Exactly... where's the Biometrics part? Does it take fingerprints, capture irises...? Facial photo maybe... WTF... They should have made the B - Bionic instead (or more appropriately BIG...) ah but they had to play the "Biometrics" card.
Maybe the military wants face-recognition software involved in the mix. There has been a lot of talk about using that software to find terrorists, and IIRC even in conjunction with things like the Predator drones we currently use for surveillance. (yeah I know the software/hardware for this is pretty sorry right now, but the gummint likes it). They might also have fingerprint recognition to determine whether the bat bites you when you try to hold it.:D
So, I'm confused on what parts they are trying to shrink. Perhaps, they are only talking about one component: the solar charging array. But I can tell you this, if I ever see a bat flying in the daytime, I'm gonna blow that sucka from the sky! They'd be better off building a bird-of-prey, and if they need 12' how about building a Condor.
I think the idea is that the bat will recharge between missions. So it hides somewhere and "sleeps" while recharging its batteries. Yeah unlikely that a bat would sleep on a mountain or in a tree (unless it's a tree bat), but still. As to your other suggestion, Condors only live in a pretty small area, and that area is generally not the most important area for spying, unless you want to watch the peacenicks and anti-WTO types in California.
I find fault with your logic, because you're assuming that one's beliefs and principles override one's requirement to work in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families.
As David Brancaccio has previously said "Much evil is done in the name of paying the mortgage." Besides which, I have to wonder where things like Carnivore and the Clipper Chip could come from if nerds, perhaps evil nerds (but nerds nonetheless), were not involved in some way. Last I checked processors are not directly designed by managers or policemen.
There is a lot of tech out there that geeks love to hate. Spam generators, DRM and copy protection software, Sony/RIAA rootkits, etc come to mind. But someone has to have made it.
I think that a bird with a weird hat on its head will be a little too obvious.
For greater payload you may want to use a falcon or an albatross.
In other news, Alka-Seltzer has been designated a chemical weapon of mass destruction used only by terrorists by Homeland Security!. Posession is illegal, stockpiles are being confiscated, and the people who run the factories that make it are already on their way to Gitmo.:D
Or make it a vampire bat in the sense it lands on local power lines and leeches in order to recharge.
That model will starve to death in the places we most want it to go, like Afghanistan. Speaking of which, it had better have really good batteries because it won't easily pick up solar power within the caves it probably needs to explore.
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Exactly how does the creation of a new Bureaucracy create less bureaucracy?? That is the kind of thinking that created the Homeland Security department, whihc has been a big mess. (Yes, let's create a new organization that the FBI, FEMA, et al have to go to "mother may I" to do anything, and from whom they get orders (even though from people less qualified to comment on their particular specialty).
I'm all for some solution to the health care crisis, but unless we trim current bureaucracies awe willl have more and not less, and if we do not break the stranglehold of the insurance companies and drug peddlers (among many many others) it will not get any cheaper.
Unfortunately, you set up a false dichotomy: the current system, or a national system. We can do much to lower costs, increase choice, and get broader health care access, in the existing (mostly) private system. It used to work. There is absolutely no reason it cannot work today.
Great; then you should love the current system proposed by Democrats: either subsidized or mandatory health insurance for the current system. Obama's plan allows a subsidy for lower incomes but does not mandate insurance. Hillary's plan is to make health insurance like car insurance, where everyone has to buy it. Either way, the system does not appreciably change. And it will not as long as the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies lose a little bit of their power and quit subsidizing their profits at our expense. It's crazy that we have to consider buying drugs from Canada that are from the same companies that currently sell to us wholesale at rates higher than what we can get rretail from their OTHER customers.
The last time I checked, SSA, Medicare/Medicaid and HUD were not explicitly mentioned as a role of our government in the Constitution, while Defense most certainly is. Unlike so many wrong-headed individuals, I believe that unless the Constitution actually grants a power to the Federal government, then it DOES NOT have it, regardless of what others may wish to be the case.
