In order to understand a menace, you have to understand who or what is being threatened by the menace.
You're saying that sharing a thing does not threaten an individual, or society as a whole, unless the thing shared or the act of sharing carries a risk of personal harm. True.
The copyright-based companies know that sharing copyrighted content threatens the absolute market control given them by copyright laws. Also true.
The companies say that losing absolute market control threatens their business models and viability. Again, true.
The companies state that loss of their business model threatens the development of new copyrighted content. Well, true in one way. It threatens the continuing development of cookie-cutter boy bands and britney-types and formula-plot movies. That's a threat I can definitely live with.
The companies assert that loss of their business model will threaten artists' ability to be successful (= make money). Partly true. It threatens the ability of a very few artists to be very successful superstars, often at the expense of many other artists who have very little chance to be distributed.
The companies claim that loss of their business model threatens the economy. Perhaps this is true, but on what scale, and how does this affect society as a whole? "The Economy" is often a poor measure of overall societal well-being. Even when The Economy is growing, the earnings of the majority of society can be shrinking, like in the US lately. Sometimes, threats to The Economy can help society as a whole, because people are encouraged to find satisfaction in participation rather than consumption (like being in a band rather than playing CDs)
The ultimate threat, though, is that loss of market control threatens the current lifestyle of the corporate officers and superstars. Anyone will fight for the right to maintain their lifestyle.
Does sharing of copyrighted content create a menace? Yes. Who or what does it threaten? It threatens the content companies, and those who have a high position or hope to have a high position in the content industries.
Does not sharing copyrighted content create a menace? Yes. Who or what does it threaten? It threatens the richness and availability of content, artists marginalized by the uniformity imposed by the companies' market control, and innovation in business models to better cope with the ease of sharing content.
The question isn't whether sharing is a menace, it's whether sharing benefits society as a whole. Which threatens society more, a threat to the few in control, or a threat to the many marginalized?
With a 55% illiteracy rate, no math or language textbooks in the public schools, and only half of children ages 5-9 in any school, all the books in the world won't help much. They need the basics.
I doubt "Hooked on Phonics" is available in Urdu, though.;)
I always wondered why anyone would invite a technology to "sod me" -- I know I wouldn't. At least "Dumb, Duh" is still a useful description of the goals.
I think your definition of impossible is quite different from mine.
Since DMCA makes it illegal to distribute information or devices for circumvention, each person would have to develop their own circumvention device. I am certain that I do not have the ability to do that, since I am not a crypto guru. I strongly suspect that almost all of the US population is in the same boat.
That means that fair use is truly impossible for almost everyone.
Also, like the parent said, "fair use" is only a defense to a copyright infringement suit. It requires a court decision -- how many of us have the money or time to successfully defend against a corporate suit? For most, it wouldn't matter whether they might be able to win eventually, since they can't afford it.
In reality, the threat of a lawsuit by the corporation is often enough to ensure conformity to their desires, whether or not the law supports them.
Yes, Judge Saris' summary judgement on State Street Bank vs. Signature Financial Group applied common sense. Unfortunately, that didn't help, because her judgement was overturned on appeal, and the final disposition of the case is what established the patentability of software business methods.
To make any difference in our legal system, common sense must be allied with and supported by solid legal argument. Otherwise, we can easily end up with legal conclusions that are absolutely nonsensical. Yeah, that's often frustrating...
Digital Nervous System, eh? I rather thought that one was appropriate. It really did make my fingers nervous -- along with the rest of me!
Re:But Enron and Global Crossing were _un_regulate
on
SSSCA Hearing
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
How about this?
Congress shall make no law supporting the consolidation of control over valuable resources, whether material or immaterial, into the hands of any single entity, whether individual, corporate, or governmental.
Congress shall ensure the equitable availability of all resources to all citizens through oversight of any entity which has consolidated control over any valuable resource.
The first rule covers the establishment of monopolies through legal means. The second rule covers monopolies that develop without legal support (i.e., natural monopolies).
