You get a similar effect, although not as pronounced, on pretty much any specialist technical subject; you see a lot of common misconceptions modded up fairly high, while some actual facts are languishing down at 1 or 2.
While it's not exact, what would you have them say instead? "Copyrighted materials that you do not have permission to distribute", while accurate, is a bit of a mouthful...
Or the father who molests his daughter (and has never touched another child)
That's an astonishing abuse of trust on the part of the father. It's not milder at all, he's broken one of the basic rules of being a human being (or indeed a member of most animal species) - he's harmed one of his children.
Parents are supposed to protect their kids, not molest them. I suspect that you're in a very small minority indeed in seeing that as being milder than molesting a stranger's kid.
Is one that only allows copyrights to be owned by people, not corporations.
This one I'm not so sure about; who would you have own the copyright to a major motion picture, for example? One person can't possibly produce it on their own, there's far too much work requiring far too great a spread of skills. The only fair solution to that, to my mind, is to allow the copyright to be jointly owned by all involved; but then I fail to see how that's any different in practical terms to a corporation owning it.
I also don't see that it's necessary; what problem do you intend it to solve? Was it to remove the temptation for powerful corporations to lobby for copyright extensions, etc? That can still happen if corporations don't get to own copyrights, unless you also intend to outlaw people forming groups to work together for a common cause (ie individual copyright holders could simply team up to lobby).
As far as I can tell, you can get a way harsher sentence in my country for being found in posession of a knock off CD or DVD that you purchased thinking it was legit than for going into a store and really stealing the genuine article.
It's all to do with the perceived risk of getting caught and of the seriousness of the crime. "Everyone" agrees that stealing a physical object from a shop is wrong (at least, every right-thinking person does), and the risk of getting caught is much higher. With illegal downloads, I think most people really know it's wrong in some way, but convince themselves that it's okay really, that no-one's really losing anything, etc (witness any discussion here about it, lots of people make some good arguments along those lines (which imho are wrong, but they're still good)).
So we have a crime that most people don't really consider to be a crime, that's almost risk-free in terms of getting caught. How do you persuade people to respect the law and not download illegally? You jack up the punishment. You make the consequences of getting caught so high that people dare not transgress just in case.
What you end up with is punishments that are disproportionate to the crime committed, and so you have to be careful not to push it too far (or the law ends up in disrepute). However, I don't really see what else the law makers can do - it's not their job to offer alternative business models, or to turn a blind eye to things, etc - that's down to the copyright holders. All the legal system can do is ratchet up the punishment until people take notice and stop transgressing.
Note that I don't necessarily agree with this method, but that's what I understand to be going on (IANAL, etc)
Nobody (or at least most people) argues that Microsoft doesn't come up with original ideas.
Really? In every single article posted here about MS products (especially Vista and IE7) you'll see literally dozens of comments arguing exactly that. I'm no MS fanboi, but the FUD gets a little tiresome - we're supposed to be above that...
The best solution, at least in built up areas, would be to have the national grid fed by solar cells, rather than individual houses having them
And what better place to put them than on building roofs? Nice and high to help catch the sun and avoid damage/vandalism, and pretty much every building already has a connection to the Grid anyway. While you're at it, might as well route the power generated through the building's electrical system, feeding any surplus back into the Grid.
That way the big power companies hopefully swallow most of the cost of switching to solar power
One way or another, it's us that pays; it's very rare that a company simply swallows a cost like that. It'll be passed on to us in our bills, no matter what "lower prices than British Gas until 2008!" type promises they may make.
And when people sit by and watch as their friends are carted off to slow, agonising deaths in concentration camps for copyright infringement, then I'll listen. Until then, he's being needlessly sensationalistic.
I suppose you'd have fit right in in Germany circa WWII.
Oh do fuck off will you? It's arguably nepotism, certainly looks very bad and I'd be at the head of the queue to sling mud at him for it - but comparing it to the atrocities of Nazi Germany?
Non-profit is not the same as loss-making. Any profit that they do generate could simply be invested back into the business, eg by acquiring other companies, increasing their staff, etc.
In fact, "non-profit" really just means "any money we do make won't be given away to shareholders/kept for ourselves or left in the bank".
Indeed. One of my earliest memories is of happily running around the playground and field at school, lobbing imaginary grenades at my friend, shooting them with my fingers and stabbing them with my empty fist. We called it "war", and we divided up into two teams to blow each other away again and again and again.
Amazingly, I've not grown up to be a mass murderer. (In fact, I've never even so much as had a real fight in my life)
If you go to google maps, and choose the satellite view, and go to my road, you can totally see my car in my driveway!!!
I mean, how dare they?! Taking a photo of something in a public place*, right out in the open, then putting it on the web! I should sue!!!
(* Note to pedants - no, my driveway isn't public, but it's open to the street and plainly visible from the pavement)
Privacy concerns? Don't make me laugh. If they start sending people into private buildings with cameras, get back to me. In the meantime, kdawson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for allowing such a spin to be put on this story.