I agree with you regarding the Constitution. I also think that government loses its legitimacy when it opposes the Constitution. (Uhm, HE-LLO... your existence and range of power is DEFINED by this document you are destroying.. if it is gone where is your claim to power?).
However, as much as I can understand your feelings as far as the cost of government entitlements, I have to point out that this is actually explicitly covered in the Constitution. In fact it is mentioned right in the preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Now I know better than to think that "the general welfare" means what "welfare" means today w/r/t entitlements. However it is according to the Constitution (and basic government ideals) the job of government to act as much as it can to make life generally better. That can come in a lot of packages. But any program will cost money, and some will be relatively direct payouts as the most hated entitlements are.
BTW yes if you combine all the entitlement programs in the budget it becomes a big slice of the pie. In fact Social Security has usually turned up as the largest piece. But that is a misleading pie chart. For one thing, it leaves out where the money is coming from, and if you look into that you see that Social Security is pretty much paying for itself (that might be changing, but still). So you might even take that out of the graph, or leave in just the net.
Then you have to look at things that aren't in the budget; if you are comparing defense spending. The previous poster was way low on the Iraq War's cost in emergency appropriations (I would have said by an order of 10, but WikiPedia seems to come near half that, for now, and double that eventually. Still it's only fair to count what is being spent now if you're comparing the budget.
What about all the research that goes into designing better weapons and ways to train soldiers and frighten an dmanipulate enemies? Is all of that contained under the Defense budget? Or does some of it sneak into places like the education budget or foreign aid? (well, those are both way too small to hide much).
In any case, we spend a lot on our military. Unfortunately now someone has decided to build a parallel military, which is being paid more than the entire budget for our regular military. That can't be cutting defense costs. Either way, a properly designed pie chart would give a very different picture. Lies, damn lies, and statistics and all that; one man's truth is another man's poison.
Isn't most of that money being recycled into the hands of people? When it's "spent", it "goes somewhere". Raw materials, labor, R&D? Doesn't it serve to increase the value of almost every corporation and many, many small businesses?
I don't think so. It would seem that most of this money is going directly to 3-4 giant companies that are designed to handle this sort of thing. Maybe some of it trickles down (if the contractors live, and are still being paid the higher wages they used to rather than the relatively low wages people talk about now, they might be able to spend some), but most of it seems to be going into profits. For those companies that have stock (IIRC Blackwater is still privately owned) that could mean a bump in stock price, so theoretically others could ride the gravy train. But it's usually a few big contractors that make the best money off of wars. The rest of us are paying the big contractors the big bucks out of our paycheck. I am not sure we are getting a very good deal there.
"Saying this patent applies to Guitar Hero is like saying that milk is the same as beer. You can drink them both, but the experience is completely different." Not if you're a "Newcomer" in Alien Nation;-)
Yet, if they had taken advantage of some of the modern conveniences and services, he might have lived to be even older. If you refuse to even look or pay attention to those benefits, you're as good as a luddite. It works for them, but feudalism "worked" in the middle ages. That doesn't mean that it can't be much better.
Hmm, so living in a polluted city, eating processed, contaminated food with little exercise makes you live longer than a steady diet of organically grown, fresh food and a vigorous exercise regimen in a relatively pollution-free environment? Wow I did not know that. Besides which, you missed the part where they had no debts. To live the "modern lifestyle" you describe, they would be in debt up to their eyeballs just like most people are who choose to live that way. Yeah, our way is more convenient. But the question of which way is "better" is pretty subjective.
It still leaves one wondering how the steaming pile of garbage that is Netscape worked for him. I mean, it was OK in the 90s but it's terrible compared to other modern browsers. This is just a stupid mindset; if there are better options then the old one's not "working for you" as it should. Unless he really doesn't care, in which case I don't sympathize with him at all.. you should be aware of the state of technology and what your options are, even if you're not "good with computers" (a phrase I'm sure we've all scowled at).