The last time (actually, first, last and only time) I was at Disney World, in a tribute to Walt himself, I saw this him quoted:
Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards -- the things we live
by and teach our children -- are preserved or diminished by how freely
we exchange ideas and feelings
If this is Walt's view, then Eisner & Co. must have him spinning in his grave!
People these days seem to forget about the overhead of interpretters and virtual machines. If the article is correct, then the z800's running zVM emulate Intel x86 architecture in order to run Linux.
Sorry, but z/VM has nothing to do with emulation. z/VM is a low-level system that simply (or not so simply;-) virtualizes the hardware by providing one or more virtual machines, each of which can run any native OS. As far as the client OS knows, it's running on the bare hardware. The z/VM layer provides the ability to flexibly divide the hardware resources between the VMs, and guarantees that each VM is completely isolated from all other VMs. In the case of Linux/390, the Linux kernel and applications have been compiled to run natively on the S/390 architecture. Check out this Linux for S/390 FAQ for more info.
Yes, but you're arguing it by using an example that is exceedingly rare: a family that is entirely outside of the economy suddenly and unexpectedly trying to get into it. Ok. So the increase in the GDP does not impact that family. But they're outside of the thing that the GDP measures. Why would you expect it to impact them?
Isn't this the exact situation of people in third-world countries when they join a larger economy (whether voluntarily or not)? Before the development, the families/tribes/whatever have very small, but successful, economies, but do not participate in the larger economy. Merging them into a national or global economy obviously benefits that economy, but often at the people's expense.
Of course, there are some tangible benefits to being part of a larger economy, such as the availability of health care, but is the net effect for these people truly positive?
Why did it have to be transparent? Because Scotty saying, "Admirral, therre be whales herre!" is so much better than Spock saying, "Transport completed, Admiral.";-P
No, the US Constitution does not allow treaties to alter the US Constitution. The article you quote allows the US Constitution, Federal laws, and Federal treaties to take precedence over State Constitutions and laws. Look at the structure:
Article VI
(1)This Constitution, and
(2)the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and (3)all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,
(a)shall be the supreme law of the land; and
(b)the judges in every state shall be bound thereby,anything in the (i)Constitution or (ii)laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Judicial branch is given the responsibility for deciding issues on all three parts of the "supreme law of the land":
Article III, Section 2
The Judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under
(1)this Constitution,
(2)the Laws of the United States, and (3)Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority
How does shipping a tape recorder qualify as terrorism?
Because it could have an evil message from Osama bin Laden with a
coded secret message to terrorists. We must stop these evil people from communicating.
After all, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", right? That means you must suspect everything and everyone of terrorism.
And Jon Ashcroft is personally arresting people?
Not exactly. He's generously passing that joy on to others.
</sarcasm>
Sounds like the definition of terrorism is getting pretty loose these days.
No work product, findings or recommendations by the TC may be admitted in any enforcement proceeding before the Court for any purpose, and no member of the TC shall testify by deposition, in court or before any other tribunal regarding any matter related to this Final Judgment.
How can an enforcement proceeding establish a pattern of violations if the documentation of those violations is not admitted in the proceeding?
Is this a typical clause for an anti-trust judgement??? Sure sounds fishy to me!
The idea of certification is nice, but many times the practice falls far short.
I had a Mechanical Engineering prof in university who had a P.E. He obsessed on studying the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and always spent one complete class period per course telling his students what he'd found out about the sinking. This fine P.E. insisted that there is no terminal velocity in water, and that the ship accelerated freely until it hit the rocks 530 feet below traveling at over 80 MPH (over 140 kph)!
Of course, I don't need to mention MSCE, do I?
