But for some laws such as speed limits (which is a multi-million dollar business for state coffiers and insurance companies alike)
Oh come on - the faster you drive, the more likely you are to have an accident, and the more serious that accident will be. Beyond a certain speed, a car simply isn't safe, but even below that your reactions may not be fast enough to avert danger.
I'm not saying that I agree with any particular speed limit, but (imho) there must *be* speed limits, or you will get people driving far faster than is safe and killing themselves and other people.
But of course - you *are* a criminal, and you're stood talking to the cops. Of course they're going to arrest you before going after the one(s) who wronged you.
They still go after them too, though. Extending your example to near-breaking point, the cops will arrest the RIAA, then go after the copyright infringers while the support staff back at the station are processing the RIAA.
a) a lesser crime is still a crime b) imagine I made a slippery slope argument about ignoring a law in some cases making it more acceptable to ignore it in others, and/or to ignore other less than popular laws
Yes, because copying an album to tape for a couple of friends is indistinguishable from putting it on a p2p network and offering it up to anyone who wants it, anywhere in the world.
It's an order of magnitude different. With p2p I can potentially "give" thousands of people a copy; with home taping that number drops to a small handful. Even if they then give copies to their friends, we still don't have anything like the distribution potential of p2p/irc/usenet/etc.
I'm not saying I agree with the RIAA's arguments, but you really can't compare the current situation to home taping.
The original dispute arose, iirc, when Apple added sound capabilities to their computers. Apple (music) contested that they could then be used to create music, and so Apple (computers) were infringing on their trademark. Apple (computers) agreed not to enter the music business, hence the more recent upset about iTunes, etc.
1) Hong Kong still has a great deal of independence, Beijing isn't writing all the laws
2) IPR is "like poison" for China *now* - specifically, *other countries'* IPR is like poison. I very much doubt that China takes the same view towards its own IPR. Just like any developing country, it'll want to do everything it can to give itself a head start, but once it's caught up, it's going to protect its position just as much as the rest of us
Dude, if I stopped watching channels every time something I saw sickened me, I might as well sell my TV (which would not be popular with the rest of my family)
so much so that our Founding fathers debated as to whether they should even be allowed, or must be required
Well, if not for copyright, how would the creators of easily-copyable things make any money from producing them? Bands can tour, sell T-shirts, etc, programmers can create custom modifications, sell support, etc, but authors?
most bands OWE MONEY to the company that distributes their first three cds
Seems to me then that most bands are stupid, at least where money and contracts are concerned. It also seems to me that your authorities ought to be investigating the RIAA for anti-competitive and unfair business practices. Neither of those things have anything to do with copyright though.
I am really tired of the rampant 'corporatization' of the common perception of 'copyright'. It (copyright) is *not* ownership, and no one was confused about that until Disney and the *AA started spending big cash on lobbying Washington; and now we're exporting our brain-damaged brand of "Intellectual Properties" via economic blackmail.
Now that I can agree with you about. Copyright law is fundamentally a good thing, in my opinion, but your corporations are threatening to ruin it for everyone in their greed.
It wasn't until the slashdot crowd all decided that they were biologists, physicists, chemists, economists, and lawyers that the community started going insane.
What, us physcists can't be nerds too? Some would say that scientists are the ultimate in nerdiness, even beating you johnny-come-lately CS types with your high uids...;-)
Well, if someone borrows your gun and they use it to kill someone, you may be in trouble. If they borrow your gun *telling you* that they're going to kill someone, then do, you're almost certainly in trouble. Same goes for any crime - if you help someone, turn a blind eye, etc you may go down as an accessory or for aiding and abetting, etc.
I'd imagine that the same thing applies here. If you run this sort of thing with the expectation that people will use it to violate copyright, you *may* be liable. Just shrugging and saying "who knew?!" may not be enough.
Remember that the GPL encourages you to assign your copyright to the FSF, so that they can defend it on your behalf if necessary. I imagine that that's why they're being sued, rather than all the individual John Does.
Yes, but it's people who got the binary *no matter who they got it from*. Say I distribute a GPLed work, and give it to a friend of mine. He then gives it to you. You have the right to ask *me* for a copy of the source, and so does anyone who you give it to, and so on. Likewise, people who receive the binary can ask my friend for the source (as he distributed the code to you), and so on.
If you distribute the binaries, you must supply anyone who asks with the source (who has a copy of the binaries).
The MySQL guys are wrong. Imagine Apache was GPLed rather than Apache licenced - following th MySQL guys' reasoning, all web browsers that access an Apache-hosted site would have to be GPLed.
