some of the rights they own. The fact that, most commonly, authors and publishers retain the right to copy and distribute their works differs only in degree, not principle, from Stallman's approach.
If you have no assets to protect, then it is rather easy to claim that you'd ignore "simple words". But, of your livelihood, or the reputatioin of members of your family, were at stake, you might think differently. If you ran, for example, a restaurant, and a blogger posted a story alleging that he found dead roaches in your food, would you remain so unconcerned while your business withered away? If some adolescent blogger published defamatory comments about your child which provoked physical attacks on her, would your still walk away?
I don't disagree that people should have more freedom. But, taking away freedoms, like the freedom to prote t ourselves from the consequences of liel and slander, isn't the right way. You'd only be taking away the freedoms of people with whom you disagree, not increasing your own freedoms. As I've said, the right to free speech does not include the right to libel and slander.
And good luck with dealing with the consequences of violating laws you don't support. It usually involves jail time.
I don't know if the wonen commited libel or slander. I don't care. it isn't important to me. i do know that no amount of praise or awards is a guarantee that she did not. I don't now what she wrote that is at issue. If she wrote something innocuous, then she should have not trouble finding lawyers to represent her in a countersuit.
Nor am I concerned about whether or not what she did is "right". What is right and what is wrong is a matter of individual judgement. If you believe you are right and the law says you are wrong, then you ought to be willing to deal with the consequences.
What I am concerned about is people who assume that the technology used to publish should, somehow, reduce or eliminate the publisher's legal responsibility for what they say. It shouldn't. People who publish on the web cannot escape the consequences of libeling or slandering people.
As for the rest of your hyperbolic rhetoric, it is irrelevant to the specific topic under discussion. I could agree with everything you say, and it would not change my opinion, first, that people who publish on the web cannot and should not avoid legal responsibility for their words, and, second, that there is no rational reason to assume that this woman did or did not engage in libel or slander without seeing the specific text at issue. Someone can publish a million unexeceptoinal words a day for decades, but still libel or slander someone in a few short sentences.All those decades of innocuous words would be irrelevant.
If you want to "change" things, let's hear how you would ban corporations from suing while protecting the right of the rest of us to protect ourselves from libel and slander. Or, is it that you don't think that's important, either?
You're wrong. (Surprise!) Our genetic structure evolved in an environment that saw our ancestors ingesting chemicals and nutrients from meat, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. I'm suggesting that ingestion of chemicals and nutirents that were not available to our evolutionary ancestors is liable to get us into trouble.
My theory: If our illustrious evoltionary ancestors weren't eating or drinking it hundreds of thousands and millions of years ago while they were genetically mutating their way toward homo sapiens, then "it" probably isn't good for us. Or, at worst, is actually harmful.
Parroting is a common technique seen on Slahdot. It is childish because it is often used by children to rebut the arguments of their parents and other adults who might actually know what they're talking about. It almost always fails because simple word replacement doesn't construct a logical argument.
The point is this: There is no relationship between free speech and litigation. We have always been a litigious society, even in the colonial era. Suing someone because they slander or libel you does not restrict their speech. Free speech does not include the right to engage in libel or slander.
The other poit is this: Anyone who publishs on the internet is playing by the same rules as people publishing in older media. The technology used to publish does not, and should not, change the law. Someone who posts their stories to a blog has no more, or less, protection that someone whose stories appear in a newspaper.
No one, including you, who posts here linking litigation to free speech restriction -- usually in cases involving a business and an allegedly helpless individual -- ever proposes a reasonable alternaive to the current situation or, in fact, demonstrates a cause-and-effect relationship between the suit and that individual's free speech. Allusions to corporate "armies of lawyers" are beside the point, If someone can convincingly demonstrate they did not engage in slander or libel, they will have no trouble finding lawyers to defend them, who will expect to draw their fees from the proceeds of a successful countersuit.
People lie. There's no reason to believe that bloggers don't engage in libel or slander as much as the rest of us.
No, I'm not saying it is valid. Neither am I saying it is invalid. I have no idea if the woman's claims are "valid" or not. I don't care. If they are valid, the woman will have no trouble finding and paying her own army of lawyers to defend agaiinst the suit. If they aren't, then the women deserves to lose.
Protecting the right of each of us to sue for libel and slander is just as important as protecting the right of this woman to publish, even if that means allowing corporations that offend our delicate sensibilities to also take advantage of that right.
Remember, a government that can prevent corporations from suing can also prevent you from speaking your mind.