This doesn't mean that certification is useless, of course, it just means that it doesn't guarantee competence
Finally, information anarchy threatens to undo much of the progress made in recent years with regard to encouraging vendors to openly address security vulnerabilities. At the end of the day, a vendor?s paramount responsibility is to its customers, not to a self-described security community. If openly addressing vulnerabilities inevitably leads to those vulnerabilities being exploited, vendors will have no choice but to find other ways to protect their customers.
Crap...I'm trying to find a problem with the logic, but I can't actually understand the argument - anyone? What other ways are there for vendors to protect their customers than put out fixes?
Microsoft's latest release of Windows XXXP also includes the patented OurNet(TM) technology, an important part of DirectNet(TM). OurNet(TM) technology prevents dangerous Internet attacks on your computer by stopping those attacks before they reach your computer.
As part of your on-line product registration, you will be asked to provide account information for OurNet(TM), and your computer will be automatically configured to access OurNet(TM). Once you are connected to OurNet(TM), attempted attacks on your computer will be stopped by OurNet (TM) before they reach your computer
Please note that for your protection, access to Internet-based content is only available through the OurNet(TM) services.
Right...Okinawa is about 2300 sq km...Afghanistan is about 652,000 sq km...all we have to do is somehow encourage Taliban/Al Qaeda to confine themselves to 0.35% of Afghanistan, and it'll be Okinawa all over again...any ideas on how we can do that?
I agree that forcing MS to open their APIs/formats/protocols is the best solution for now. But I'm a little puzzled as to how the government could force that without having to establish a complete interface oversight committee that would be heavily overworked.
One wild idea I've had, though, is to try to use the customer community as the oversight committee: establish a bounty for anyone who finds an undocumented interface being used by MS.
It could work something like this:
Someone reports the undocumented interface publically (to a web site or whatever), including the basics of how it works (code or whatever)
Once reported, others can test and verify the existence of the undocumented interface
Others have the opportunity to verify or refute the undocumented interface, or to point to existing documentation.
If a given number of verifications have been received, and no one has refuted the existence or lack of documentation, the first person reporting it receives $X from MS, and everyone testing/verifying receives $Y (< $X) from MS
If it cannot be verified, then no one receives anything
Once it has been verified, MS get a given amount of time (say 4 weeks) to provide public documentation for the interface.
If MS does not provide public documentation within the specified time, the discoverer and testers each get an additional increasing weekly bounty (maybe increasing exponentially, like $X*(wk^2)/8) for each week after the deadline.
I see a few advantages to this:
The oversight committee is made up of anyone who is interested in/affected by the MS interface, rather than limited to a small pre-selected group
The oversight is done publically, and verified publically, so it is available to anyone
There would be no need to take MS to court for each undocumented/misdocumented interface -- the user community would effectively be the court, and would be more effective and efficient on technological matters like this than would the US court system
MS would not be "forced" to document their products, but would be forced to pay a penalty for not documenting
The penalty paid by MS would go directly to those who are harmed by the lack of documentation
Even if MS refuses to document an interface, this would give the users a common place to provide unofficial documentation
Does this sound like it might work, or is it just silly dreaming?
Then Disney just re-organizes. Each Disney store will become the local headquarters, so they are allowed to contribute. The current Disney corporation will become a holding company that effectively coordinates and controls the separate "companies".
Completely inaccurate paraphrase. Please try thinking before replying.
I'll rephrase:
Retaliation will not reach those who performed these attacks -- they are dead.
Retaliation will cause more hatred, resulting in more terrorists and terrorism.
Retaliation can not eliminate terrorism.
Please note, I am not arguing against justice. I hope that when we find out who is responsible for these acts, they will receive the punishment due to them for their dastardly attacks on innocent people.
I *am* arguing against a reliance on retaliation as the solution to terrorism. Terrorism doesn't spring out of nothing. People aren't born terrorist. We need to find and deal with the *causes* of terrorism rather than just reacting to *acts* of terrorism. That's what I meant about moving it to a *different* *arena*.