Except he's on AOL dialup, which pretty much answers it all. It might take days to download the latest browser, only to have to download an update every few days that might be just as big. Mind you while you're downloading the browser your connection is maxxed out so "no web for you!"
Or he could just get back to surfing for porn jpgs on Netscape 4.7
I'm sure the FSF would be delighted to work with Microsoft -- if Microsoft released all of its source under the GPL. Of course, everyone knows that its unreasonable to believe Microsoft would accept these terms in our lifetime, so it would do no good to announce this.
Except this is the Linux Foundation, which is where Linus Torvalds works now. And they are not quite as religious as the FSF about having every little thing free software. Which is part of why GPLv3 was not adopted for the kernel.
According to TFA, what the Linux Foundation is asking for is some help from Microsoft in communicating over Microsoft protocols and dealing with the API, etc. They did suggest they wanted to do this in an Open Source way, but Open Source != Free Software. Open Source allows for additional restrictions from the vendor or a part closed source model. So maybe Microsoft gives some decent object definitions and such to the Linux Foundation and allows these little bits of code to be used in the GPL Linux Kernel, but does not have to provide or distribute the whole source code of their product or even of the relevant library necessarily. Nevertheless, given Microsoft's previous behaviour in this area (even Windows developers complain of incomplete and untrustable documentation from Microsoft), I would not hold my breath even for such a crumb as this.
It was a game balance and rules contradiction or rules ambiguity problem. As much as one might want to leave all decisions to the GM/DM, there were the inevitable rules lawyers that made gaming miserable by... well... lawyering...
But there are rules lawyers in every game with rules, even games like Monopoly and American Football. Some games even seem to facilitate this process with complex rule systems (RuleMaster, I'm lookin' at you, baby).
Primarily they would continue to create because they are creative people and enjoy the process. These laws are, I imagine, designed to protect people who could not create if their life depended upon and so instead resort to farming other people's creativity, warehousing it and then selling it for huge sums, of which they keep the lion's share and give a small token to the originator.
But it takes time and money to create these works. People do have to eat, and working on something else because you are not being paid for your creative work takes time and energy away (but does stave off hunger).
Read the life of any creative person, and the tragedy becomes evident that if they only had more time, if they only were allowed to work on X instead of habving to do Y to pay the bills, if they could only get that one project funded, think of what might have been! We're not even talking about the punk you know in college trying his heart out on the local bar's stage. This went for everyone... Leonardo, Archimedes, Confucius, Wagner.. it's the same for all of them. And that's only because it works the same for all professions. If no one got paid to make cars, very few cars could be made, because people would have to design and build them on their own time with their own money after spending 14 hours a day digging ditches (because in *your* world, nothing gets paid for).. and of course they'd have to walk to work. Of course since no one gets paid to develop gasoline it will be pretty hard to make and fuel the car, etc etc.
Don't muzzle the ox that treads the corn. If you want people to do something meaningful, it's best if they aren't going to starve to death if they choose to do it full-time.
Copyright length shouldn't be based on value or commercial viability. The fact that something is popular shouldn't extend its length. In fact, that's all the more reason it should enter the public domain so that the current generation can enjoy it freely; after all, that was supposed to be the deal, the artist's end of the bargain for a government granted (and enforced) monopoly of _limited_duration_.
There goes the Disney Paradigm.:D You're going on Mickey's naughty list you thought-criminal.
I make a living from copyright, and I am very lazy. I am completely okay with the idea of being paid in perpetuity for something I create now, but I am also aware that it removes my incentive to create more. The purpose of copyright, sadly, is not for me to get rich. It is to make me (and, more realistically, others) create things that enrich our culture. Imagine if Mozart have been able to keep cashing in on his first symphony for his entire life. Would he have bothered writing the other 40?
