1. The rainbow analogy is inappropriate. The rainbow is not a work created by anyone. On the other hand, if I create an image of a rainbow, then I own that object and all rights inherent in it. You, as well as everyone else, have no right to copy it unless I give you that right. That doesn't stop you from creating your own rainbow image, it just means that if you want the right to duplicate my image you'll have to get it from me.
2. Ditto the woman analogy. The woman is not a created work. Nor do privacy issues have anything to do with my point: That the creator of a work is the sole source of the right to make copies of that work.
3. Copying a DVD to VHS: Whether it is or is not copyright infringement depends on how the fair use clause is applied. But, again, it is not an appropriate analigy, since I am not talking about copyright infringement. My argument holds for any created work, whether or not it is copyrightable or not.
4. Selling multiple unauthorized copies of DVD's: The fact that this is considered copyright infringement means that the law recognizes that all rights to a created work originally belong to the work's creator. The law does not create those rights, it simply recognizes reality. The fact that different countries have different copyright laws only illustrates that laws do not create rights. The fact that a country allows people to copy and distribute a work without the permission of the work's creator does not mean that they have the right to do that. It only means the law says it is legal. There is no necessary agreement between the rights we hold and the law in any given country.
5. You can't copy information. Or an idea. Or an emotion. All that is physically impossible because they are intangibles. You must copy something physical. If I create something and I want to sell to someone else the right to make and sell copies of my work, I cannot do that unless my work exists as a physicial object that can be copied. This is the case if I've created a book or a chair. In the first case, I sell certain of my rights to a publisher. In the second case, I sell the same rights to a furniture manufacturer. The principle is exactly the same.
6. So, it all comes down to the same thing: All rights to copy an object derive from the object's creator. Simply put, there is no place else from which to acquire that right. You have not suggested an alternative source for that right.
The issue isn't about copying information. The issue is about copying physical objects. Whether the object in question is a book, a clay pot, a crude whittled stick, or a door mat, the object's creator owns the right to make and distribute copies. No one else can acquire that right unless the object's creator gives it to them.
In other words, there is only one source of the right to copy and distribute a work: the work's creator.
People who believe they have a right to copy and distribute a work absent the consent of the work's creator need to explain the source of that right. Otherwise, they're just playing word games to rationalize theft.
No, people do not have the right to make and distribute copies of a work because they "have the information". We are not talking about information. We are talking about making and distributing copies of physical objects. It is not relevant if the object is a book, a CD track, a kitchen table, or a clay pot. Whether or not the object conveys information is equally irrelevant.
That point is that the work's creator owns the right to copy distribute the original. If he does not transfer that right to someone else, then they do not have the right to make and distribute copies.
You've avoided the key issue, while bringing up peripheral issues.
The person who writes a book (or who creates any other type of object) owns and has exclusive rights to that book's original, single, manuscript. Therefore, how does someone acquire, from the author, the right to copy and distribute the book? It seems self-evident that that right must be transfer from the author to that other person. Simply put, there is no other way to acquire that right.
Typically, authors sell a publisher the right to copy and market their books, usually for a period of time specified by contract. Publishers, in turn, sell copies of the books to the public. But, publishers do not sell the right to copy and distribute the book. That right belongs to the publisher for the duration of the contract with the author.
So, as you see, this has nothing to do with libraries, borrowing a book from a friend, or otherwise doing what you call "reading-for-free". I am simply asking those who claim an ethical right to copy and distribute books, music, etc., how they acquired that right. Obviously, I don't believe they can honestly answer that question unless they can demomstrate that the work's author deliberately tranferred that right to them.
Like most of these other losers, you are under the delusion that my right to control something I make depend on some law. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If I write a book, no one has a right to copy and distribute my original manuscript unless I give them that right. If I want to, I can sell that right to a publisher. But that doesn't mean anyone who buys a book from the publisher also buys the right to copy it. If I want to sell or give you that right, I will. IF I don't, you don't have that right.
If you disagree, explain how you get that right. I don't believe you can unless it comes from me.
Meanwhile, all this talk of corporations and copyright law is either a demonstration of ignorance or a deliberate subtrefuge.
If I write a book, it originally exists only as a manuscript or a computer file. You have no right to it. No one does, except me. That's not established by a law or any state. That is simply reality.
The only way a publisher gets the right to print and sell copies of my book is from me, in return for cash. No one else gets that right. I sell the right to make and distribute copies to a single publisher, not you. What you get to buy are copies of my book, not the right to copy it.
If you think you have a right to copy and give away copies of my book, tell the world how you got that right. Tell the world how you got that right when it is mine and I haven't given or sold it to you.
I know we're supposed to get weepy eyed because you say you're just "sharing" what you bought with your friends. But that's not true. You haven't bought the right to make copies of anything.