Our responsibility does not end when we find those responsible for the terrorist acts. We must take responsibility for finding out which acts and attitudes encourage terrorism, and eradicate them wherever they occur. We must be careful not to teach that unrestrained violence is the best solution. How many of the world's terrorists have developed their abilities while they were US-supported freedom fighters?
Yes, there will always be *some* terrorism. We must *always* justly punish the acts of terrorism. But punishment alone will not eradicate terrorism. And if it becomes vengeance rather than just punishment, then we are actually encouraging more terrorism.
If we can change our arrogant national attitude, we will give others less cause for terrorism. It's much better to prevent terrorism than to punish terrorism.
OUr entry into WWII was one of those responses. That solved a lot.
There's a slight difference between a military attack and a terrorist attack. You can declare war on a country, and you know where to counter-attack.
Bombing Tripoli in the 80's caused an overnight drop in world Terrorism.
And what has caused the increase since then?
At least at times, violent reponses *are* effective. You can still make a moral case against them, but the dotion that they are ineffective is
demonstrably false.
I would agree that they are effective in the short-term. In the long term, though, I really wonder. Does a nation's agressive attitude make them more of a target for later hatred and terrorism?
I'm a belligerent evangelical pacifist. I am opposed to violence (pacifist), and want to spread this attitude to everyone else (evangelical).
But I'm also willing to use massive military force to bring them to this enlightenment.
Hmmm...how can military force bring pacifict enlightenment??
Slashdot Mirror
In order to understand a menace, you have to understand who or what is being threatened by the menace.
You're saying that sharing a thing does not threaten an individual, or society as a whole, unless the thing shared or the act of sharing carries a risk of personal harm.
True.
The copyright-based companies know that sharing copyrighted content threatens the absolute market control given them by copyright laws.
Also true.
The companies say that losing absolute market control threatens their business models and viability.
Again, true.
The companies state that loss of their business model threatens the development of new copyrighted content.
Well, true in one way. It threatens the continuing development of cookie-cutter boy bands and britney-types and formula-plot movies. That's a threat I can definitely live with.
The companies assert that loss of their business model will threaten artists' ability to be successful (= make money).
Partly true. It threatens the ability of a very few artists to be very successful superstars, often at the expense of many other artists who have very little chance to be distributed.
The companies claim that loss of their business model threatens the economy.
Perhaps this is true, but on what scale, and how does this affect society as a whole? "The Economy" is often a poor measure of overall societal well-being. Even when The Economy is growing, the earnings of the majority of society can be shrinking, like in the US lately. Sometimes, threats to The Economy can help society as a whole, because people are encouraged to find satisfaction in participation rather than consumption (like being in a band rather than playing CDs)
The ultimate threat, though, is that loss of market control threatens the current lifestyle of the corporate officers and superstars. Anyone will fight for the right to maintain their lifestyle.
Does sharing of copyrighted content create a menace? Yes. Who or what does it threaten? It threatens the content companies, and those who have a high position or hope to have a high position in the content industries.
Does not sharing copyrighted content create a menace? Yes. Who or what does it threaten? It threatens the richness and availability of content, artists marginalized by the uniformity imposed by the companies' market control, and innovation in business models to better cope with the ease of sharing content.
The question isn't whether sharing is a menace, it's whether sharing benefits society as a whole. Which threatens society more, a threat to the few in control, or a threat to the many marginalized?
With a 55% illiteracy rate, no math or language textbooks in the public schools, and only half of children ages 5-9 in any school, all the books in the world won't help much. They need the basics.
I doubt "Hooked on Phonics" is available in Urdu, though. ;)
And, pray tell, where do you find this fabled independent body? How do you guarantee that it remains independent?
Thinking, feelingIntellectual Property, Emotional Propertywhat's the difference? It's all immaterial.
I always wondered why anyone would invite a technology to "sod me" -- I know I wouldn't. At least "Dumb, Duh" is still a useful description of the goals.
I think your definition of impossible is quite different from mine.
