I wonder if maybe the cab company doesn't care if outsiders can actually use the connection. Think about it: all you have to do is convince some idiot politicians that you could provide a seamless connection to a sizeable portion of New Yorkers by installing access points in all your cabs, and you've just gotten the government to subsidize free wifi for your customers.
But here's the problem: If I were to pirate a game, and then decide that it's so good my friends should all play it, I'm not going to go to them and say "Hey, this game is pretty good, you should go buy it". I'm going to give them a link to the same torrent that I got it from.
Assuming that most of the people who pirate games and then recommend them to friends will employ similar logic (I see no reason why they wouldn't), the percentage of people who actually payed for the game will go down, and there will be no increase in customers.
Are you sure they're suing for copyright infringement? If you use a government seal to make it look like you are endorsed by them (such as printing paper with a Department of Defense watermark and then sending people letters printed on it), that's covered under a different law because you're using it to mislead others. Using a seal of the government in something like an encyclopedia article is (regardless of what the FBI thinks) perfectly legal.
In this case, the seal is probably present on some of the leaked documents, but as they really are from the DoD, I can't see how Wikileaks could be charged with fraud.
I think the difference is that with Facebook (which you actually can have a fake name on, BTW - one of my friends recently changed his last name to "Asscakes"), Apple phones and (what almost happened to) the Blizzard Forum, users are choosing to give out their names when there are plenty of alternatives to all three. With this new thing in China, you're only choices are to give your name to a government that has a reputation of punishing political dissidents or stop using the internet.
so the black hole can't smell it because the virtual photons of its nose can't interact with the virtual photons of the gas outside the black hole to indicate that there are electrons, atoms, and molecules there.
Go ahead, let them cheat. They'll be paying for it once they get a job based on their "degree" and suddenly realize they don't know fuckall about what they're doing.
So will everybody who's more qualified, but doesn't get the job because they have a lower GPA because they didn't cheat.
I just realized that was a poorly worded post. What I mean to say is that, because there are 1.3 billion people in china versus 3 billion in America, their total population is roughly 4 times that of our total population; thus for us to have 1/4 as many people with an IQ of 140 or greater as they do would mean that the same portion of Americans have IQ's greater than or equal to 140.
In fact, we're actually a little ahead because the population of China is actually about 4.33 times greater than ours.
Imagine making a quick sketch on a napkin and demanding someone pay you five bucks for it. Imagine spray-painting graffiti on a wall and demanding a hundred bucks for your hard night's work of art. Imagine making a recording of your kid singing some shit song and demanding people buy the CD for ten bucks. All of these things are not so very unlike Jason Robert Brown's situation. However, they are entirely unlike the situation you describe.
They are very unlike Jason Brown's situation. If one person bought your kid's CD for ten bucks, then burned thousands of copies (or photocopied the cocktail napkin) and gave them out for free while you're still trying to sell the originals for 10$, that would be his situation.
I think you misunderstood my argument; I never meant to say that copyright should ensure that you have customers; only that those customers you have can't start mass-producing your work and giving it out for free without your consent.
I do agree that modern copyright terms (it lasts for 70 years after the artist dies or something like that) are way too long, but your original argument was that once an artist has made as much profit as he originally intended then he should lose his copyright, not that copyright terms are too long.
Because you have the right to thought, speech, life, liberty, etc. those are inalienable, the right to have a monopoly on your work is not natural in the least. It is artificial, in short, it is propped up not by nature but by government.
But what are "natural rights"? The laws that prevent me from committing murder, rape, theft of concrete (ie not intellectual property) objects, cannibalism, and a number of other heinous crimes are all artificial laws "propped up not by nature but by government." Are these laws any more "natural" than copyright laws?
Right. Because I forgot about how before copyright law no literature was written, no artists painted, no composers composed, no singers sung and no one played any instruments. Because of the lack of financial incentives nothing ever got done before humanity came up with copyright law. No philosophy, no science, nothing. Right?
In a world without copyright, I agree that there would still be music and literature. But what about movies and games? Do you honestly think we'd have blockbusters like Star Wars where millions of dollars are invested in special effects? I sure hope you like those Star Trek fan productions, because that's about as interesting as TV would get.
Imagine if you got your paycheck, only to discover that you were shortchanged by 33% because your boss thinks that the other 67% was enough to make it worth your time ("Hey, that's how much we payed you when you had just started, and it was enough back then"), and then told you that you look like "a whiny, greedy kid who needs to learn when to STFU and quit making a big deal out of nothing.".
Slashdot Mirror
It's already been slashdotted to death.
I don't think that will happen to Julian Assange, but lets not pretend like the US government wouldn't do it.
You think that they aren't going to do it, but let's not pretend like they aren't going to do it?
Didn't they establish that God was helping them way back in the first season when President Roslin started seeing visions and such?
Sooner or later we're gonna have to get out of here, or go extinct.
Or... we could use Earth as our spaceship :)
Wasn't that how the Cybermen (from Doctor Who) got started?
I wonder if maybe the cab company doesn't care if outsiders can actually use the connection. Think about it: all you have to do is convince some idiot politicians that you could provide a seamless connection to a sizeable portion of New Yorkers by installing access points in all your cabs, and you've just gotten the government to subsidize free wifi for your customers.