That's just more deliberate conspiracy-mongering by the loons who run Slashdot. Their position, and that of the crowd they want to attract is this: We don't agree with copyright law, so we think we ought to be allowed to violate the law with impunity and that anyone who enforces the law in their own interests is a Greedy Bastard.
None of these clowns ever manages to explain how they obtain rights that they haven't purchased and that no one has given them. They're pretending that buying a copy of something also means they've bought the right to copy and re-market it. Most times that's not the case, obviously. Sometimes it is, though, if that's what the author wants, and his wishes will be protected by the same copyright laws that the/.legions rant about.
The essence of democracy is trusting the people to make decisions. You appear not to trust people's ability to make those decisions. If you call people ignorant and stupid, presumably, you are exempting yourself because you consider yourself to be superior in some sense to everyone else.
So, if democracy is trusting in the people's ability to make decisions, and if you believe they lack that ability, that seems to make you an opponent of democracy.
The fact that you cite "evidence" to support your opinion is, itself, very telling, because it presupposes some source -- apart from the people -- who can correctly judge the wisom of their decisions.
Why are you so insistent on talking about the copyright law? That law does not create any rights. No law does that, i.e., create rights. Neither does the Bill of Rights, for theat matter. Laws recognize, protect and regulate the exercise of our rights.
Whatever rights you have to your copy of my book, they are granted to you by me, via my publishber. That's the essence of copyright law. If you purchase a book, you acquire the rights transferred to you, as well as the specific fair use rights detailed in copyright law. By placing my book under copyright, I've agreed that the provisions of that law apply to my work. So, when copyright expires, it expires.
All rights to a work -- whether protect by copyright ot not, or by some Stallmanesque anti-copyright formulation -- must stem from the original work and its creator. It is simply impossible for those rights to be attributed to any other source. Therefore, if someone else is to acquire rights to the work, they must, by the nature, come from the creator of the orignal work. Where else could they come from? There are no rights held by anyone until the work is created. Then, when it is created, those rights are exclusively held by the work's creator.
Taxes are levied by governments. ICANN is no government. Any fees they charge are no more a tax than the fee your ISP or your cable TV company charges.
You have a right to be taxed and governed by a government you elect. You have no right to elect the people that run the Internet or your ISP or your cable company, or your grocery, for that matter. You have a right to stop buying their products. If you don't want to pay 75 cents for a domain name, don't buy the domain name.
It isn't as if they charging you for something to which you're entitled.
When I make something -- a book or a chair -- I own the only existing copy. I have all rights to do with it as I please. No one else has any rights to it or any ownership of it.
Therefore, if someone else is to acquire rights in or a degree of ownership of my work, then that ownership and those rights must be transferred from me to those other persons. The transfer can be voluntary or it can be otherwise. Typically, the latter scenario is considered theft.
If I've written a book, I may decide to put the manuscript in a closet and forget about it. Or, I may decide to sell to a publisher the right to copy and market the book. That transfer of rights is between myself and only the publisher. I could, if I wish, also pass on to people who buy copies of the book the right to make and market their own copies. Or, I could decide to not pass on those rights. When people buy a copy of the book, they are not acquiring the right to copy the book unless the author has specifcally sold them that right as part of the purchase.
The point is fundamental: All rights to a work come into existence when the original work is created they belong exclusively to the work's creator. It is impossible for anyone else to acquire any of those rights unless the rights are transferred from the work's creator to them.
Therefore, questions such as "What real rights do you have over other people's possessions" are pointless, because other people do not possess those rights unless someone gave them the rights. So, yes, you can do whatever you wish with your possessions. But, if an author has not given you the right to copy his book, you do not possess that right.
The justification is the fact that you don't trust the public to make decisions. You said they are "too ignorant/stupid". In my book, if you think the public is too stupid to make its own decisions, you are an enemy of democracy.
What's really going on here is that disagree with the DMCA and the Iraq war, and consider yourself so intelligent that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid.
In other words, just some ordinary bloke who thinks he should be part of a ruling elite.
If you were a corporate purchaser, you'd probably lose your job for not knowing the answer.
The cost of softare is a fraction of IT costs for any organization beyond a certain size. Maintenance, support and upgrades account for much larger costs. If an organization waits for the free Xandros CD, then it can't buy maintenance, support and upgrades from Xandros. That means it will need to staff to do that internally. In all likelihood, that's going to be more expensive.
Remember, most organziations think their IT infrastructure is a necessary evil, about as exciting as the plumbing. From their perspective, after it is installed, anything that needs to be done to keep it working is money that could be better spent elsewhere.
>> I'm fine with that if _everyone_ gets to see what everyone else does in public.
That's never been the case. None of us ever see what someone else sees. That's why "eyewitness" testimony, especially from a single witness, can be so easily brought into question. If evidence of a crime is captured by a camera, then that evidence will beome part of the public record of a criminal trial.