Since DMCA makes it illegal to distribute information or devices for circumvention, each person would have to develop their own circumvention device. I am certain that I do not have the ability to do that, since I am not a crypto guru. I strongly suspect that almost all of the US population is in the same boat.
That means that fair use is truly impossible for almost everyone.
Also, like the parent said, "fair use" is only a defense to a copyright infringement suit. It requires a court decision -- how many of us have the money or time to successfully defend against a corporate suit? For most, it wouldn't matter whether they might be able to win eventually, since they can't afford it.
In reality, the threat of a lawsuit by the corporation is often enough to ensure conformity to their desires, whether or not the law supports them.
Yes, Judge Saris' summary judgement on State Street Bank vs. Signature Financial Group applied common sense. Unfortunately, that didn't help, because her judgement was overturned on appeal, and the final disposition of the case is what established the patentability of software business methods.
To make any difference in our legal system, common sense must be allied with and supported by solid legal argument. Otherwise, we can easily end up with legal conclusions that are absolutely nonsensical. Yeah, that's often frustrating...
Digital Nervous System, eh? I rather thought that one was appropriate. It really did make my fingers nervous -- along with the rest of me!
How about this?
The first rule covers the establishment of monopolies through legal means. The second rule covers monopolies that develop without legal support (i.e., natural monopolies).
The last time (actually, first, last and only time) I was at Disney World, in a tribute to Walt himself, I saw this him quoted:
If this is Walt's view, then Eisner & Co. must have him spinning in his grave!
Sorry, but z/VM has nothing to do with emulation. z/VM is a low-level system that simply (or not so simply ;-) virtualizes the hardware by providing one or more virtual machines, each of which can run any native OS. As far as the client OS knows, it's running on the bare hardware. The z/VM layer provides the ability to flexibly divide the hardware resources between the VMs, and guarantees that each VM is completely isolated from all other VMs. In the case of Linux/390, the Linux kernel and applications have been compiled to run natively on the S/390 architecture. Check out this Linux for S/390 FAQ for more info.
Isn't this the exact situation of people in third-world countries when they join a larger economy (whether voluntarily or not)? Before the development, the families/tribes/whatever have very small, but successful, economies, but do not participate in the larger economy. Merging them into a national or global economy obviously benefits that economy, but often at the people's expense.
Of course, there are some tangible benefits to being part of a larger economy, such as the availability of health care, but is the net effect for these people truly positive?
Why did it have to be transparent? Because Scotty saying, "Admirral, therre be whales herre!" is so much better than Spock saying, "Transport completed, Admiral." ;-P
Ah, I see. So the Corvette is by far the most likely of all of these vehicles to roll over, right?
Hint: it's not the width, it's the ratio of CG height to width. Wider is not *always* better...
No, the US Constitution does not allow treaties to alter the US Constitution. The article you quote allows the US Constitution, Federal laws, and Federal treaties to take precedence over State Constitutions and laws. Look at the structure:
The Judicial branch is given the responsibility for deciding issues on all three parts of the "supreme law of the land":
Because it could have an evil message from Osama bin Laden with a coded secret message to terrorists. We must stop these evil people from communicating.
After all, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", right? That means you must suspect everything and everyone of terrorism.
Not exactly. He's generously passing that joy on to others.
</sarcasm>
You got that right...sadly...
Ah, but IV.D.4.d makes enforcement a bit harder:
How can an enforcement proceeding establish a pattern of violations if the documentation of those violations is not admitted in the proceeding?
Is this a typical clause for an anti-trust judgement??? Sure sounds fishy to me!
The idea of certification is nice, but many times the practice falls far short.
I had a Mechanical Engineering prof in university who had a P.E. He obsessed on studying the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and always spent one complete class period per course telling his students what he'd found out about the sinking. This fine P.E. insisted that there is no terminal velocity in water, and that the ship accelerated freely until it hit the rocks 530 feet below traveling at over 80 MPH (over 140 kph)!
