Laws governing copyright and patents are ultimately built upon a fundamental premise that not only are they not particularly detrimental to society, but that they allegedly have an underlying usefulness from which all of society can actually benefit, at least in the long run.
I can appreciate hunting for food,, or killing something that is threatening or otherwise troublesome in some way to you, your family, or your household, but killing something,,, *ANYTHING*... just because it's "fun" may be indicative of something being wrong.
That's fine... they've been informed. They claim to have received rights from a third party. If they've actually named the third party, then the obvious thing to do is go after the third party (the company still loses their rights to use infringing content, however, and can reasonably sue the party that they obtained the illicit license from). If they will not or cannot name the third party they obtained if from, then accountability stops with them, and they are held 100% responsible.
Trying to shift the blame to somebody else does not diminish one's own involvement in the situation. Much like knowingly purchasing stolen property is crime, knowingly possessing works that are known by the possessor to be infringing on copyright (that is, any copies that can reasonably be known to be unauthorized, and are also known to not fall under any exception covered by fair dealing) is also quite actionable by law.
So really, their best course of action is to simply identify the third party that they obtained the infringing content from, because at least then the regular penalty for infringement would be applied to the third party and they themselves could then at least argue that they did not previously realize they were infringing (they would still lose license to use the works, however, since they would still be infringing, and if they continued to try to use them, they would be guilty of knowingly possessing infringing content).
Choosing to not pollute generally has expenses associated with it which are not incurred if one does not worry about preserving the environment., which drives up the costs of the goods or services which are being produced or provided, and does ultimately end up impacting the cost of living for all, and which end up most severely affecting those who are poor.
Not that I think for a second that this an excuse to willingly pollute, only that there is some justification to the notion that trying to keep the environment clean can have certain types of negative effects upon society.
Yeah... two years from now is something that'd probably qualify as immediate future for something of that scope.
However, one is compelled to wonder what you expect is going to produce such a huge change in mind-share. It's certainly not something most people would predict to be on the horizon anytime soon.
Actually, you appear to be addressing a future that is *not* immediate, unless by immediate, you actually mean some period of time that is simply not infinitely far away, but not necessarily soon enough that it is liable to matter to most people today.
Because frankly, if you see more than 2 decades away as "immediate future", you have a very different perception of time from most.
All I've been doing is pointing out how the notion that public domain and alternative works can offer everything conventional copyrighted works does is an idealist perspective, and arguably even an admirable goal for the future, but there's absolutely no possible way that you can assert that it's reflective of the reality in which we live in here, and now.
Time won't prove me wrong on this point because I'm not trying to speculate about how things might be someday, or what people will really want in the future. You are. Time might prove *you* right... but it also might prove you wrong. Maybe it's true that public domain content has a future to offer that conventional copyrighted content does not.... but for the time being, here and now... conventional copyright has a heck of a bigger mind share than public domain content does, and regardless of how little value you might place in that, perhaps owing to the notion that you may not believe it will last, in the end, it's still something. Here. Today. Not tomorrow. Unless or until things start to change. But that's up to people like you to make those changes happen... it's not up to the conventional content providers.
The only reason I could see to remain with copyrighted books is if they offered something the open source books didn't.
That's what I was disputing.... note that the point above is being made in present tense, not a hyothetical future ideal, and why I felt I could take factual exception to its position. Conventional copyrighted books *DO* currently offer something that alternatives don't. *YOU* may not place any value in what that is, but that does not mean it is not there... and by definition, will remain so unless or until alternative and public domain works catch up. I'm not disputing whether or not what you are proposing is any better... only that it doesn't reflect what people (generally) actually consume, and when one is looking for something that people actually appear to want (by virtue of the fact that they seem to voraciously consume it, even if they aren't being given any choice), it seems to make a lot of sense to just continue to offer the same sort of product to them until at least the general public actually makes some sort of clear indication that they don't want it any more.
And rants on slashdot are hardly reflective of widely-held public opinion.
The opening statement to which I disagreed is that conventional copyright does not offer anything that publicly available content does not offer also. This is provably false, since publicly available content is not actually consumed to the same degree as conventional copyrighted content, so conventional copyrighted content offers the advantage over publicly available content of practical mass appeal (even if the public does not actually have any choice in the matter... they voraciously consume it as if they were freely making the choice to do so, so any lack of choice is superfluous to what they appear to believe that they want.