If you are satisfied with your current situation, that is your prerogative. However realize that if you were not getting these royalties now you would not have that situation. If you knew you would never be paid for the work would you have done it at all? That is the real question. The copyright is not there necessarily to convince you to churn out a book a month or whatever. The copyright is there so that people know if tehy *do* write a book or something they might get paid. That makes people more likely to write books, etc. That is all that is necessary to fulfill the requirement of "generating new works." What you created was a new work when you created it. Therefore copyright DID give you an incentive to create new works.
Well, you can earn a living. Except you need to do it pretty often. As in, I need to go to work almost every weekday to earn my living. Why should an musician be done their "job" after one song?
That's a straw man, because the reality is that they aren't. Even casting scumsucking middlemen (record labels etc) aside, you can't just make a song and have done. It has to be performed and promoted, and that is why people choose to buy a cd or tickets to their concerts. If they don't deserve your money I guess you are not buying their CD. But don't pretend it's not work just because it is different from the kind of work you might do.
I'm surprised that slashdot, being as thick as it is with people who claim to be artists of a sort (they write code for a living) and therefore make money directly as a result of the copyright law structure would argue that we should throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Maybe because most of the people answering are not coders or are schmoes who only produce "works for hire" and therefore do not directly benefit from residuals. But if the residuals were not there for the company you have signed the copyright for your program over to; that is, if they were not allowed to sell your work for money, they would have no money to pay you. Furthermore the opportunity is there if you manage to create something in an unencumbered environment (no big corp gets to claim they own your work) YOU might be able to make some money off of those continuing sales. Either way though you are getting paid specifically because there is value to what you produced that people are willing to pay money for. If there was no copyright at all, they would not need to pay you, or worse it would be easier for other people to make money off your work while you get nothing.
The IP laws need serious overhaul. But let's not get carried away here. There does need to be a structure to allow creators of intellectual work to be paid else it's back to the cotton fields for all of us.
Not only that, but even if we take these people seriously, why should the yardstick be "lifetime" and not "career length"? NOBODY works and earns a living for 95 years. Most people retire and stop getting money from their employer. After retirement, it's time to rely on savings from your career. These artists who get 50 years of royalties should be saving a portion of their income for retirement, just like anybody else.
Maybe for you and me. But there used to be such a thing as a pension. Actually when the government officials who write these laws retire they will get a pension. Former Senators and Presidents, etc, just keep getting paid forever. If you or I want some retirement fundage, we have to save it, though since there is such a thing as inflation, it's more advisable to invest it, which basically means giving it to these people who get pensions. (Or their pension fund!)
"Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them." Two wrongs do not make a right.
It's called civil disobedience, and when governments lose all moral standing it can be the right thing to do.
Maybe. But very few people are willing to go to jail to fight for the right to share MP3s.
Tell that to Leonardo da Vinci. He never did finish the Last Supper, and Michaelangelo apparently never let him live down the unfinished Sforza horse.
Then there are always, well, you know, computer programmers. Software is never completely done.
Incidentally, Leonardo is another example of the problem with creative control over works. Quite apart from the fact he never got funding to create some of the more interesting things he was working on, there was the fate of his notes, which supposedly were supposed to get indexed, cataloued, and published, but instead were split up, passed down, and lost for the most part. Part of what is left is now owned by Bill Gates (though the IP itself is technically no longer owned by anyone... I think. You never know what might happen with the way people seem to patent things that already exist and then sue the people who are actually making stuff.
Then they are in the wrong line of work. The explicitly stated purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works, NOT to ensure the lifetime income of works creators. If they want to make more money, start writing/performing new stuff.
If they don't get compensated for their work, there is no incentive to create new things. If you don't allow them to charge for distribution of their work, they are not getting compensated.
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Exactly... where's the Biometrics part? Does it take fingerprints, capture irises...? Facial photo maybe... WTF... They should have made the B - Bionic instead (or more appropriately BIG...) ah but they had to play the "Biometrics" card.