Nice parrot. Any other tricks you do? Or haven't you moved beyond that in the thrid grade?
This isn't a free speech issue. Nothing has happened that has limited this person's freedom to speak or write what she pleases. Free speech does not include the right to slander or libel. You have a right to say what you wish, and I have an equal right to sue you if I believe you've slandered or libeled me. One right has nothing to do with the other.
Being sued has always been a risk of publishing. New technology, like blogging, changes nothing. The fact is that lots of people lie, and the threat of bringing suit is about the only way to protect your reputation.
There is a kneejerk tendency to assume this is an innocent blogger versus an evil corporation. Maybe, maybe not. If she's can convincingly argue that she did not commit libel, lawyers will be lining up at her door with thoughts of huge percentages in their heads. If she can't convince a lawyer who wants her to win, maybe we ought to reconsider the merits of the corporation's claims.
Publishing is publishing, whether you're the NYT or someone's cat blog. No one gets, or deserves, a free pass. Anyone unprepared to deal with the consequences ought not to publish.
Offering gratis but capable versions of closed proprietary software may or may not turn out to be a good marketing move, but it would certainly separate those who like FOSS from those who like freebies. Given the fact that the vast majority of FOSS users have no interest in modifiying source code, or the capability, I suspect most of us fall into the freebie camp.
Slashdot Mirror
Who cares if you find it interesting? That's not the point. Here's the point: If Wikipedia publishes something that libels me, I ought to be able to sue both Wikipedia and the person that wrote that article. There is no reason why publications that use the net rather than newsprint should be exempt from the law.
As for me, it only takes one lie for me to walk away from a source. That's why i walked away from Wikipedia a long time ago. It seems a lot of Slashdot lovers defend it because they support the lame con-job philosophy behind it. They're suckers.
It isn't a matter of taking an engineering approach and counting errors.
It is a matter of publications like Wikipedia and Slashdot attempting to escape legal responsibility for inaccurate and libelous content that they publish. The only difference between publishing on the Internet versus publishing on paper is the difference in media. The net uses servers instead of paper. The notion that the net is a commn carrier is irrelevant. The net is just a bunch of fiber and cable.
Ok, have your fun, sucker. Go on believing lies.
Go one bellieving the on jobs foisted on investors, advertisers and customers. (Community? What community? Publications like Slashdot and Wikipedia are just like any other newspaper or magazine: they're in business to make money selling advertising. Just because they publish on a different medium doesn't obrogate their responsibilities. If someone started a hardcopy publication and said anyone can anonymously print anything and no editor will review, approve or reject it, and they'll depend solely on other anonymous people to edit and correct any false content...and then claim no legal responsiblity for any of that content, well, they'd be luahged at. And then victims of their lies would start suing. Just as victims of Wikipedia's lies should sue.
>> If you want a perfect ideal then instead of whining 'boycott it', propose something that would be perfect in all cases.
Typical moronic open source cant. it is not my responsibility to propose something "perfect". (Thaat's a word I didnt use, as you well know.) But, since you asked, for starters Wikipedia might hire professional editors and professional factcheckers who get paid to review copy for accuracy and avoidance of libel and sslander prior to publication.
>> there's quite a few places in the world where even Britanica is looked at as Western propaganda.
So what? If people want to believe their own lies, let them.
>. visit Wikipedia pretty much everyday to see what interesting...
If you want to be entertained, watch TV or buy an iPod or a comic book. An encyclopedia is supposed to be accurate, not "interesting".
I didn't call for Wikipedia to be closed. I just said ignore it.
By definition, an encyclopedia is where you go to learn somethng you don't know. If I go to Wikipedia and find lies and inaccuracies about things I do know, why should I trust it to inform me about things I don't know?
If you believe you're local newspaper has more lies and inaccuraccies than Wikipedia (I doubt it, since adults and professionals run your newspaper), then stop reading it.
Of course, he's right. Wikipedia allows anyone to publish anything on its global platform, with no assurance that the post is in any way accurate and truthful.
Wikipedia's apologists here have already mounted the usual lame retort: If you don't like it, just edit it. (An uncanny parallel to to equally lame rant frequently heard coming from the mouths and pens of equally arrogant and equally naive open source software fanatics: If you don't like it, just edit the code.)
People who purport to be running an online encyclopedia have a responsibilty to the public to ensure that their publication is accurate and free of libel and slander before it is released. Arguing that anyone can edit Wikipedia is equivalent to arguing that conventional newspapers can publish lies, libel and slander because their readers will "fix" it by complaining to the editors.