How is this a YRO story? Hosting a site costs money - hardware purchases and maintenance, bandwidth costs, hosting costs, etc. Sure, it's very nice if people host sites that are free for users, and it's a shame when a free site goes pay for, but YRO? Which right is being infringed exactly? My right to get stuff for free?
It's called caching, and it's been done since people had to load in commonly-used external references.
I've not RTFA, so perhaps it's truly excellent, but why the hell has this been posted? Anyone who's writing any sort of application and not making intelligent use of caching is either really junior, or should probably be looking for a new job.
They probably say something like "My God, now that's a stupid patent - how the hell did that pass?" I doubt they say "My God, that's a stupid patent, therefore all patents are evil - abolish patents!"
At least with commercial TV there is CHOICE. You pay for what you WANT to see.
Is that why I can't get *any* satellite or cable subscription with just the channels I want, and none of the shitty shopping channels, evangelical Christian channels and other crap I'm not interested in?
Channel 4 do many programmes that are at least as good as the BBC if not better.
And ITV and Sky show many, many programs that utterly without merit (IMHO, of course). We could throw examples like that at each other all night, but it's essentially meaningless.
Why does not Microsoft not release their OS, but hold it for a few months, have a large beta group of testers. Fix the bugs. Have their own in house hackers try and break in, make more fixes. Load it with lots of different kinds of software and fix whatever problems they have.
How do you know they don't? There are literally tens of thousands of software packages available for Windows - how much testing do you expect them to do?
If AOL can have 100's of CD's in every computer store, why can't Microsoft have their free service patch CD's in stores??
If you can't take the download, you can order XP SP2 on CD. The page even encourages you to share the CD with your friends.
Slashdot Mirror
But for some laws such as speed limits (which is a multi-million dollar business for state coffiers and insurance companies alike)
Oh come on - the faster you drive, the more likely you are to have an accident, and the more serious that accident will be. Beyond a certain speed, a car simply isn't safe, but even below that your reactions may not be fast enough to avert danger.
I'm not saying that I agree with any particular speed limit, but (imho) there must *be* speed limits, or you will get people driving far faster than is safe and killing themselves and other people.
But of course - you *are* a criminal, and you're stood talking to the cops. Of course they're going to arrest you before going after the one(s) who wronged you.
They still go after them too, though. Extending your example to near-breaking point, the cops will arrest the RIAA, then go after the copyright infringers while the support staff back at the station are processing the RIAA.
Yes, but
a) a lesser crime is still a crime
b) imagine I made a slippery slope argument about ignoring a law in some cases making it more acceptable to ignore it in others, and/or to ignore other less than popular laws
Same crap, different century.
Yes, because copying an album to tape for a couple of friends is indistinguishable from putting it on a p2p network and offering it up to anyone who wants it, anywhere in the world.
It's an order of magnitude different. With p2p I can potentially "give" thousands of people a copy; with home taping that number drops to a small handful. Even if they then give copies to their friends, we still don't have anything like the distribution potential of p2p/irc/usenet/etc.
I'm not saying I agree with the RIAA's arguments, but you really can't compare the current situation to home taping.
The author can be out for the money (Closed source, like Microsoft) or out to be helpful (GPL and Open source, like Linux).
Never forget that RedHat, Suse, etc are all in it at least partly for the money. They're companies, that's why they exist.
The original dispute arose, iirc, when Apple added sound capabilities to their computers. Apple (music) contested that they could then be used to create music, and so Apple (computers) were infringing on their trademark. Apple (computers) agreed not to enter the music business, hence the more recent upset about iTunes, etc.
That's true, but it still doesn't excuse comiting copyright infringement.
Two things:
1) Hong Kong still has a great deal of independence, Beijing isn't writing all the laws
2) IPR is "like poison" for China *now* - specifically, *other countries'* IPR is like poison. I very much doubt that China takes the same view towards its own IPR. Just like any developing country, it'll want to do everything it can to give itself a head start, but once it's caught up, it's going to protect its position just as much as the rest of us
Dude, if I stopped watching channels every time something I saw sickened me, I might as well sell my TV (which would not be popular with the rest of my family)
so much so that our Founding fathers debated as to whether they should even be allowed, or must be required
Well, if not for copyright, how would the creators of easily-copyable things make any money from producing them? Bands can tour, sell T-shirts, etc, programmers can create custom modifications, sell support, etc, but authors?
most bands OWE MONEY to the company that distributes their first three cds
Seems to me then that most bands are stupid, at least where money and contracts are concerned. It also seems to me that your authorities ought to be investigating the RIAA for anti-competitive and unfair business practices. Neither of those things have anything to do with copyright though.