Certainly, if or when publicly available content actually has the mass appeal that conventional copyrighted content does (which one cannot actually say with any certainty has happened until at least just as many people are choosing to utilize public content as conventional copyrighted content), then the statement that conventional copyrighted content offers nothing that public content does not would have somoe validity. The statement, however, was made in the present tense, and it is the present condition to which I am referring... not some hypothetical theoretical ideal which may not ever even actually happen.
The public voraciously consumes the content is irrefutable evidence that the public at least believes that the available content actually reflects what they really want... even if it is not in their best interests, they still believe that they want it.
Hence, mass appeal.
Now I can appreciate if you don't particularly want to personally cater to that particular business model, but that doesn't change the reality that conventional copyrighted works still offer that notion which alternative and public domain works do not.
The only way whether or not they are given a choice in the matter would not be completely superfluous is if people were being put in a situation where they could not possibly make a more informed choice about the matter if it were made available to them. The only people you can blame for the public not choosing public domain content over conventional works are the creators of such public content, not the people who consume conventional works, nor the providers of it.
When part of the definition of "infringing on copyright" now includes the circumvention of such technological measures anyways, such verbiage is itself rendered just as neutered as you suggest it might do to the DMCA itself
As to appeal, you have no way to know that when people aren't being given a choice. Students do not choose their textbooks.
I trust you can see how these two statements are contradictory. If you do not know when people aren't being given a choice, then you would have no way to confidently assert that students do not choose their textbooks. If you can confidently assert that students do not choose their textbooks, then clearly you know that they aren't being given a choice.
But really, my point still revolves around the comment I made to this remark:
The only reason I could see to remain with copyrighted books is if they offer something open source books didn't
And again, they do offer something: mass appeal. That the public consumes them continually is indisputable evidence of this. Even if they aren't given a choice, you can't argue that the public at least *believes* that they are doing what they want for themselves.
I'm not disputing the notion that people can often act in ways that are not in their own best interests, or possibly even entirely self-destructive, but it's still generally true that people will do things that they at least *believe* to reflect what they supposedly desire to do for themselves... and it's certainly true that you aren't liable to convince people that you know what's best for them better than they do for themselves simply by implying that they are only acting like sheep, following what everyone else is doing, and not being given a choice.... again,even if such an assertion were true.
For the time being, however... my point remains that conventional copyrighted works do offer something that alternative publicly available content does not: It offers mass appeal. Until the public actually starts consuming publicly available works for themselves, how can you possibly assert otherwise?
My original point remains, however.... the conventionally copyrighted content has more mass appeal than public domain content.
Whether or not the latter would be of more benefit to the public is irrelevant... what people believe that they want for themselves is what matters, and it's being provided to them by an industry that is all too happy to take money from them in exchange for it. But making money isn't unethical. The only sin the conventional industry is even remotely guilty of is that they are not encouraging their customers to seek alternative content from other sources. But in a capitalistic society, shouldn't it be the responsibility of the providers of those other sources to market themselves? You can't fault those industries for the general public's unwillingness to seriously consider alternative publicly available content.
Whether people don't know any better or not is entirely independent to whether or not they *believe* that they they do.
People don't always want what's in their best interests...they usually want whatever they *believe* will be best for them. You aren't going to convince anyone that you know better than them what they themselves are supposed to actually want. The only way you'll be able to convince them is by showing them content that they *do* want.
But so far, any such efforts at showing people the real benefits of open source and public content hasn't been terribly effective at convincing them that they should be changing their focus. I'm not saying it hasn't made any difference at all, but you can hardly argue that the mindset of the general public has already been convinced (since you yourself said earlier that in many cases, you don't see people being even offered any choice in the matter). So for the time being, the main thing that conventional content still has over alternative content, as I said before, is mass appeal.
Change that, and you'll have something. Until then, it's just an idealistic goal whose only bearing on reality rests entirely upon the willingness and drive that people who uphold that ideal to make it so. If in the end, such people are unable to compete with conventional market forces and convince the public that alternative content is superior, is that the fault of conventional content makers, whose only real sin would have been in such a case to have an already-existing substantial market share? Is it the fault the public, for just not knowing any better? Or is it the fault of those who held those ideals in the first place, and who either simply didn't do enough to increase awareness, or else who perhaps simply had goals which were not compatible with reality?
First of all, I took no offense at what was said previously, nor was I trying to be particularly hostile. I was merely attempting to point out what I believe is a factual error in judgement, however, which is the notion that copyrighted content does not offer anything that open source content does not.