Maybe the military wants face-recognition software involved in the mix. There has been a lot of talk about using that software to find terrorists, and IIRC even in conjunction with things like the Predator drones we currently use for surveillance. (yeah I know the software/hardware for this is pretty sorry right now, but the gummint likes it). They might also have fingerprint recognition to determine whether the bat bites you when you try to hold it. :D
I have a feeling they chose bat because it would look cooler,and thus would be an easier sell.
Bats and terrorists like to live in caves. Plus bats are small and people don't like to touch them.
So, I'm confused on what parts they are trying to shrink. Perhaps,
they are only talking about one component: the solar charging array. But I can tell you this, if I ever see a bat flying
in the daytime, I'm gonna blow that sucka from the sky! They'd be better off building a bird-of-prey, and if they need 12'
how about building a Condor.
I think the idea is that the bat will recharge between missions. So it hides somewhere and "sleeps" while recharging its batteries. Yeah unlikely that a bat would sleep on a mountain or in a tree (unless it's a tree bat), but still. As to your other suggestion, Condors only live in a pretty small area, and that area is generally not the most important area for spying, unless you want to watch the peacenicks and anti-WTO types in California.
Make them bombers then like the real birds, they crappa all over da place.
And just like real pigeons and bats, they could crap bugs!
I find fault with your logic, because you're assuming that one's beliefs and principles override one's requirement to work in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families.
As David Brancaccio has previously said "Much evil is done in the name of paying the mortgage." Besides which, I have to wonder where things like Carnivore and the Clipper Chip could come from if nerds, perhaps evil nerds (but nerds nonetheless), were not involved in some way. Last I checked processors are not directly designed by managers or policemen.
There is a lot of tech out there that geeks love to hate. Spam generators, DRM and copy protection software, Sony/RIAA rootkits, etc come to mind. But someone has to have made it.
I think that a bird with a weird hat on its head will be a little too obvious.
For greater payload you may want to use a falcon or an albatross.
In other news, Alka-Seltzer has been designated a chemical weapon of mass destruction used only by terrorists by Homeland Security!. Posession is illegal, stockpiles are being confiscated, and the people who run the factories that make it are already on their way to Gitmo. :D
Or make it a vampire bat in the sense it lands on local power lines and leeches in order to recharge.
That model will starve to death in the places we most want it to go, like Afghanistan. Speaking of which, it had better have really good batteries because it won't easily pick up solar power within the caves it probably needs to explore.
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Exactly how does the creation of a new Bureaucracy create less bureaucracy?? That is the kind of thinking that created the Homeland Security department, whihc has been a big mess. (Yes, let's create a new organization that the FBI, FEMA, et al have to go to "mother may I" to do anything, and from whom they get orders (even though from people less qualified to comment on their particular specialty).
I'm all for some solution to the health care crisis, but unless we trim current bureaucracies awe willl have more and not less, and if we do not break the stranglehold of the insurance companies and drug peddlers (among many many others) it will not get any cheaper.
Unfortunately, you set up a false dichotomy: the current system, or a national system. We can do much to lower costs, increase choice, and get broader health care access, in the existing (mostly) private system. It used to work. There is absolutely no reason it cannot work today.
Great; then you should love the current system proposed by Democrats: either subsidized or mandatory health insurance for the current system. Obama's plan allows a subsidy for lower incomes but does not mandate insurance. Hillary's plan is to make health insurance like car insurance, where everyone has to buy it. Either way, the system does not appreciably change. And it will not as long as the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies lose a little bit of their power and quit subsidizing their profits at our expense. It's crazy that we have to consider buying drugs from Canada that are from the same companies that currently sell to us wholesale at rates higher than what we can get rretail from their OTHER customers.
The last time I checked, SSA, Medicare/Medicaid and HUD were not explicitly mentioned as a role of our government in the Constitution, while Defense most certainly is. Unlike so many wrong-headed individuals, I believe that unless the Constitution actually grants a power to the Federal government, then it DOES NOT have it, regardless of what others may wish to be the case.