>> It's not fair if only a certain select bunch get to see what everyone else does in public.
Again, not different in concept from what goes on today. If this worries you, then lobby for allowing members of the public to view the images.
>> Worse if the public money is used to pay for it AND most of the public don't like it.
You have no way of knowing if "most" of the public like it or not. You only know that you don't like it.
>> Of course sometimes (often?) the public is too ignorant/stupid to know they are being tricked/screwed.
With that, you reveal yourself as an enemy of democracy and just another in a long line of arrogant fools who fantasize that anyone who diagrees with them is too stupid to run their own lives. I'm a hell of a lot more worried about people like you than I am about surveillance cameras.
What's with all the paranoia about someone pointing a camera at you in public?
That's what "in public" means: a non-private space where you and all your activities are visible to anyone who cares to look.
The only difference I see vis-a-vis cameras is that it is easier for you or the authorities to prove you actually were where you say you were if you're involved in some kind of legal machinations.
So, yes, if you're photographed running a red light, sit back and wait for the ticket to arrive. And, remember, it is your fault, not the cameras.
But, if you're some poor sod who the police think, mistakenly, was in a hit-and-run, wouldn't it be nice to be able to prove that, when the incident took place, you really were pulling money out of that deserted ATM on that empty street with no witnesses?
Frankly, I'm not certain that knocking off MS is a valid goal for the open source community. More, I'm not even sure a real community exists. What I see are clusters of interest and involvement around distinct projects and efforts. The only community ties linking these clusters are professions of faith in open source and antipathy toward MS. This is as likely a breeding ground for the next Big Idea as anyplace else, but whether or not this "community" has the ability to recognize that idea and the cohesion to see it through is another matter.
I also expect the Big Idea to be hardware-based. From the Altair to the Jobs' and Woz'a first Apple , IBM PC's, and today's wireless, it has been affordable consumer-level hardware that has delivered capabilties that changed the IT industry. Someday, the wheel will take another turn.
That said, you're on the money with your plea for simplicity. Capability does not mean complexity and difficulty of use. Look at other major consumer product: autos, televisions, appliances, cameras. They're capabilities have all increased over time. At the same time, they've all gotten easier to use. They're aren't training classes in refrigerator use.
Sometimes you get what you wish for and are sorry you made that wish.
Rather than open source putting MS out of business, it seems far more likely to me that someone or something else -- the proverbial next paradigm -- will pull MS down. Where will that leave F/OSS if its only goal is to dethrone Bill Gates?
If you are committed to free software because you believe closed software development is unethical, then Microsoft's stature, or existence, ought not to influence you own efforts.
If you believe, on the other hand, that free software's purpose is to supplement closed software, then your primary objective ought to be to produce software that can actually lure people away from MS.
Apple's record is evidence that a platform can't move out of its single-digit niche by offering a polished and distinctive desktop platform along with applications that are the equivalent of those available to Windows. In other words, people who argue that very few people switch platforms because of the OS are correct. Want know how many? Look at Apple's market share.
Where is Apple actually running ahead of MS? With things like iPod and iTunes. What are these? In essence, iPod and iTunes are tools (applications) that go MS one better. Apple put products on the market that people wanted, people who could care less about Apple's OS.
That's a fundamental lesson for anyone who wants to draw new customers: Offer something that they didn't know they want until they see it.
You can't compete by try to clone your competition. Why switch to a clone when you have the real thing?
You can't compete by trying to convince people that you stuff is "better". Beyond a certain threshold of acceptable performance, improved quality, especially improved technical quality, is invisible to customers; it doesn't motivate them to switch.
If F/OSS is to supplant MS, then it needs to start delivering applications that meet needs Windows users don't even know they have.
If rights exist only because some law says they do, then you're arguing that your right to, say free speech, depends on some law? If you actually believe laws create rights, then you are hopelessly mistaken.
If everyone has the same rights in a work as does the author, then how does the author transfer some -- not all -- of those rights to a publisher? Are you arguing that everyone has a right to, say, duplicate Slashdot and run it anywhere they wish?
Like most irrational zealots, you can't manage to present a logical defense of your position. I see rants, nothing else.
You are spouting juvenile rubbish. And, as always, you are avoiding my questions. If you can't answer them, I take that as an admission that you are wrong.
You can't even a basic question: Suppose I write a book. Suppose I have the manuscript. There is no other copy. You are arguing that you, and anyone else, has the right to take that manuscript and make and sell as many copies as you wish. Why? How does that differ from theft? If I sell a publisher the right to print and sell copies, while retaining all other rights, how do you acquire the right to do the same thing, when no one has given that right? Where does it come from? Following you notions, if you have the right to make copies of the book you bought from the publisher, then logically, when the manuscript was the only existing copy, you had the same right to take it and make copies? Why? That sounds like pure nonsense to me; a justification for theft. But, if you think otherwise, explain it, please.