I see you grew up in the pedantic generation.
But here's the problem: If I were to pirate a game, and then decide that it's so good my friends should all play it, I'm not going to go to them and say "Hey, this game is pretty good, you should go buy it". I'm going to give them a link to the same torrent that I got it from.
Assuming that most of the people who pirate games and then recommend them to friends will employ similar logic (I see no reason why they wouldn't), the percentage of people who actually payed for the game will go down, and there will be no increase in customers.
I don't know about international affairs, but there's plenty you can learn about Science and Engineering by going to the lab and doing projects.
Popularity doesn't pay the bills when 90% of your players aren't paying for the game.
Are you sure they're suing for copyright infringement? If you use a government seal to make it look like you are endorsed by them (such as printing paper with a Department of Defense watermark and then sending people letters printed on it), that's covered under a different law because you're using it to mislead others. Using a seal of the government in something like an encyclopedia article is (regardless of what the FBI thinks) perfectly legal. In this case, the seal is probably present on some of the leaked documents, but as they really are from the DoD, I can't see how Wikileaks could be charged with fraud.
Under American law, the government can't copyright things funded by taxpayer money.
One problem with your argument: Not everybody is pirating stuff off of the internet.
Yeah, I meant 0.3 billion, not 3 billion. But apart from that, my point about how we have the same proportion of people with IQ's above 125 is true.
I think the difference is that with Facebook (which you actually can have a fake name on, BTW - one of my friends recently changed his last name to "Asscakes"), Apple phones and (what almost happened to) the Blizzard Forum, users are choosing to give out their names when there are plenty of alternatives to all three. With this new thing in China, you're only choices are to give your name to a government that has a reputation of punishing political dissidents or stop using the internet.
so the black hole can't smell it because the virtual photons of its nose can't interact with the virtual photons of the gas outside the black hole to indicate that there are electrons, atoms, and molecules there.
Also because it doesn't have a nose.
Go ahead, let them cheat. They'll be paying for it once they get a job based on their "degree" and suddenly realize they don't know fuckall about what they're doing.
So will everybody who's more qualified, but doesn't get the job because they have a lower GPA because they didn't cheat.
I just realized that was a poorly worded post. What I mean to say is that, because there are 1.3 billion people in china versus 3 billion in America, their total population is roughly 4 times that of our total population; thus for us to have 1/4 as many people with an IQ of 140 or greater as they do would mean that the same portion of Americans have IQ's greater than or equal to 140.
In fact, we're actually a little ahead because the population of China is actually about 4.33 times greater than ours.
That leaves China with over 4 million with an IQ greater than 140. The US then has just under one million.
Considering that they have roughly 4 times as many people as the US, I'd say that leaves us about even.
Maybe this will help you understand why we don't do much traveling outside of the states.
Granted, that's only Western Europe, but I think you get the idea.
Imagine making a quick sketch on a napkin and demanding someone pay you five bucks for it. Imagine spray-painting graffiti on a wall and demanding a hundred bucks for your hard night's work of art. Imagine making a recording of your kid singing some shit song and demanding people buy the CD for ten bucks. All of these things are not so very unlike Jason Robert Brown's situation. However, they are entirely unlike the situation you describe.
They are very unlike Jason Brown's situation. If one person bought your kid's CD for ten bucks, then burned thousands of copies (or photocopied the cocktail napkin) and gave them out for free while you're still trying to sell the originals for 10$, that would be his situation.
I think you misunderstood my argument; I never meant to say that copyright should ensure that you have customers; only that those customers you have can't start mass-producing your work and giving it out for free without your consent.
I do agree that modern copyright terms (it lasts for 70 years after the artist dies or something like that) are way too long, but your original argument was that once an artist has made as much profit as he originally intended then he should lose his copyright, not that copyright terms are too long.
Because you have the right to thought, speech, life, liberty, etc. those are inalienable, the right to have a monopoly on your work is not natural in the least. It is artificial, in short, it is propped up not by nature but by government.
But what are "natural rights"? The laws that prevent me from committing murder, rape, theft of concrete (ie not intellectual property) objects, cannibalism, and a number of other heinous crimes are all artificial laws "propped up not by nature but by government." Are these laws any more "natural" than copyright laws?
Right. Because I forgot about how before copyright law no literature was written, no artists painted, no composers composed, no singers sung and no one played any instruments. Because of the lack of financial incentives nothing ever got done before humanity came up with copyright law. No philosophy, no science, nothing. Right?
In a world without copyright, I agree that there would still be music and literature. But what about movies and games? Do you honestly think we'd have blockbusters like Star Wars where millions of dollars are invested in special effects? I sure hope you like those Star Trek fan productions, because that's about as interesting as TV would get.
Imagine if you got your paycheck, only to discover that you were shortchanged by 33% because your boss thinks that the other 67% was enough to make it worth your time ("Hey, that's how much we payed you when you had just started, and it was enough back then"), and then told you that you look like "a whiny, greedy kid who needs to learn when to STFU and quit making a big deal out of nothing.".
If I could mod you up as insightful, I would.
With DRM, its nearly impossible to share music or sheet music legally amongst your own friends/family, original or not.
Yeah, I hate those new paper-based DRM systems, too.
One more thing: Your iBuy has already purchased itself on your behalf!