Wikipedia is premised on a bad idea poorly implemented, Wikipedia publishes lies and inaccuracies. Wikipedia has earned our mistrust and contempt. It is time to pull the plug: boycott it.
>> The rights did not exist before copyright became law, except as part of what society general grants...
Of course, these rights existed prior to copyright law. That's what a statement like "copyright only recognizes existing rights" means. You say you agree with that, and proceed to assert the opposite.
Society grants no rights, because it has no rights to give or to withhold. Our rights do not depend on society's largesse.
it is impossible for you to prevent me from making a copy of a work of your creation.
Not necessarily. In any case, someone's ability to commit a particular act, and someone else's inability to prevent them from acting in that way, have no bearing on the morality or legality of that action. You are prescribing an "If you can get away with it, it's OK" scenario.
Morally, as long as I do not try to either claim it as my own creation, or pass it off as being your original work, there is nothing wrong with this either, because absent prior arrangement there is no reason for you to expect that I wouldn't.
See above.
Most of your arguments are specious and peripheral. You have yet to explain how you acquire the right to do anything with something I make unless I transfer that right to you. It seems clear to me that, to refute my argument, you need to demonstrate how you acquire rights to an object I have not yet made. That is, you need to demonstrate how you acquire rights to my work either before I have made it or at the instant of its creation. I believe that demonstration is impossible.
>> Why would you claim ownership of a copy I make of something that you made. I clearly own it, as I made it."
Sophism.
Absent fair use, if I didn't give or sell to you the right to make that copy, then you don't have rights to it. That's the point: The creator of a work controls more than just the physical entity itself. The creator of a work also holds all the rights inherent in the work. The only way someone can acquire any of those rights is by transfer from the creator, either directly or through an intermediary such as a publisher who buys the rights from the creator.
So, if you have't acquired the right to make a copy of my work (which you do not acquire by buying it unless that right is explicity transferred), then the copy you make is illicit and unethical, and you clearly do not legitimately own it.
1. If you make something that is not origynal, it is not yours.
2. If you make a superficial alteration in something you did not create, it is not yours.
3. I do not insist that copyright grants any such rights. To the contrary, I insist that copyright only recognizes existing rights.
4. Legal systems have nothing to do with it.,
5. You have danced aroind the periphery, failing to address my core argument: That absent a prior arrangement, it is impossible for you to own, or claim rights to, an original wotk of my creation.
1. Many who post here take that stance.
2. The original post, esspecially the headline, not necessarily the article it referenced.
3. You still haven't effectively countered my core argument: What I make, I own, not you.
Why "either"? And why the continuing reference to copytight when my argument has nothing to do with copyright?
Copyright law -- it is only a law -- does not bear on who owns a created work at the moment of its creation. The examples you cite are instances of things that are either unoriginal, i.e., not created, or that cannot be published, i.e. "not fixeed in a tangible form of expression".
What copyright law does do is codify protection that a society gives to an original work's creator. That protection, as well as society's rights in the matter, all flow from the fundamental and natural fact that a work's creator owns and holds al rights to his work when he creates. In simplistic terms, if I make something, I own it. You can't own it unless ownership is transferred from me. You have no rights regarding anything I make unless those rights are transferred from me. Copyright law is the legal fframework by which those transfers are made.
Intellectual property, to me, is just as "real" as any other property. Whether or not "overly broad patents" are "stifling" innovation or whether or not DRM is responsible for the "gradual death" of fair use are other issues that are debatable and, frankly, interest me little. I do not question that abuse of the patent system exists and needs to be remedied; it is not an issue that concerns me. However, the existence of those abuses does not in any way justify taking a stance that asserts IP does not exist.
I don't accept you alteration of my analogy. The original post blamed the alleged problems caused by IP for the illegal and/or unethical activity of many people surrounding IP. That is absurd, of course, and is directly parallel with the assertion by supporters of any other criminal activity that the prpobem is not the crime but the law the criminalizes their behavior. E.g., decriminalize murder and, as if by magic, murder will cease to exist.
I'm not talking about ideas. Ideas do not equate to created works. Created works -- art, sheet music, recordings, novels, etc., -- are very real physcial objects. At some point in time, only a single, original copy of such a work exists. As I've explained, ownership of that object and all rights to it belong, at that point in time, to the work's creator. The only possible way for any of those rights or any degree of ownership of that orignal work to pass to anyone else is by transfer from the work's creator. That includes the right to make and distribute copies. (A work cannot exist in to places at once, no more than you or I can exist in two places at once. Copies of a work can obviously exist in man different places at the same time, but that is entirely different.)