Of course they are; almost all the software included in an MSDN subscription is available to download (for subscribers) from MS, and that includes Vista.
The only Slashdot groupthink I ever come across is the Microsoft shill section.
That's because one doesn't tend to notice groupthink when it coincides with one's own beliefs.
There is *plenty* of anti-MS groupthink on this site; comments about IE being "part of the kernel", constant BSOD jokes, security complaints that have no basis in reality (some do, most don't), etc.
Similarly, there is the anti-Linux groupthink (no hardware support, no software support, crap GUIs, etc), the anti-GPL groupthink (it'll never stand up in court, it's viral, etc), the anti-IP groupthink, the pro-IP groupthink, etc.
Suppose I make AnAwesomeProgram and distribute it freely under the BSD license, thus releasing it to the world uninhibited. SomeoneElse comes along, takes the code he didn't write, adds some trivial functionality, and resells for $$$$, but doesn't allow his customers the same rights he had (thou shalt not reverse engineer, thou shalt not decompile, thou shalt not redistribute, thou shalt worship only me and live).
I do see your point, but if the functionality truly is trivial, you (or someone else) can easily add it to your version and release it under the BSD licence for free (and Free). If it isn't trivial, then to my mind perhaps they deserve to make some money from it - after all, the world hasn't actually lost anything, it's just not gained as much as it could have done.
The editors don't do the least amount of due-diligence - not even a cursory reading of the articles themselves, apparently.
Well, that's certainly true, but don't forget also that anything that's controversial is going to generate a lot of discussion, which generates a lot of page hits, which generates a lot of ad impressions.
Don't forget that Slashdot is for-profit, and has been for years now.
Slashdot Mirror
You get a similar effect, although not as pronounced, on pretty much any specialist technical subject; you see a lot of common misconceptions modded up fairly high, while some actual facts are languishing down at 1 or 2.
There's an advert for some new meal deal at Pizza Hut here in the UK at the moment, which contains the line "It's called overtime, not all the time".
Every now and again, when it's crunch time? Sure. All the time? No. No-one lies on their death bed, wishing they'd spent more time working.
It's ECMA. It even says that in the page you've linked to.
Not to mention the domain of the server that he linked to.
You'd think he'd have noticed with that many clues...
(Besides which, this is supposed to be a techy site - how come so many people are getting it wrong?)
The television analogy is wrong because the TV networks don't sell anything other than ad time.
They don't see DVDs of their shows, and licence merchandising rights? The ones in the UK certainly do.
While it's not exact, what would you have them say instead? "Copyrighted materials that you do not have permission to distribute", while accurate, is a bit of a mouthful...
Or the father who molests his daughter (and has never touched another child)
That's an astonishing abuse of trust on the part of the father. It's not milder at all, he's broken one of the basic rules of being a human being (or indeed a member of most animal species) - he's harmed one of his children.
Parents are supposed to protect their kids, not molest them. I suspect that you're in a very small minority indeed in seeing that as being milder than molesting a stranger's kid.
(I realise you're not condoning it)
Is one that only allows copyrights to be owned by people, not corporations.
This one I'm not so sure about; who would you have own the copyright to a major motion picture, for example? One person can't possibly produce it on their own, there's far too much work requiring far too great a spread of skills. The only fair solution to that, to my mind, is to allow the copyright to be jointly owned by all involved; but then I fail to see how that's any different in practical terms to a corporation owning it.
I also don't see that it's necessary; what problem do you intend it to solve? Was it to remove the temptation for powerful corporations to lobby for copyright extensions, etc? That can still happen if corporations don't get to own copyrights, unless you also intend to outlaw people forming groups to work together for a common cause (ie individual copyright holders could simply team up to lobby).
As far as I can tell, you can get a way harsher sentence in my country for being found in posession of a knock off CD or DVD that you purchased thinking it was legit than for going into a store and really stealing the genuine article.
It's all to do with the perceived risk of getting caught and of the seriousness of the crime. "Everyone" agrees that stealing a physical object from a shop is wrong (at least, every right-thinking person does), and the risk of getting caught is much higher. With illegal downloads, I think most people really know it's wrong in some way, but convince themselves that it's okay really, that no-one's really losing anything, etc (witness any discussion here about it, lots of people make some good arguments along those lines (which imho are wrong, but they're still good)).
So we have a crime that most people don't really consider to be a crime, that's almost risk-free in terms of getting caught. How do you persuade people to respect the law and not download illegally? You jack up the punishment. You make the consequences of getting caught so high that people dare not transgress just in case.
What you end up with is punishments that are disproportionate to the crime committed, and so you have to be careful not to push it too far (or the law ends up in disrepute). However, I don't really see what else the law makers can do - it's not their job to offer alternative business models, or to turn a blind eye to things, etc - that's down to the copyright holders. All the legal system can do is ratchet up the punishment until people take notice and stop transgressing.
Note that I don't necessarily agree with this method, but that's what I understand to be going on (IANAL, etc)
Nobody (or at least most people) argues that Microsoft doesn't come up with original ideas.