Leaving aside the notion that open source content itself is often copyrighted anyways, my point is that the public, as a general rule, consumes vastly more conventional content than open source. Whether this is because the public is not being given a choice in the matter or not (that they aren't is actually a fallacy... there is plenty of open source content available, the most that can be argued is that the open source content is not marketed as much... but how is that the fault of conventional content?), the fact remains that the general public still *believes* that it wants the conventional copyrighted content. This is how belief enters into equation, and is why it is ultimately extremely important. When I referred to as "your agenda", you may have interpreted that phrase as indicating that I was hostile towards your views... I am not. I used that term because it is based on idealistic views that still ultimately reflect what you personally believe, and like so many idealistic notions, it ignores the reality of what people are indicating that they want here in the real world - which is still conventional copyrighted content. Trying to argue with the public suggesting that they don't know what it is that they are supposed to be wanting in the first place, whether or not you understand your goals to be in their best interests and not your own, is not a good way to further that.
Interesting requirements. Most of them are even practical... other than the one about surnames of relatives, because that would be impossible to do without already having an exhaustive list of all relatives within 3 degrees of the individual, not the least problem of which that it is not necessarily a static list, and the logistics behind keeping it up to date alone would probably make the endeavor infeasible.
The only reason I could see to remain with copyrighted books is if they offer something open source books didn't.
They do. Mass appeal.
Now you're welcome to believe that the mass market is mistaken or misguided, but in the end they are still the most qualified to say what it is that they want. If you don't want to give that to them because you want to further your own agenda, pushing open source content, no matter how benevolent and altruistic such an agenda might be, I'm afraid you're not likely to win over many believers.
For the people who can't use ipv6, CGN might make a lot of sense from the ISP's perspective.
Funny thing is, however, if they even just provided ipv6 to the customers that could actually use it, they'd probably get a new pool of IPv4 addresses they could use for v4-only customers anyways.
Your notion of making UDP have sessions would make UDP even more unreliable than it currently is, as the remote device might see things coming from the same port as a previous recent UDP packet from the same sender, but the actual sender might have used two different (random) outgoing ports for each, so the NAT won't know which of the ports a UDP response needs to be sent to if it doesn't get the first reply before a second UDP packet is sent out. For protocols where how you process an incoming response to an outgoing packet does not affect what data you send in subsequent packets, it's almost a certainty that trying to attach sessions to UDP will lower its reliability by a factor of two.
Slashdot Mirror
This.
Laws governing copyright and patents are ultimately built upon a fundamental premise that not only are they not particularly detrimental to society, but that they allegedly have an underlying usefulness from which all of society can actually benefit, at least in the long run.
But why would a person who wants to get his algorithm patented ever want to do that?
If you know who it was, sure... otherwise, the buck stops with you.
I can appreciate hunting for food,, or killing something that is threatening or otherwise troublesome in some way to you, your family, or your household, but killing something,,, *ANYTHING*... just because it's "fun" may be indicative of something being wrong.
Well, other than suggesting that Libre Office and the GIMP are like half-finished projects.... but yeah. His first sentence I agree with completely.
Beta?
Beta would be great.
I'd argue that such half-finished projects are barely past the tech-demo stage, and not even at alpha.
That's fine... they've been informed. They claim to have received rights from a third party. If they've actually named the third party, then the obvious thing to do is go after the third party (the company still loses their rights to use infringing content, however, and can reasonably sue the party that they obtained the illicit license from). If they will not or cannot name the third party they obtained if from, then accountability stops with them, and they are held 100% responsible.
So really, their best course of action is to simply identify the third party that they obtained the infringing content from, because at least then the regular penalty for infringement would be applied to the third party and they themselves could then at least argue that they did not previously realize they were infringing (they would still lose license to use the works, however, since they would still be infringing, and if they continued to try to use them, they would be guilty of knowingly possessing infringing content).
Actually, it does.
Choosing to not pollute generally has expenses associated with it which are not incurred if one does not worry about preserving the environment., which drives up the costs of the goods or services which are being produced or provided, and does ultimately end up impacting the cost of living for all, and which end up most severely affecting those who are poor.
Not that I think for a second that this an excuse to willingly pollute, only that there is some justification to the notion that trying to keep the environment clean can have certain types of negative effects upon society.
Oh, really?
Yeah... two years from now is something that'd probably qualify as immediate future for something of that scope.
However, one is compelled to wonder what you expect is going to produce such a huge change in mind-share. It's certainly not something most people would predict to be on the horizon anytime soon.
Actually, you appear to be addressing a future that is *not* immediate, unless by immediate, you actually mean some period of time that is simply not infinitely far away, but not necessarily soon enough that it is liable to matter to most people today.