>> ou have no right to control things you don't own.
Neither do you. You don't own the right to copy a book you just bought. You only own the book and whatever rights the author has granted you. Possession of the book and possession of rights in the book are two different things.
I am not attempting to control your possessions. You are not in possession of the right to copy and distribute my work. Unless the author of a work grants you the right to copy and distribute his work, you do not possess that right. Don't confuse physical possession of something with the right to do with it as you please.
Copyright has nothing to do with this. If we object in question was a chair, copyright would not apply. But, if I sold you one copy of a chair, but did not sell you the right to make and market copies of that chair, you would not possess that right.
As I've said, all rights to an object originate with the object's creator. There's is always an original single version of the work. It's creator owns it and has exclusive rights to it. No other individual member of society has any rights to it and can claim ownership. (How could they? It has never existed.)
The only way for either ownership or rights in an object -- to different properties; they are not synonymous --to pass to another individual is if the object's creator transfer's them. No one can make a copy of the first, original, object unless the work's creator authorizes that. No one has any rights in the object unless its creator grants them those rights.
And, if a grant of rights is made, e.g., to publish and market a book, those rights do not pass to anyone who purchased a copy of the book. The publisher acquires that exclusive right by paying the author.
You obviously disagree. You obviously consider the current wya of doing things to be "corrupt". However, while I've tried to provide a logical and coherent basis for my belief, you have not done so. Simple, repetitive, assertion of your opinions does not constitutue logical argument.
If you believe that rights in a work can pass to someone in the absence of a grant by the work's creator, please explain how that happens. If you believe that all this is the result of copyright law, please explain how the absence of copyright law would mean that a work's creator would not have complete and exclusive rights to his works, and how those rights could be vested in others without his authorization?
Finally, please explain your apparent belief that the purchase of an object also gives you the right to make and distribute copies of it. On what is that belief based?
Rights are not created by laws. Rights are protected by laws, but no law can create a right. Rights are ours by virtue of our existence.
So, you can't explain how you acquire a right by pointing to a law, corrupt or otherwise. (You have not explained what law you are talking about, or why it is corrupt. Presumably, if a law met your standard for being uncorrupt, your argument would collapse.)
Please explain, in support of your assertions, how we have no rights unless a law gives them to us.
And, if you think my statements do not hold water, please explain, logically, what's wrong with them
I've explained my position logically. You have not; you've simply stated your position. I've asked you several questions which, if answered, would support your position. You have not answered them. I must assume tht is due to a lack of answers, not a lack of willingness.
As I;ve said elsewhere, if you possess a copy of a work I made, you have only the rights that I have transferred to you.
Consider: How do publishers acquire the right to print and distribute a book? From the author, who assigns that right to a single publisher. If that right is not assigned, no publisher can publish the book. And, unless the author specifically allows it, readers of his book have no right to copy it. All rights originate and are controlled by the author of the book.
You keep make contrary assertions, but you've failed to explain how you acquire rights to something I've made if I don't give them to you. If not from me, where do those rights come from?
I am quite deliberately not basing my argument on the law. I've said, repeatedly, that my argument has nothing to do with copyright law. I believe copyright law simply institutionalizes a natural state of affairs, much as the Constitution and Bill of Rights recognize and protect our rights, rather than create them.
If something does not exist, no one can have any rights to it or claim to own it. Therefore, when someone creates a unique entity, no one except that creator can (A) own the entity, or (B) have any rights to the entity. The only way for someone else to come into possession of the original entity is if the creator, voluntarily or unvoluntarily, transfers ownership. The same applies to rights in the entity. The creator of the work can transfer no rights, some rights, or all rights, as he sees fit. He can transfer the right to make and distribute copies to one person, for example, and prohibit anyone who subsequently receives a copy from making additional copies. Or, he can authorize it. (The latter is the foundation of open source software.)
Just as the rights to copy and distribute open source software orignate with, and are ultimately controlled by, the individual that released the code, so, too, are the rights to copy and distribute other products: books, CD's, office furniture, whatever.
If you want to argue otherwise, you need to explain the mechanism by which ownership of and rights in the single entity that represents a new creation can be transferred elsewhere, at the moment of its creation, unless its creator transfers ownership and right, either willingly or unwillingly.
Otherwise, I've stopped reading your rhetoric, since it is little more than verbal footstomping devoid of content and logic.
Slashdot Mirror
1. The rainbow analogy is inappropriate. The rainbow is not a work created by anyone. On the other hand, if I create an image of a rainbow, then I own that object and all rights inherent in it. You, as well as everyone else, have no right to copy it unless I give you that right. That doesn't stop you from creating your own rainbow image, it just means that if you want the right to duplicate my image you'll have to get it from me.