Look, this is simple. It has nothing to do with copyright.
Before I can sell, give, or otherwise transfer something, I must, first, own it. I cannot give, sell or transfer that which I do not own. Neither can that larger collection of individuals called "society". If I make something, i.e., if it does not exist until I create it, it follows that, first, I must own it as well as possess all rights inherent in that work, and, second, no one else can own it or hold any rights to it, because it is impossible to own or hold rights to something that does not exist.
Therefore, if someone is is to acquire any degree of ownership of my creation, or any rights to it, they must receive them from me. All rights, all degrees of ownership, must come from the work's creator; there is simply no other place where they can originate. (You acknolwdge this by use of the word "relinquish".) If I choose not to relinquish my ownership or transfer any rights, then my creation, in the context of this discussion, remains "unfree".
All rights to a creation intially belong exclusively to the work's creator, they are private, and no one else can acquire any of those rights unless they are transferred by the work's creator. It is pointless to discuss a societal grant of rights to a work's creator, because any rights society may hold to a work originated with the work's creator, and were tranferred to society by that individual.
The public, or society, cannot grant rights to an author, for any reason, because, in this instance, society has no rights to grant. How can society grant rights to a creation unless it holds those rights in the first place? The answer: it cannot, because society cannot hold rights to a work authored by an individual unless that individual transfer rights to it. The rights come into existence only when the work is created. Society creates no works, therefore it creates no rights.
The issue isn't "problems being caused by the concept of 'intellectual property'". That's tantamount to declaring the problem of theft is due to the concept of ownership.
The problem is a lot of people are justifying abuse of property they do not own and the exercise of rights they do not have by pointing to legitimate concepts of openness that have been deliberately bastardized to serve their own selfish interests.
All information is unfree at the moment of creation. Whatever degree of right and ownership the rest of us may later obtain is solely determined by the information's creator. Even the code written by Richard Stallman is unfree at the moment he writes it. The code is his exclusive intellecctual property and it beomes free only when he makes it. No one else has that power.
Only the fact that authors like Stallman have these exclusive rights allows them to relinquish or transfer those rights to others, because you cannot give away soemthing that you do not possess.
Claims that people who buy a book or DVD own that property and can do with it what they please are true. But, they only own a stack of paper with words printed on it, or a piece of plastic with digital code embedded on it. They do not own the story created by the author of the book, or the music and melody created by the artists on that DVD. Those are the true creative IP of their creators, and they are much different than random symbols printed on paper or random digital bits embedded on a plastic wafer. Anyone can scribble out millions of lines of Lisp sytnax, but Stallman's emacs is the result of his creative effort, not his ability to bang out random Lisp suntax on a keyboard. Stalman has chosen to make the code to his emacs free, according to the conditions of his license. But, emacs itself remains his.
Stallman chose to relinquish most of the rights to his code. That was only possible because he owned all those rights. Other creators of information choose, likewise, to relinquish some of the rights they own. The fact that, most commonly, authors and publishers retain the right to copy and distribute their works differs only in degree, not principle, from Stallman's approach.
Geeks always have been mainstream. Often annoying, but still mainstream.
At least, the one's with an income.
If you have no assets to protect, then it is rather easy to claim that you'd ignore "simple words". But, of your livelihood, or the reputatioin of members of your family, were at stake, you might think differently. If you ran, for example, a restaurant, and a blogger posted a story alleging that he found dead roaches in your food, would you remain so unconcerned while your business withered away? If some adolescent blogger published defamatory comments about your child which provoked physical attacks on her, would your still walk away?
I don't disagree that people should have more freedom. But, taking away freedoms, like the freedom to prote t ourselves from the consequences of liel and slander, isn't the right way. You'd only be taking away the freedoms of people with whom you disagree, not increasing your own freedoms. As I've said, the right to free speech does not include the right to libel and slander.
And good luck with dealing with the consequences of violating laws you don't support. It usually involves jail time.
I don't know if the wonen commited libel or slander. I don't care. it isn't important to me. i do know that no amount of praise or awards is a guarantee that she did not. I don't now what she wrote that is at issue. If she wrote something innocuous, then she should have not trouble finding lawyers to represent her in a countersuit.
Nor am I concerned about whether or not what she did is "right". What is right and what is wrong is a matter of individual judgement. If you believe you are right and the law says you are wrong, then you ought to be willing to deal with the consequences.