Because frankly, if you see more than 2 decades away as "immediate future", you have a very different perception of time from most.
All I've been doing is pointing out how the notion that public domain and alternative works can offer everything conventional copyrighted works does is an idealist perspective, and arguably even an admirable goal for the future, but there's absolutely no possible way that you can assert that it's reflective of the reality in which we live in here, and now.
Time won't prove me wrong on this point because I'm not trying to speculate about how things might be someday, or what people will really want in the future. You are. Time might prove *you* right... but it also might prove you wrong. Maybe it's true that public domain content has a future to offer that conventional copyrighted content does not.... but for the time being, here and now... conventional copyright has a heck of a bigger mind share than public domain content does, and regardless of how little value you might place in that, perhaps owing to the notion that you may not believe it will last, in the end, it's still something. Here. Today. Not tomorrow. Unless or until things start to change. But that's up to people like you to make those changes happen... it's not up to the conventional content providers.
Ahem:
That's what I was disputing.... note that the point above is being made in present tense, not a hyothetical future ideal, and why I felt I could take factual exception to its position. Conventional copyrighted books *DO* currently offer something that alternatives don't. *YOU* may not place any value in what that is, but that does not mean it is not there... and by definition, will remain so unless or until alternative and public domain works catch up. I'm not disputing whether or not what you are proposing is any better... only that it doesn't reflect what people (generally) actually consume, and when one is looking for something that people actually appear to want (by virtue of the fact that they seem to voraciously consume it, even if they aren't being given any choice), it seems to make a lot of sense to just continue to offer the same sort of product to them until at least the general public actually makes some sort of clear indication that they don't want it any more.
And rants on slashdot are hardly reflective of widely-held public opinion.
The opening statement to which I disagreed is that conventional copyright does not offer anything that publicly available content does not offer also. This is provably false, since publicly available content is not actually consumed to the same degree as conventional copyrighted content, so conventional copyrighted content offers the advantage over publicly available content of practical mass appeal (even if the public does not actually have any choice in the matter... they voraciously consume it as if they were freely making the choice to do so, so any lack of choice is superfluous to what they appear to believe that they want.
Certainly, if or when publicly available content actually has the mass appeal that conventional copyrighted content does (which one cannot actually say with any certainty has happened until at least just as many people are choosing to utilize public content as conventional copyrighted content), then the statement that conventional copyrighted content offers nothing that public content does not would have somoe validity. The statement, however, was made in the present tense, and it is the present condition to which I am referring... not some hypothetical theoretical ideal which may not ever even actually happen.
I don't know why you see choice as relevant.
The public voraciously consumes the content is irrefutable evidence that the public at least believes that the available content actually reflects what they really want... even if it is not in their best interests, they still believe that they want it.
Hence, mass appeal.
Now I can appreciate if you don't particularly want to personally cater to that particular business model, but that doesn't change the reality that conventional copyrighted works still offer that notion which alternative and public domain works do not.
The only way whether or not they are given a choice in the matter would not be completely superfluous is if people were being put in a situation where they could not possibly make a more informed choice about the matter if it were made available to them. The only people you can blame for the public not choosing public domain content over conventional works are the creators of such public content, not the people who consume conventional works, nor the providers of it.
When part of the definition of "infringing on copyright" now includes the circumvention of such technological measures anyways, such verbiage is itself rendered just as neutered as you suggest it might do to the DMCA itself
I trust you can see how these two statements are contradictory. If you do not know when people aren't being given a choice, then you would have no way to confidently assert that students do not choose their textbooks. If you can confidently assert that students do not choose their textbooks, then clearly you know that they aren't being given a choice.
But really, my point still revolves around the comment I made to this remark:
And again, they do offer something: mass appeal. That the public consumes them continually is indisputable evidence of this. Even if they aren't given a choice, you can't argue that the public at least *believes* that they are doing what they want for themselves.
I'm not disputing the notion that people can often act in ways that are not in their own best interests, or possibly even entirely self-destructive, but it's still generally true that people will do things that they at least *believe* to reflect what they supposedly desire to do for themselves... and it's certainly true that you aren't liable to convince people that you know what's best for them better than they do for themselves simply by implying that they are only acting like sheep, following what everyone else is doing, and not being given a choice.... again,even if such an assertion were true.
For the time being, however... my point remains that conventional copyrighted works do offer something that alternative publicly available content does not: It offers mass appeal. Until the public actually starts consuming publicly available works for themselves, how can you possibly assert otherwise?