2. Ditto the woman analogy. The woman is not a created work. Nor do privacy issues have anything to do with my point: That the creator of a work is the sole source of the right to make copies of that work.
3. Copying a DVD to VHS: Whether it is or is not copyright infringement depends on how the fair use clause is applied. But, again, it is not an appropriate analigy, since I am not talking about copyright infringement. My argument holds for any created work, whether or not it is copyrightable or not.
4. Selling multiple unauthorized copies of DVD's: The fact that this is considered copyright infringement means that the law recognizes that all rights to a created work originally belong to the work's creator. The law does not create those rights, it simply recognizes reality. The fact that different countries have different copyright laws only illustrates that laws do not create rights. The fact that a country allows people to copy and distribute a work without the permission of the work's creator does not mean that they have the right to do that. It only means the law says it is legal. There is no necessary agreement between the rights we hold and the law in any given country.
5. You can't copy information. Or an idea. Or an emotion. All that is physically impossible because they are intangibles. You must copy something physical. If I create something and I want to sell to someone else the right to make and sell copies of my work, I cannot do that unless my work exists as a physicial object that can be copied. This is the case if I've created a book or a chair. In the first case, I sell certain of my rights to a publisher. In the second case, I sell the same rights to a furniture manufacturer. The principle is exactly the same.
6. So, it all comes down to the same thing: All rights to copy an object derive from the object's creator. Simply put, there is no place else from which to acquire that right. You have not suggested an alternative source for that right.
The issue isn't about copying information. The issue is about copying physical objects. Whether the object in question is a book, a clay pot, a crude whittled stick, or a door mat, the object's creator owns the right to make and distribute copies. No one else can acquire that right unless the object's creator gives it to them.
In other words, there is only one source of the right to copy and distribute a work: the work's creator.
People who believe they have a right to copy and distribute a work absent the consent of the work's creator need to explain the source of that right. Otherwise, they're just playing word games to rationalize theft.
No, people do not have the right to make and distribute copies of a work because they "have the information". We are not talking about information. We are talking about making and distributing copies of physical objects. It is not relevant if the object is a book, a CD track, a kitchen table, or a clay pot. Whether or not the object conveys information is equally irrelevant.
That point is that the work's creator owns the right to copy distribute the original. If he does not transfer that right to someone else, then they do not have the right to make and distribute copies.
You've avoided the key issue, while bringing up peripheral issues.
The person who writes a book (or who creates any other type of object) owns and has exclusive rights to that book's original, single, manuscript. Therefore, how does someone acquire, from the author, the right to copy and distribute the book? It seems self-evident that that right must be transfer from the author to that other person. Simply put, there is no other way to acquire that right.
Typically, authors sell a publisher the right to copy and market their books, usually for a period of time specified by contract. Publishers, in turn, sell copies of the books to the public. But, publishers do not sell the right to copy and distribute the book. That right belongs to the publisher for the duration of the contract with the author.
So, as you see, this has nothing to do with libraries, borrowing a book from a friend, or otherwise doing what you call "reading-for-free". I am simply asking those who claim an ethical right to copy and distribute books, music, etc., how they acquired that right. Obviously, I don't believe they can honestly answer that question unless they can demomstrate that the work's author deliberately tranferred that right to them.
Like most of these other losers, you are under the delusion that my right to control something I make depend on some law. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If I write a book, no one has a right to copy and distribute my original manuscript unless I give them that right. If I want to, I can sell that right to a publisher. But that doesn't mean anyone who buys a book from the publisher also buys the right to copy it. If I want to sell or give you that right, I will. IF I don't, you don't have that right.
If you disagree, explain how you get that right. I don't believe you can unless it comes from me.
Meanwhile, all this talk of corporations and copyright law is either a demonstration of ignorance or a deliberate subtrefuge.
>> I violate all laws I disagree with with impunity.
Only until you get caught.
You can ignore any law you want to, but that doesn't mean you won't pay the price. Belief isn't much of a defense.
If I write a book, it originally exists only as a manuscript or a computer file. You have no right to it. No one does, except me. That's not established by a law or any state. That is simply reality.
The only way a publisher gets the right to print and sell copies of my book is from me, in return for cash. No one else gets that right. I sell the right to make and distribute copies to a single publisher, not you. What you get to buy are copies of my book, not the right to copy it.
If you think you have a right to copy and give away copies of my book, tell the world how you got that right. Tell the world how you got that right when it is mine and I haven't given or sold it to you.
I know we're supposed to get weepy eyed because you say you're just "sharing" what you bought with your friends. But that's not true. You haven't bought the right to make copies of anything.
That's just more deliberate conspiracy-mongering by the loons who run Slashdot. Their position, and that of the crowd they want to attract is this: We don't agree with copyright law, so we think we ought to be allowed to violate the law with impunity and that anyone who enforces the law in their own interests is a Greedy Bastard.