I am really tired of the rampant 'corporatization' of the common perception of 'copyright'. It (copyright) is *not* ownership, and no one was confused about that until Disney and the *AA started spending big cash on lobbying Washington; and now we're exporting our brain-damaged brand of "Intellectual Properties" via economic blackmail.
Now that I can agree with you about. Copyright law is fundamentally a good thing, in my opinion, but your corporations are threatening to ruin it for everyone in their greed.
Boy scouts are about honor and doing what is right and about self reliance and about all other good things like that.
Copyright infringement is illegal; upholding the law is both right and honourable.
I don't know why it is so fashionable to bash slashdot these days.
Because some of us who have been around a year or two have the distinct impression that the site has really gone down hill.
Your phone came with its own USB receiver?
The Samsung D500 supports USB, as do a number of others.
It wasn't until the slashdot crowd all decided that they were biologists, physicists, chemists, economists, and lawyers that the community started going insane.
;-)
What, us physcists can't be nerds too? Some would say that scientists are the ultimate in nerdiness, even beating you johnny-come-lately CS types with your high uids...
Well, if someone borrows your gun and they use it to kill someone, you may be in trouble. If they borrow your gun *telling you* that they're going to kill someone, then do, you're almost certainly in trouble. Same goes for any crime - if you help someone, turn a blind eye, etc you may go down as an accessory or for aiding and abetting, etc.
I'd imagine that the same thing applies here. If you run this sort of thing with the expectation that people will use it to violate copyright, you *may* be liable. Just shrugging and saying "who knew?!" may not be enough.
[No, of course I'm not a lawyer]
Remember that the GPL encourages you to assign your copyright to the FSF, so that they can defend it on your behalf if necessary. I imagine that that's why they're being sued, rather than all the individual John Does.
Yes, but it's people who got the binary *no matter who they got it from*. Say I distribute a GPLed work, and give it to a friend of mine. He then gives it to you. You have the right to ask *me* for a copy of the source, and so does anyone who you give it to, and so on. Likewise, people who receive the binary can ask my friend for the source (as he distributed the code to you), and so on.
If you distribute the binaries, you must supply anyone who asks with the source (who has a copy of the binaries).
The MySQL guys are wrong. Imagine Apache was GPLed rather than Apache licenced - following th MySQL guys' reasoning, all web browsers that access an Apache-hosted site would have to be GPLed.
How is this a YRO story? Hosting a site costs money - hardware purchases and maintenance, bandwidth costs, hosting costs, etc. Sure, it's very nice if people host sites that are free for users, and it's a shame when a free site goes pay for, but YRO? Which right is being infringed exactly? My right to get stuff for free?
It's called caching, and it's been done since people had to load in commonly-used external references.
I've not RTFA, so perhaps it's truly excellent, but why the hell has this been posted? Anyone who's writing any sort of application and not making intelligent use of caching is either really junior, or should probably be looking for a new job.
So, you're a better C coder than he is a Fortran coder, so Fortran must be bad? Interesting conclusion.
They probably say something like "My God, now that's a stupid patent - how the hell did that pass?" I doubt they say "My God, that's a stupid patent, therefore all patents are evil - abolish patents!"
No, I think you'll find that *most* people don't give a rat's arse about patents. We here *are not most people*.
At least with commercial TV there is CHOICE. You pay for what you WANT to see.
Is that why I can't get *any* satellite or cable subscription with just the channels I want, and none of the shitty shopping channels, evangelical Christian channels and other crap I'm not interested in?
Channel 4 do many programmes that are at least as good as the BBC if not better.
And ITV and Sky show many, many programs that utterly without merit (IMHO, of course). We could throw examples like that at each other all night, but it's essentially meaningless.
Why does not Microsoft not release their OS, but hold it for a few months, have a large beta group of testers. Fix the bugs. Have their own in house hackers try and break in, make more fixes. Load it with lots of different kinds of software and fix whatever problems they have.
How do you know they don't? There are literally tens of thousands of software packages available for Windows - how much testing do you expect them to do?
If AOL can have 100's of CD's in every computer store, why can't Microsoft have their free service patch CD's in stores??
If you can't take the download, you can order XP SP2 on CD. The page even encourages you to share the CD with your friends.