Really? In every single article posted here about MS products (especially Vista and IE7) you'll see literally dozens of comments arguing exactly that. I'm no MS fanboi, but the FUD gets a little tiresome - we're supposed to be above that...
The best solution, at least in built up areas, would be to have the national grid fed by solar cells, rather than individual houses having them
And what better place to put them than on building roofs? Nice and high to help catch the sun and avoid damage/vandalism, and pretty much every building already has a connection to the Grid anyway. While you're at it, might as well route the power generated through the building's electrical system, feeding any surplus back into the Grid.
That way the big power companies hopefully swallow most of the cost of switching to solar power
One way or another, it's us that pays; it's very rare that a company simply swallows a cost like that. It'll be passed on to us in our bills, no matter what "lower prices than British Gas until 2008!" type promises they may make.
Just because something's better than it could be doesn't mean it's good enough or even necessarily acceptable.
Nope, the post I replied to wasn't using sarcasm. Trust me, I'm a Brit
Judging from his home page URL, so is Removable Bait...
On the other hand, I tend to agree with you - I don't think the OP was being sarcastic either.
And when people sit by and watch as their friends are carted off to slow, agonising deaths in concentration camps for copyright infringement, then I'll listen. Until then, he's being needlessly sensationalistic.
I suppose you'd have fit right in in Germany circa WWII.
Oh do fuck off will you? It's arguably nepotism, certainly looks very bad and I'd be at the head of the queue to sling mud at him for it - but comparing it to the atrocities of Nazi Germany?
You bloody idiot.
But if you think it's FUD, blame Groklaw, not Slashdot. They're the ones who came up with the headline.
Actually, I'll blame slashdot (specifically ScuttleMonkey) for choosing to reprint the headline.
If you say something libellous about someone (for example), that's your responsibility. If I repeat it, that's mine, not yours.
Correct, but they aren't supposed to make money.
Non-profit is not the same as loss-making. Any profit that they do generate could simply be invested back into the business, eg by acquiring other companies, increasing their staff, etc.
In fact, "non-profit" really just means "any money we do make won't be given away to shareholders/kept for ourselves or left in the bank".
(Disclaimer: IANAE)
In fact, "publicly owned" essentially means "owned by the government"; "publicly traded" means "you can buy and sell shares in it".
(Disclaimer: IANAE)
Indeed. One of my earliest memories is of happily running around the playground and field at school, lobbing imaginary grenades at my friend, shooting them with my fingers and stabbing them with my empty fist. We called it "war", and we divided up into two teams to blow each other away again and again and again.
Amazingly, I've not grown up to be a mass murderer. (In fact, I've never even so much as had a real fight in my life)
If you go to google maps, and choose the satellite view, and go to my road, you can totally see my car in my driveway!!!
I mean, how dare they?! Taking a photo of something in a public place*, right out in the open, then putting it on the web! I should sue!!!
(* Note to pedants - no, my driveway isn't public, but it's open to the street and plainly visible from the pavement)
Privacy concerns? Don't make me laugh. If they start sending people into private buildings with cameras, get back to me. In the meantime, kdawson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for allowing such a spin to be put on this story.
Organic matter isn't necessarily life...
Of course they are; almost all the software included in an MSDN subscription is available to download (for subscribers) from MS, and that includes Vista.
The only Slashdot groupthink I ever come across is the Microsoft shill section.
That's because one doesn't tend to notice groupthink when it coincides with one's own beliefs.
There is *plenty* of anti-MS groupthink on this site; comments about IE being "part of the kernel", constant BSOD jokes, security complaints that have no basis in reality (some do, most don't), etc.
Similarly, there is the anti-Linux groupthink (no hardware support, no software support, crap GUIs, etc), the anti-GPL groupthink (it'll never stand up in court, it's viral, etc), the anti-IP groupthink, the pro-IP groupthink, etc.
Suppose I make AnAwesomeProgram and distribute it freely under the BSD license, thus releasing it to the world uninhibited. SomeoneElse comes along, takes the code he didn't write, adds some trivial functionality, and resells for $$$$, but doesn't allow his customers the same rights he had (thou shalt not reverse engineer, thou shalt not decompile, thou shalt not redistribute, thou shalt worship only me and live).
I do see your point, but if the functionality truly is trivial, you (or someone else) can easily add it to your version and release it under the BSD licence for free (and Free). If it isn't trivial, then to my mind perhaps they deserve to make some money from it - after all, the world hasn't actually lost anything, it's just not gained as much as it could have done.
The editors don't do the least amount of due-diligence - not even a cursory reading of the articles themselves, apparently.
Well, that's certainly true, but don't forget also that anything that's controversial is going to generate a lot of discussion, which generates a lot of page hits, which generates a lot of ad impressions.
Don't forget that Slashdot is for-profit, and has been for years now.
New laws come in placing extra requirements on $group, so firms spring up/enlarge to offer the service for a fee.
When exactly has this *not* happened?