/.legions rant about.
None of these clowns ever manages to explain how they obtain rights that they haven't purchased and that no one has given them. They're pretending that buying a copy of something also means they've bought the right to copy and re-market it. Most times that's not the case, obviously. Sometimes it is, though, if that's what the author wants, and his wishes will be protected by the same copyright laws that the
The essence of democracy is trusting the people to make decisions. You appear not to trust people's ability to make those decisions. If you call people ignorant and stupid, presumably, you are exempting yourself because you consider yourself to be superior in some sense to everyone else.
So, if democracy is trusting in the people's ability to make decisions, and if you believe they lack that ability, that seems to make you an opponent of democracy.
The fact that you cite "evidence" to support your opinion is, itself, very telling, because it presupposes some source -- apart from the people -- who can correctly judge the wisom of their decisions.
Why are you so insistent on talking about the copyright law? That law does not create any rights. No law does that, i.e., create rights. Neither does the Bill of Rights, for theat matter. Laws recognize, protect and regulate the exercise of our rights.
Whatever rights you have to your copy of my book, they are granted to you by me, via my publishber. That's the essence of copyright law. If you purchase a book, you acquire the rights transferred to you, as well as the specific fair use rights detailed in copyright law. By placing my book under copyright, I've agreed that the provisions of that law apply to my work. So, when copyright expires, it expires.
All rights to a work -- whether protect by copyright ot not, or by some Stallmanesque anti-copyright formulation -- must stem from the original work and its creator. It is simply impossible for those rights to be attributed to any other source. Therefore, if someone else is to acquire rights to the work, they must, by the nature, come from the creator of the orignal work. Where else could they come from? There are no rights held by anyone until the work is created. Then, when it is created, those rights are exclusively held by the work's creator.
Uh, no, you're wrong.
Taxes are levied by governments. ICANN is no government. Any fees they charge are no more a tax than the fee your ISP or your cable TV company charges.
You have a right to be taxed and governed by a government you elect. You have no right to elect the people that run the Internet or your ISP or your cable company, or your grocery, for that matter. You have a right to stop buying their products. If you don't want to pay 75 cents for a domain name, don't buy the domain name.
It isn't as if they charging you for something to which you're entitled.
You haven't been paying attention.
When I make something -- a book or a chair -- I own the only existing copy. I have all rights to do with it as I please. No one else has any rights to it or any ownership of it.
Therefore, if someone else is to acquire rights in or a degree of ownership of my work, then that ownership and those rights must be transferred from me to those other persons. The transfer can be voluntary or it can be otherwise. Typically, the latter scenario is considered theft.
If I've written a book, I may decide to put the manuscript in a closet and forget about it. Or, I may decide to sell to a publisher the right to copy and market the book. That transfer of rights is between myself and only the publisher. I could, if I wish, also pass on to people who buy copies of the book the right to make and market their own copies. Or, I could decide to not pass on those rights. When people buy a copy of the book, they are not acquiring the right to copy the book unless the author has specifcally sold them that right as part of the purchase.
The point is fundamental: All rights to a work come into existence when the original work is created they belong exclusively to the work's creator. It is impossible for anyone else to acquire any of those rights unless the rights are transferred from the work's creator to them.
Therefore, questions such as "What real rights do you have over other people's possessions" are pointless, because other people do not possess those rights unless someone gave them the rights. So, yes, you can do whatever you wish with your possessions. But, if an author has not given you the right to copy his book, you do not possess that right.
The justification is the fact that you don't trust the public to make decisions. You said they are "too ignorant/stupid". In my book, if you think the public is too stupid to make its own decisions, you are an enemy of democracy.
What's really going on here is that disagree with the DMCA and the Iraq war, and consider yourself so intelligent that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid.
In other words, just some ordinary bloke who thinks he should be part of a ruling elite.
If you were a corporate purchaser, you'd probably lose your job for not knowing the answer.
The cost of softare is a fraction of IT costs for any organization beyond a certain size. Maintenance, support and upgrades account for much larger costs. If an organization waits for the free Xandros CD, then it can't buy maintenance, support and upgrades from Xandros. That means it will need to staff to do that internally. In all likelihood, that's going to be more expensive.
Remember, most organziations think their IT infrastructure is a necessary evil, about as exciting as the plumbing. From their perspective, after it is installed, anything that needs to be done to keep it working is money that could be better spent elsewhere.
This is an organization charging fees, not taxation. ICANN isn't the government. It can't tax you.
Likewise, the net isn't a place or a community, We have no more right to have representatives in ICANN than we do in AOL or Microsoft.
If you want a voice in how the net is governed, then let the government run it. You'll get to pay taces then.
People who use the net are gonna pay for it, one way or the other.