My original point remains, however.... the conventionally copyrighted content has more mass appeal than public domain content.
Whether or not the latter would be of more benefit to the public is irrelevant... what people believe that they want for themselves is what matters, and it's being provided to them by an industry that is all too happy to take money from them in exchange for it. But making money isn't unethical. The only sin the conventional industry is even remotely guilty of is that they are not encouraging their customers to seek alternative content from other sources. But in a capitalistic society, shouldn't it be the responsibility of the providers of those other sources to market themselves? You can't fault those industries for the general public's unwillingness to seriously consider alternative publicly available content.
Whether people don't know any better or not is entirely independent to whether or not they *believe* that they they do.
People don't always want what's in their best interests...they usually want whatever they *believe* will be best for them. You aren't going to convince anyone that you know better than them what they themselves are supposed to actually want. The only way you'll be able to convince them is by showing them content that they *do* want.
But so far, any such efforts at showing people the real benefits of open source and public content hasn't been terribly effective at convincing them that they should be changing their focus. I'm not saying it hasn't made any difference at all, but you can hardly argue that the mindset of the general public has already been convinced (since you yourself said earlier that in many cases, you don't see people being even offered any choice in the matter). So for the time being, the main thing that conventional content still has over alternative content, as I said before, is mass appeal.
Change that, and you'll have something. Until then, it's just an idealistic goal whose only bearing on reality rests entirely upon the willingness and drive that people who uphold that ideal to make it so. If in the end, such people are unable to compete with conventional market forces and convince the public that alternative content is superior, is that the fault of conventional content makers, whose only real sin would have been in such a case to have an already-existing substantial market share? Is it the fault the public, for just not knowing any better? Or is it the fault of those who held those ideals in the first place, and who either simply didn't do enough to increase awareness, or else who perhaps simply had goals which were not compatible with reality?
First of all, I took no offense at what was said previously, nor was I trying to be particularly hostile. I was merely attempting to point out what I believe is a factual error in judgement, however, which is the notion that copyrighted content does not offer anything that open source content does not.
Leaving aside the notion that open source content itself is often copyrighted anyways, my point is that the public, as a general rule, consumes vastly more conventional content than open source. Whether this is because the public is not being given a choice in the matter or not (that they aren't is actually a fallacy... there is plenty of open source content available, the most that can be argued is that the open source content is not marketed as much... but how is that the fault of conventional content?), the fact remains that the general public still *believes* that it wants the conventional copyrighted content. This is how belief enters into equation, and is why it is ultimately extremely important. When I referred to as "your agenda", you may have interpreted that phrase as indicating that I was hostile towards your views... I am not. I used that term because it is based on idealistic views that still ultimately reflect what you personally believe, and like so many idealistic notions, it ignores the reality of what people are indicating that they want here in the real world - which is still conventional copyrighted content. Trying to argue with the public suggesting that they don't know what it is that they are supposed to be wanting in the first place, whether or not you understand your goals to be in their best interests and not your own, is not a good way to further that.
Interesting requirements. Most of them are even practical... other than the one about surnames of relatives, because that would be impossible to do without already having an exhaustive list of all relatives within 3 degrees of the individual, not the least problem of which that it is not necessarily a static list, and the logistics behind keeping it up to date alone would probably make the endeavor infeasible.
They do. Mass appeal.
Now you're welcome to believe that the mass market is mistaken or misguided, but in the end they are still the most qualified to say what it is that they want. If you don't want to give that to them because you want to further your own agenda, pushing open source content, no matter how benevolent and altruistic such an agenda might be, I'm afraid you're not likely to win over many believers.
For the people who can't use ipv6, CGN might make a lot of sense from the ISP's perspective.
Funny thing is, however, if they even just provided ipv6 to the customers that could actually use it, they'd probably get a new pool of IPv4 addresses they could use for v4-only customers anyways.
Your notion of making UDP have sessions would make UDP even more unreliable than it currently is, as the remote device might see things coming from the same port as a previous recent UDP packet from the same sender, but the actual sender might have used two different (random) outgoing ports for each, so the NAT won't know which of the ports a UDP response needs to be sent to if it doesn't get the first reply before a second UDP packet is sent out. For protocols where how you process an incoming response to an outgoing packet does not affect what data you send in subsequent packets, it's almost a certainty that trying to attach sessions to UDP will lower its reliability by a factor of two.
If my ISP told me I could get ipv6 just by paying for the modem, I'd do it in a heartbeat.