I agree with you regarding the Constitution. I also think that government loses its legitimacy when it opposes the Constitution. (Uhm, HE-LLO ... your existence and range of power is DEFINED by this document you are destroying .. if it is gone where is your claim to power?).
However, as much as I can understand your feelings as far as the cost of government entitlements, I have to point out that this is actually explicitly covered in the Constitution. In fact it is mentioned right in the preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Now I know better than to think that "the general welfare" means what "welfare" means today w/r/t entitlements. However it is according to the Constitution (and basic government ideals) the job of government to act as much as it can to make life generally better. That can come in a lot of packages. But any program will cost money, and some will be relatively direct payouts as the most hated entitlements are.
BTW yes if you combine all the entitlement programs in the budget it becomes a big slice of the pie. In fact Social Security has usually turned up as the largest piece. But that is a misleading pie chart. For one thing, it leaves out where the money is coming from, and if you look into that you see that Social Security is pretty much paying for itself (that might be changing, but still). So you might even take that out of the graph, or leave in just the net.
Then you have to look at things that aren't in the budget; if you are comparing defense spending. The previous poster was way low on the Iraq War's cost in emergency appropriations (I would have said by an order of 10, but WikiPedia seems to come near half that, for now, and double that eventually. Still it's only fair to count what is being spent now if you're comparing the budget.
What about all the research that goes into designing better weapons and ways to train soldiers and frighten an dmanipulate enemies? Is all of that contained under the Defense budget? Or does some of it sneak into places like the education budget or foreign aid? (well, those are both way too small to hide much).
In any case, we spend a lot on our military. Unfortunately now someone has decided to build a parallel military, which is being paid more than the entire budget for our regular military. That can't be cutting defense costs. Either way, a properly designed pie chart would give a very different picture. Lies, damn lies, and statistics and all that; one man's truth is another man's poison.
Isn't most of that money being recycled into the hands of people? When it's "spent", it "goes somewhere".
Raw materials, labor, R&D? Doesn't it serve to increase the value of almost every corporation and many, many small businesses?
I don't think so. It would seem that most of this money is going directly to 3-4 giant companies that are designed to handle this sort of thing. Maybe some of it trickles down (if the contractors live, and are still being paid the higher wages they used to rather than the relatively low wages people talk about now, they might be able to spend some), but most of it seems to be going into profits. For those companies that have stock (IIRC Blackwater is still privately owned) that could mean a bump in stock price, so theoretically others could ride the gravy train. But it's usually a few big contractors that make the best money off of wars. The rest of us are paying the big contractors the big bucks out of our paycheck. I am not sure we are getting a very good deal there.
"Saying this patent applies to Guitar Hero is like saying that milk is the same as beer. You can drink them both, but the experience is completely different." Not if you're a "Newcomer" in Alien Nation ;-)
Only if the milk is *spoiled*, remember?
Yet, if they had taken advantage of some of the modern conveniences and services, he might have lived to be even older. If you refuse to even look or pay attention to those benefits, you're as good as a luddite. It works for them, but feudalism "worked" in the middle ages. That doesn't mean that it can't be much better.
Hmm, so living in a polluted city, eating processed, contaminated food with little exercise makes you live longer than a steady diet of organically grown, fresh food and a vigorous exercise regimen in a relatively pollution-free environment? Wow I did not know that. Besides which, you missed the part where they had no debts. To live the "modern lifestyle" you describe, they would be in debt up to their eyeballs just like most people are who choose to live that way. Yeah, our way is more convenient. But the question of which way is "better" is pretty subjective.
It still leaves one wondering how the steaming pile of garbage that is Netscape worked for him. I mean, it was OK in the 90s but it's terrible compared to other modern browsers. This is just a stupid mindset; if there are better options then the old one's not "working for you" as it should. Unless he really doesn't care, in which case I don't sympathize with him at all.. you should be aware of the state of technology and what your options are, even if you're not "good with computers" (a phrase I'm sure we've all scowled at).