>> I'm fine with that if _everyone_ gets to see what everyone else does in public.
That's never been the case. None of us ever see what someone else sees. That's why "eyewitness" testimony, especially from a single witness, can be so easily brought into question. If evidence of a crime is captured by a camera, then that evidence will beome part of the public record of a criminal trial.
>> It's not fair if only a certain select bunch get to see what everyone else does in public.
Again, not different in concept from what goes on today. If this worries you, then lobby for allowing members of the public to view the images.
>> Worse if the public money is used to pay for it AND most of the public don't like it.
You have no way of knowing if "most" of the public like it or not. You only know that you don't like it.
>> Of course sometimes (often?) the public is too ignorant/stupid to know they are being tricked/screwed.
With that, you reveal yourself as an enemy of democracy and just another in a long line of arrogant fools who fantasize that anyone who diagrees with them is too stupid to run their own lives. I'm a hell of a lot more worried about people like you than I am about surveillance cameras.
What's with all the paranoia about someone pointing a camera at you in public?
That's what "in public" means: a non-private space where you and all your activities are visible to anyone who cares to look.
The only difference I see vis-a-vis cameras is that it is easier for you or the authorities to prove you actually were where you say you were if you're involved in some kind of legal machinations.
So, yes, if you're photographed running a red light, sit back and wait for the ticket to arrive. And, remember, it is your fault, not the cameras.
But, if you're some poor sod who the police think, mistakenly, was in a hit-and-run, wouldn't it be nice to be able to prove that, when the incident took place, you really were pulling money out of that deserted ATM on that empty street with no witnesses?
Frankly, I'm not certain that knocking off MS is a valid goal for the open source community. More, I'm not even sure a real community exists. What I see are clusters of interest and involvement around distinct projects and efforts. The only community ties linking these clusters are professions of faith in open source and antipathy toward MS. This is as likely a breeding ground for the next Big Idea as anyplace else, but whether or not this "community" has the ability to recognize that idea and the cohesion to see it through is another matter.
I also expect the Big Idea to be hardware-based. From the Altair to the Jobs' and Woz'a first Apple , IBM PC's, and today's wireless, it has been affordable consumer-level hardware that has delivered capabilties that changed the IT industry. Someday, the wheel will take another turn.
That said, you're on the money with your plea for simplicity. Capability does not mean complexity and difficulty of use. Look at other major consumer product: autos, televisions, appliances, cameras. They're capabilities have all increased over time. At the same time, they've all gotten easier to use. They're aren't training classes in refrigerator use.
Sometimes you get what you wish for and are sorry you made that wish.
Rather than open source putting MS out of business, it seems far more likely to me that someone or something else -- the proverbial next paradigm -- will pull MS down. Where will that leave F/OSS if its only goal is to dethrone Bill Gates?
If you are committed to free software because you believe closed software development is unethical, then Microsoft's stature, or existence, ought not to influence you own efforts.
If you believe, on the other hand, that free software's purpose is to supplement closed software, then your primary objective ought to be to produce software that can actually lure people away from MS.
Apple's record is evidence that a platform can't move out of its single-digit niche by offering a polished and distinctive desktop platform along with applications that are the equivalent of those available to Windows. In other words, people who argue that very few people switch platforms because of the OS are correct. Want know how many? Look at Apple's market share.
Where is Apple actually running ahead of MS? With things like iPod and iTunes. What are these? In essence, iPod and iTunes are tools (applications) that go MS one better. Apple put products on the market that people wanted, people who could care less about Apple's OS.
That's a fundamental lesson for anyone who wants to draw new customers: Offer something that they didn't know they want until they see it.
You can't compete by try to clone your competition. Why switch to a clone when you have the real thing?
You can't compete by trying to convince people that you stuff is "better". Beyond a certain threshold of acceptable performance, improved quality, especially improved technical quality, is invisible to customers; it doesn't motivate them to switch.
If F/OSS is to supplant MS, then it needs to start delivering applications that meet needs Windows users don't even know they have.
Such ill-educated nonsense.
If rights exist only because some law says they do, then you're arguing that your right to, say free speech, depends on some law? If you actually believe laws create rights, then you are hopelessly mistaken.
If everyone has the same rights in a work as does the author, then how does the author transfer some -- not all -- of those rights to a publisher? Are you arguing that everyone has a right to, say, duplicate Slashdot and run it anywhere they wish?
Like most irrational zealots, you can't manage to present a logical defense of your position. I see rants, nothing else.
You are spouting juvenile rubbish. And, as always, you are avoiding my questions. If you can't answer them, I take that as an admission that you are wrong.
