No, you are oversimplyfying the problem, and so it dspeyer.
Its not a matter of opinion, its a matter of fact, at least in the US. Congress is permitted by the US Constitution to enforce copyright law explicitly "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Rewarding artists is a means to this end, not an end in itself.
I believe there is a problem among the slashdot illuminati in distinguishing between patents and copyright and all kind of confusion and hilarity therefore ensues.
He didn't confuse copyrights and patents, he correctly stated that, while different, both are intended to promote the public good.
In our case, can you please explain why and how do copyrights exist to serve the public good?
They exist to serve the public good by promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries (in case you are wondering, that is Clause 8 of section 8 of Article I of the US constitution). Neither I nor he were claiming that they succeed in this goal, merely that this is the intent.
Would you be so outraged by this if she had commited some other crime and been fined for that? I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely interested - is it the thing that she's being punished for that's so bad, or the fact that she did something wrong and now her kid is having to pay for it too?
My beef is that the punishment greatly outweighs the so-called crime, and that she won't even get a fair trial (she can't afford a lawyer, and even if she could, she could never take the risk of losing). Its simple extortion of frequently poor young people by a powerful multinational corporation.
...to see how the British public reacts to this, there is something about huge multinational corporations suing kids that I can't see sitting well with the British way of thinking.
I know a young single mother in the US who got sued and had to use her kid's college fund to pay the RIAA. Sorry, but piracy or no piracy, that simply isn't right, and I am surprised that there hasn't been more public revulsion in the US over this.
Hopefully there will in the UK.
"My 12-year-old at home doesn't want to hear that he can't put all the music that he wants in all of the places that he would like it," he joked.
His 12-year-old clearly has a better understanding of personal property than his father. It isn't for Microsoft, or any other corporation, to tell me how I can and cannot use my personal property.
Digital Rights Management is all about preventing people from using the tools they have paid for in the ways they want to use them. Often, DRM prohibits perfectly legal activities.
Digital Rights Management is one of the most serious threats to the general purpose computer, and to the freedom it affords us. The general public must be educated to the fact that the purpose of DRM isn't to protect them, but to protect large corporations from them.
At which point, if they do not allow for competition, they are vulnerable to Antitrust suits, I would think, though IANAL
It is pretty clear that YANAL, since if you were, you would realise that relying on antitrust law to police this kind of thing is like relying on your local neighbourhood watch to police organised crime.
Apparently it is planned for release with Tiger, the next major release of OSX. I don't know whether it will be available prior to the release of Tiger, if not, it is likely to prevent most developers from coding in it (what is the point in coding in Java if it won't work on the #2 desktop OS?).
For instance the UK is banning fox hunting, while my state (MN) consideres hunting a legal right that is now part of the constitution. UK bans many more guns than the US. The UK has more cameras watching their streets than any other country.
Well, its a decision for the individual. FWIW, and at the risk of going offtopic, I personally agree with the hunting ban and the gun restrictions, and as for the third - I'm probably with David Brin (ie. they can watch me if I can watch them).
...for countries outside the US looking for some smart software engineers. With this in mind, here is a letter I recently wrote to the UK's Home Secretary regarding another anti-innovation law, the Induce Act (the home secretary is responsible for UK immigration policy):
Dear Home Secretary,
It is well known that the United Kingdom is keen to attract skilled workers to the UK, particularly those involved in the software industry.
The United States is poised to pass legislation, known as the "Induce Act", which will dramatically increase the risk of innovation in the software industry in the United States. If passed, this legislation is likely to prompt a large number of the United States' most talented software engineers to consider relocation to another country.
The United Kingdom is well suited to provide an alternate base for these displaced software engineers, where their innovations may benefit the UK's economy, not to mention the economy of the European Union.
My question is whether the UK government has made sufficient provision for displaced American innovators to migrate here given the hostile environment they may soon face in their own country. It is my belief that the United Kingdom can only benefit from the influx of talented software engineers from the United States, and should minimise any barriers to their migration here.
So what - ban text messaging to protect poor Britney Spears next time someone spots her getting married in a Vegas drive-thru chapel? I think it might be easier, and definitely preferable, to ban celebrities.
Even the most lax sources of information that purport to call themselves "news" exercise sufficient respect for their readers not to report the same thing twice within as many hours.
Slashdot must be making a reasonable amount of money out of its subscribers and advertising, perhaps a small fraction of that could be spent on vetting what is posted on the front page?
(And before I am dismissed as someone who should be dismissed, take a look at my/. id - which is lower than most, not to mention the fact that I have been interviewed on this site./. is a great site, and so its popular, but it won't stay popular if the editors don't demonstrate more respect for their readership).
Despite setbacks, those opposed to software patents in the EU have had a significant impact, successfully lobbying the European Parliament to reject software patents. Proponents of software patents, who like to dismiss opponents as "extremists", have even taken to flat out denials that they are pushing for a US-style patent system, even though this is precisely what they are seeking to achieve (simply ask them which of the 30,000 illegally granted EU software patents would not be permitted under their proposed language).
There are two opportunities left. The Council of Ministers has already voted in favour of a pro-swpat text, but this has yet to be confirmed, and while uncommon, it is still possible for countries to change their vote. Given the extremely suspect way the original decision was reached (which would be scarily familiar to fans of "Yes Minister"), this could happen, but national governments must be lobbied, particularly the Netherlands and Germany.