Except he's on AOL dialup, which pretty much answers it all. It might take days to download the latest browser, only to have to download an update every few days that might be just as big. Mind you while you're downloading the browser your connection is maxxed out so "no web for you!"
Or he could just get back to surfing for porn jpgs on Netscape 4.7
I'm sure the FSF would be delighted to work with Microsoft -- if Microsoft released all of its source under the GPL. Of course, everyone knows that its unreasonable to believe Microsoft would accept these terms in our lifetime, so it would do no good to announce this.
Except this is the Linux Foundation, which is where Linus Torvalds works now. And they are not quite as religious as the FSF about having every little thing free software. Which is part of why GPLv3 was not adopted for the kernel.
According to TFA, what the Linux Foundation is asking for is some help from Microsoft in communicating over Microsoft protocols and dealing with the API, etc. They did suggest they wanted to do this in an Open Source way, but Open Source != Free Software. Open Source allows for additional restrictions from the vendor or a part closed source model. So maybe Microsoft gives some decent object definitions and such to the Linux Foundation and allows these little bits of code to be used in the GPL Linux Kernel, but does not have to provide or distribute the whole source code of their product or even of the relevant library necessarily. Nevertheless, given Microsoft's previous behaviour in this area (even Windows developers complain of incomplete and untrustable documentation from Microsoft), I would not hold my breath even for such a crumb as this.
Remember when it use to be about family, apple pie, and fireworks and shit? Now it's all about the Benjamins.
Nah you got it wrong, Bro ... it's about gettin the paper NOW, instead of waitin around to *get paid*. :D
It was a game balance and rules contradiction or rules ambiguity problem. As much as one might want to leave all decisions to the GM/DM, there were the inevitable rules lawyers that made gaming miserable by ... well ... lawyering...
But there are rules lawyers in every game with rules, even games like Monopoly and American Football. Some games even seem to facilitate this process with complex rule systems (RuleMaster, I'm lookin' at you, baby).
In my eyes, 1st Ed. AD&D is the One True Edition just as vi is the One True Editor. :D
Primarily they would continue to create because they are creative people and enjoy the process. These laws are, I imagine, designed to protect people who could not create if their life depended upon and so instead resort to farming other people's creativity, warehousing it and then selling it for huge sums, of which they keep the lion's share and give a small token to the originator.
But it takes time and money to create these works. People do have to eat, and working on something else because you are not being paid for your creative work takes time and energy away (but does stave off hunger).
Read the life of any creative person, and the tragedy becomes evident that if they only had more time, if they only were allowed to work on X instead of habving to do Y to pay the bills, if they could only get that one project funded, think of what might have been! We're not even talking about the punk you know in college trying his heart out on the local bar's stage. This went for everyone... Leonardo, Archimedes, Confucius, Wagner .. it's the same for all of them. And that's only because it works the same for all professions. If no one got paid to make cars, very few cars could be made, because people would have to design and build them on their own time with their own money after spending 14 hours a day digging ditches (because in *your* world, nothing gets paid for) .. and of course they'd have to walk to work. Of course since no one gets paid to develop gasoline it will be pretty hard to make and fuel the car, etc etc.
Don't muzzle the ox that treads the corn. If you want people to do something meaningful, it's best if they aren't going to starve to death if they choose to do it full-time.
Copyright length shouldn't be based on value or commercial viability. The fact that something is popular shouldn't extend its length. In fact, that's all the more reason it should enter the public domain so that the current generation can enjoy it freely; after all, that was supposed to be the deal, the artist's end of the bargain for a government granted (and enforced) monopoly of _limited_duration_.
There goes the Disney Paradigm. :D You're going on Mickey's naughty list you thought-criminal.
I make a living from copyright, and I am very lazy. I am completely okay with the idea of being paid in perpetuity for something I create now, but I am also aware that it removes my incentive to create more. The purpose of copyright, sadly, is not for me to get rich. It is to make me (and, more realistically, others) create things that enrich our culture. Imagine if Mozart have been able to keep cashing in on his first symphony for his entire life. Would he have bothered writing the other 40?