You can't even a basic question: Suppose I write a book. Suppose I have the manuscript. There is no other copy. You are arguing that you, and anyone else, has the right to take that manuscript and make and sell as many copies as you wish. Why? How does that differ from theft? If I sell a publisher the right to print and sell copies, while retaining all other rights, how do you acquire the right to do the same thing, when no one has given that right? Where does it come from? Following you notions, if you have the right to make copies of the book you bought from the publisher, then logically, when the manuscript was the only existing copy, you had the same right to take it and make copies? Why?
That sounds like pure nonsense to me; a justification for theft. But, if you think otherwise, explain it, please.
>> ou have no right to control things you don't own.
Neither do you. You don't own the right to copy a book you just bought. You only own the book and whatever rights the author has granted you. Possession of the book and possession of rights in the book are two different things.
I am not attempting to control your possessions. You are not in possession of the right to copy and distribute my work. Unless the author of a work grants you the right to copy and distribute his work, you do not possess that right. Don't confuse physical possession of something with the right to do with it as you please.
Copyright has nothing to do with this. If we object in question was a chair, copyright would not apply. But, if I sold you one copy of a chair, but did not sell you the right to make and market copies of that chair, you would not possess that right.
As I've said, all rights to an object originate with the object's creator. There's is always an original single version of the work. It's creator owns it and has exclusive rights to it. No other individual member of society has any rights to it and can claim ownership. (How could they? It has never existed.)
The only way for either ownership or rights in an object -- to different properties; they are not synonymous --to pass to another individual is if the object's creator transfer's them. No one can make a copy of the first, original, object unless the work's creator authorizes that. No one has any rights in the object unless its creator grants them those rights.
And, if a grant of rights is made, e.g., to publish and market a book, those rights do not pass to anyone who purchased a copy of the book. The publisher acquires that exclusive right by paying the author.
You obviously disagree. You obviously consider the current wya of doing things to be "corrupt". However, while I've tried to provide a logical and coherent basis for my belief, you have not done so. Simple, repetitive, assertion of your opinions does not constitutue logical argument.
If you believe that rights in a work can pass to someone in the absence of a grant by the work's creator, please explain how that happens. If you believe that all this is the result of copyright law, please explain how the absence of copyright law would mean that a work's creator would not have complete and exclusive rights to his works, and how those rights could be vested in others without his authorization?
Finally, please explain your apparent belief that the purchase of an object also gives you the right to make and distribute copies of it. On what is that belief based?
Rights are not created by laws. Rights are protected by laws, but no law can create a right. Rights are ours by virtue of our existence.
So, you can't explain how you acquire a right by pointing to a law, corrupt or otherwise. (You have not explained what law you are talking about, or why it is corrupt. Presumably, if a law met your standard for being uncorrupt, your argument would collapse.)
Please explain, in support of your assertions, how we have no rights unless a law gives them to us.
And, if you think my statements do not hold water, please explain, logically, what's wrong with them
I've explained my position logically. You have not; you've simply stated your position. I've asked you several questions which, if answered, would support your position. You have not answered them. I must assume tht is due to a lack of answers, not a lack of willingness.
As I;ve said elsewhere, if you possess a copy of a work I made, you have only the rights that I have transferred to you.
Consider: How do publishers acquire the right to print and distribute a book? From the author, who assigns that right to a single publisher. If that right is not assigned, no publisher can publish the book. And, unless the author specifically allows it, readers of his book have no right to copy it. All rights originate and are controlled by the author of the book.
You keep make contrary assertions, but you've failed to explain how you acquire rights to something I've made if I don't give them to you. If not from me, where do those rights come from?
And please stop talking about contracts.
I am quite deliberately not basing my argument on the law. I've said, repeatedly, that my argument has nothing to do with copyright law. I believe copyright law simply institutionalizes a natural state of affairs, much as the Constitution and Bill of Rights recognize and protect our rights, rather than create them.
If something does not exist, no one can have any rights to it or claim to own it. Therefore, when someone creates a unique entity, no one except that creator can (A) own the entity, or (B) have any rights to the entity. The only way for someone else to come into possession of the original entity is if the creator, voluntarily or unvoluntarily, transfers ownership. The same applies to rights in the entity. The creator of the work can transfer no rights, some rights, or all rights, as he sees fit. He can transfer the right to make and distribute copies to one person, for example, and prohibit anyone who subsequently receives a copy from making additional copies. Or, he can authorize it. (The latter is the foundation of open source software.)
Just as the rights to copy and distribute open source software orignate with, and are ultimately controlled by, the individual that released the code, so, too, are the rights to copy and distribute other products: books, CD's, office furniture, whatever.
If you want to argue otherwise, you need to explain the mechanism by which ownership of and rights in the single entity that represents a new creation can be transferred elsewhere, at the moment of its creation, unless its creator transfers ownership and right, either willingly or unwillingly.
Otherwise, I've stopped reading your rhetoric, since it is little more than verbal footstomping devoid of content and logic.
Thanks. Makes sense. I'd do it, too.