If this fails, then the European Parliament gets to amend the Council's text, however this is much more difficult than that first time around, and so all Europeans that care about this issue must lobby their MEPs to ensure that they vote in the correct way.
We have made a difference, we can still make a difference, but only by engaging with the political process. If anyone would like to learn more, please visit the FFII website.
The recent JPEG vulnerability in Firefox is a separate issue. Firefox is OSS, and thus cannot use closed-source libraries such as the MS one in trouble.
If that were true, then you wouldn't be able to use OSS on a non-OSS operating system, since eventually the OSS needs to link with non-OSS code.
Freenet inserts splitfiles with 50% redundant error-correcting (FEC) data. So if IllegalFile.avi is split into 1000 data blocks then an additional 500 "check blocks" will be inserted as well. All 1500 blocks have CHK keys listed in the splitfile. So to "prove" that someone probably downloaded a file, you just need to find 1000 of those 1500 blocks in the users' datastore.
Firstly, this is factually incorrect. You assume that Freenet always caches the data it downloads, but actually the probably of caching the data decreases the further away from the source of the data you get, so the initial requestor is unlikely to cache it at all.
But this is a moot point anyway. If the RIAA gets to take your hard disk and dissect it, then it is much more likely that they will find the file you downloaded, they don't even have to look at whats in your datastore. In other words, by the time you have got to this stage, you are already screwed (unless you are smart enough to use an encrypted partition).
What matters is what the RIAA can tell about your activities remotely, and the answer to that, in Freenet's case, is "nothing useful".
On one hand, government regulation is libertarian poison.
Indeed, I think one of the core inconsistencies in the libertarian argument is that the strong property rights that they love are meaningless unless they are enforced through government regulation.
I'm not Badnarik, nor am I a Libertarian, but if I might guess at his answer, it would likely be "no". Libertarians hate antitrust law, they blame all abusive monopolies on government interference, and think that if the government would just stay out of it it would all work out.
Unless you want to argue that government interferes in the software market by enforcing copyright law, I think Microsoft is a pretty good counter-example to this Libertarian argument.
Slashdot Mirror
I know a young single mother in the US who got sued and had to use her kid's college fund to pay the RIAA. Sorry, but piracy or no piracy, that simply isn't right, and I am surprised that there hasn't been more public revulsion in the US over this. Hopefully there will in the UK.
Digital Rights Management is all about preventing people from using the tools they have paid for in the ways they want to use them. Often, DRM prohibits perfectly legal activities.
Digital Rights Management is one of the most serious threats to the general purpose computer, and to the freedom it affords us. The general public must be educated to the fact that the purpose of DRM isn't to protect them, but to protect large corporations from them.
Apparently it is planned for release with Tiger, the next major release of OSX. I don't know whether it will be available prior to the release of Tiger, if not, it is likely to prevent most developers from coding in it (what is the point in coding in Java if it won't work on the #2 desktop OS?).
(Yeah yeah, and tell them they can have their joke back too)
So what - ban text messaging to protect poor Britney Spears next time someone spots her getting married in a Vegas drive-thru chapel? I think it might be easier, and definitely preferable, to ban celebrities.
Slashdot must be making a reasonable amount of money out of its subscribers and advertising, perhaps a small fraction of that could be spent on vetting what is posted on the front page?
(And before I am dismissed as someone who should be dismissed, take a look at my /. id - which is lower than most, not to mention the fact that I have been interviewed on this site. /. is a great site, and so its popular, but it won't stay popular if the editors don't demonstrate more respect for their readership).
Actually, according to this I believe he was instructed to change his vote - but he is still refusing to do-so
There are two opportunities left. The Council of Ministers has already voted in favour of a pro-swpat text, but this has yet to be confirmed, and while uncommon, it is still possible for countries to change their vote. Given the extremely suspect way the original decision was reached (which would be scarily familiar to fans of "Yes Minister"), this could happen, but national governments must be lobbied, particularly the Netherlands and Germany.
If this fails, then the European Parliament gets to amend the Council's text, however this is much more difficult than that first time around, and so all Europeans that care about this issue must lobby their MEPs to ensure that they vote in the correct way.
We have made a difference, we can still make a difference, but only by engaging with the political process. If anyone would like to learn more, please visit the FFII website.
But this is a moot point anyway. If the RIAA gets to take your hard disk and dissect it, then it is much more likely that they will find the file you downloaded, they don't even have to look at whats in your datastore. In other words, by the time you have got to this stage, you are already screwed (unless you are smart enough to use an encrypted partition).
What matters is what the RIAA can tell about your activities remotely, and the answer to that, in Freenet's case, is "nothing useful".
I remember a day when /. newbies would be roasted for confusing the terms hacker and cracker - now the editors do it :-/
Can anyone explain why someone might choose to use Solaris over Linux other than for legacy reasons?
...for those interested in come counter-arguments against Libertarians may be found here.
Unless you want to argue that government interferes in the software market by enforcing copyright law, I think Microsoft is a pretty good counter-example to this Libertarian argument.
This may seem like a crazy question, but I know people that call themselves Libertarians who would argue that you should.
If you agree with them - aren't you putting your ideology before the common sense realisation that people aren't always perfectly rational?