What I am concerned about is people who assume that the technology used to publish should, somehow, reduce or eliminate the publisher's legal responsibility for what they say. It shouldn't. People who publish on the web cannot escape the consequences of libeling or slandering people.
As for the rest of your hyperbolic rhetoric, it is irrelevant to the specific topic under discussion. I could agree with everything you say, and it would not change my opinion, first, that people who publish on the web cannot and should not avoid legal responsibility for their words, and, second, that there is no rational reason to assume that this woman did or did not engage in libel or slander without seeing the specific text at issue. Someone can publish a million unexeceptoinal words a day for decades, but still libel or slander someone in a few short sentences.All those decades of innocuous words would be irrelevant.
If you want to "change" things, let's hear how you would ban corporations from suing while protecting the right of the rest of us to protect ourselves from libel and slander. Or, is it that you don't think that's important, either?
You're wrong. (Surprise!) Our genetic structure evolved in an environment that saw our ancestors ingesting chemicals and nutrients from meat, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. I'm suggesting that ingestion of chemicals and nutirents that were not available to our evolutionary ancestors is liable to get us into trouble.
My theory: If our illustrious evoltionary ancestors weren't eating or drinking it hundreds of thousands and millions of years ago while they were genetically mutating their way toward homo sapiens, then "it" probably isn't good for us. Or, at worst, is actually harmful.
Parroting is a common technique seen on Slahdot. It is childish because it is often used by children to rebut the arguments of their parents and other adults who might actually know what they're talking about. It almost always fails because simple word replacement doesn't construct a logical argument.
The point is this: There is no relationship between free speech and litigation. We have always been a litigious society, even in the colonial era. Suing someone because they slander or libel you does not restrict their speech. Free speech does not include the right to engage in libel or slander.
The other poit is this: Anyone who publishs on the internet is playing by the same rules as people publishing in older media. The technology used to publish does not, and should not, change the law. Someone who posts their stories to a blog has no more, or less, protection that someone whose stories appear in a newspaper.
No one, including you, who posts here linking litigation to free speech restriction -- usually in cases involving a business and an allegedly helpless individual -- ever proposes a reasonable alternaive to the current situation or, in fact, demonstrates a cause-and-effect relationship between the suit and that individual's free speech. Allusions to corporate "armies of lawyers" are beside the point, If someone can convincingly demonstrate they did not engage in slander or libel, they will have no trouble finding lawyers to defend them, who will expect to draw their fees from the proceeds of a successful countersuit.
People lie. There's no reason to believe that bloggers don't engage in libel or slander as much as the rest of us.
No, I'm not saying it is valid. Neither am I saying it is invalid. I have no idea if the woman's claims are "valid" or not. I don't care. If they are valid, the woman will have no trouble finding and paying her own army of lawyers to defend agaiinst the suit. If they aren't, then the women deserves to lose.
Protecting the right of each of us to sue for libel and slander is just as important as protecting the right of this woman to publish, even if that means allowing corporations that offend our delicate sensibilities to also take advantage of that right.
Remember, a government that can prevent corporations from suing can also prevent you from speaking your mind.
Nice parrot. Any other tricks you do? Or haven't you moved beyond that in the thrid grade?
This isn't a free speech issue. Nothing has happened that has limited this person's freedom to speak or write what she pleases. Free speech does not include the right to slander or libel. You have a right to say what you wish, and I have an equal right to sue you if I believe you've slandered or libeled me. One right has nothing to do with the other.
Being sued has always been a risk of publishing. New technology, like blogging, changes nothing. The fact is that lots of people lie, and the threat of bringing suit is about the only way to protect your reputation.
There is a kneejerk tendency to assume this is an innocent blogger versus an evil corporation. Maybe, maybe not. If she's can convincingly argue that she did not commit libel, lawyers will be lining up at her door with thoughts of huge percentages in their heads. If she can't convince a lawyer who wants her to win, maybe we ought to reconsider the merits of the corporation's claims.
Publishing is publishing, whether you're the NYT or someone's cat blog. No one gets, or deserves, a free pass. Anyone unprepared to deal with the consequences ought not to publish.
Offering gratis but capable versions of closed proprietary software may or may not turn out to be a good marketing move, but it would certainly separate those who like FOSS from those who like freebies. Given the fact that the vast majority of FOSS users have no interest in modifiying source code, or the capability, I suspect most of us fall into the freebie camp.