Of course, I don't need to mention MSCE, do I?
This doesn't mean that certification is useless, of course, it just means that it doesn't guarantee competence
Hmmm...isn't it obvious?
<pressrelease type="expected" subtext="Just trust us!">
Microsoft's latest release of Windows XXXP also includes the patented OurNet(TM) technology, an important part of DirectNet(TM). OurNet(TM) technology prevents dangerous Internet attacks on your computer by stopping those attacks before they reach your computer.
As part of your on-line product registration, you will be asked to provide account information for OurNet(TM), and your computer will be automatically configured to access OurNet(TM). Once you are connected to OurNet(TM), attempted attacks on your computer will be stopped by OurNet (TM) before they reach your computer
Please note that for your protection, access to Internet-based content is only available through the OurNet(TM) services.
</pressrelease>
Right...Okinawa is about 2300 sq km...Afghanistan is about 652,000 sq km...all we have to do is somehow encourage Taliban/Al Qaeda to confine themselves to 0.35% of Afghanistan, and it'll be Okinawa all over again...any ideas on how we can do that?
I agree that forcing MS to open their APIs/formats/protocols is the best solution for now. But I'm a little puzzled as to how the government could force that without having to establish a complete interface oversight committee that would be heavily overworked.
One wild idea I've had, though, is to try to use the customer community as the oversight committee: establish a bounty for anyone who finds an undocumented interface being used by MS. It could work something like this:
I see a few advantages to this:
Does this sound like it might work, or is it just silly dreaming?
Then Disney just re-organizes. Each Disney store will become the local headquarters, so they are allowed to contribute. The current Disney corporation will become a holding company that effectively coordinates and controls the separate "companies".
Yes, I know, I'm too cynical...maybe...
In other words, we want a monopoly on Smart Tags, too!
Completely inaccurate paraphrase. Please try thinking before replying.
I'll rephrase:
Retaliation will not reach those who performed these attacks -- they are dead.
Retaliation will cause more hatred, resulting in more terrorists and terrorism.
Retaliation can not eliminate terrorism.
Please note, I am not arguing against justice. I hope that when we find out who is responsible for these acts, they will receive the punishment due to them for their dastardly attacks on innocent people.
I *am* arguing against a reliance on retaliation as the solution to terrorism. Terrorism doesn't spring out of nothing. People aren't born terrorist. We need to find and deal with the *causes* of terrorism rather than just reacting to *acts* of terrorism. That's what I meant about moving it to a *different* *arena*.
Our responsibility does not end when we find those responsible for the terrorist acts. We must take responsibility for finding out which acts and attitudes encourage terrorism, and eradicate them wherever they occur. We must be careful not to teach that unrestrained violence is the best solution. How many of the world's terrorists have developed their abilities while they were US-supported freedom fighters?
Yes, there will always be *some* terrorism. We must *always* justly punish the acts of terrorism. But punishment alone will not eradicate terrorism. And if it becomes vengeance rather than just punishment, then we are actually encouraging more terrorism.
If we can change our arrogant national attitude, we will give others less cause for terrorism. It's much better to prevent terrorism than to punish terrorism.
OUr entry into WWII was one of those responses. That solved a lot.
There's a slight difference between a military attack and a terrorist attack. You can declare war on a country, and you know where to counter-attack.
Bombing Tripoli in the 80's caused an overnight drop in world Terrorism.
And what has caused the increase since then?
At least at times, violent reponses *are* effective. You can still make a moral case against them, but the dotion that they are ineffective is demonstrably false.
I would agree that they are effective in the short-term. In the long term, though, I really wonder. Does a nation's agressive attitude make them more of a target for later hatred and terrorism?
I'm a belligerent evangelical pacifist. I am opposed to violence (pacifist), and want to spread this attitude to everyone else (evangelical). But I'm also willing to use massive military force to bring them to this enlightenment.
Hmmm...how can military force bring pacifict enlightenment??