If you are satisfied with your current situation, that is your prerogative. However realize that if you were not getting these royalties now you would not have that situation. If you knew you would never be paid for the work would you have done it at all? That is the real question. The copyright is not there necessarily to convince you to churn out a book a month or whatever. The copyright is there so that people know if tehy *do* write a book or something they might get paid. That makes people more likely to write books, etc. That is all that is necessary to fulfill the requirement of "generating new works." What you created was a new work when you created it. Therefore copyright DID give you an incentive to create new works.
Well, you can earn a living. Except you need to do it pretty often. As in, I need to go to work almost every weekday to earn my living. Why should an musician be done their "job" after one song?
That's a straw man, because the reality is that they aren't. Even casting scumsucking middlemen (record labels etc) aside, you can't just make a song and have done. It has to be performed and promoted, and that is why people choose to buy a cd or tickets to their concerts. If they don't deserve your money I guess you are not buying their CD. But don't pretend it's not work just because it is different from the kind of work you might do.
I'm surprised that slashdot, being as thick as it is with people who claim to be artists of a sort (they write code for a living) and therefore make money directly as a result of the copyright law structure would argue that we should throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Maybe because most of the people answering are not coders or are schmoes who only produce "works for hire" and therefore do not directly benefit from residuals. But if the residuals were not there for the company you have signed the copyright for your program over to; that is, if they were not allowed to sell your work for money, they would have no money to pay you. Furthermore the opportunity is there if you manage to create something in an unencumbered environment (no big corp gets to claim they own your work) YOU might be able to make some money off of those continuing sales. Either way though you are getting paid specifically because there is value to what you produced that people are willing to pay money for. If there was no copyright at all, they would not need to pay you, or worse it would be easier for other people to make money off your work while you get nothing.
The IP laws need serious overhaul. But let's not get carried away here. There does need to be a structure to allow creators of intellectual work to be paid else it's back to the cotton fields for all of us.
Not only that, but even if we take these people seriously, why should the yardstick be "lifetime" and not "career length"? NOBODY works and earns a living for 95 years. Most people retire and stop getting money from their employer. After retirement, it's time to rely on savings from your career. These artists who get 50 years of royalties should be saving a portion of their income for retirement, just like anybody else.
Maybe for you and me. But there used to be such a thing as a pension. Actually when the government officials who write these laws retire they will get a pension. Former Senators and Presidents, etc, just keep getting paid forever. If you or I want some retirement fundage, we have to save it, though since there is such a thing as inflation, it's more advisable to invest it, which basically means giving it to these people who get pensions. (Or their pension fund!)
"Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them." Two wrongs do not make a right.
It's called civil disobedience, and when governments lose all moral standing it can be the right thing to do.
Maybe. But very few people are willing to go to jail to fight for the right to share MP3s.
artists can't make a dime for a work half done
Tell that to Leonardo da Vinci. He never did finish the Last Supper, and Michaelangelo apparently never let him live down the unfinished Sforza horse.
Then there are always, well, you know, computer programmers. Software is never completely done.
Incidentally, Leonardo is another example of the problem with creative control over works. Quite apart from the fact he never got funding to create some of the more interesting things he was working on, there was the fate of his notes, which supposedly were supposed to get indexed, cataloued, and published, but instead were split up, passed down, and lost for the most part. Part of what is left is now owned by Bill Gates (though the IP itself is technically no longer owned by anyone ... I think. You never know what might happen with the way people seem to patent things that already exist and then sue the people who are actually making stuff.
Then they are in the wrong line of work. The explicitly stated purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works, NOT to ensure the lifetime income of works creators. If they want to make more money, start writing/performing new stuff.
If they don't get compensated for their work, there is no incentive to create new things. If you don't allow them to charge for distribution of their work, they are not getting compensated.