Ahh, more stuff for my list. Your insightful and compelling argument(s) about why copyright infringement isn't a big deal have been added to the bottom.
Well, thank you. However, it is customary, when misquoting, to add an ellipsis to represent the missing section of sentence.
>Some people, especially young children, seem to have a difficult time grasping that although nothing physical is taken, theft has still occurred.
No, it hasn't. Most parents (including yourself, I'm sure) tell their children, once they're old enough to read, that they should check the dictionary. I hope you don't mind if I do it for you.
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
I don't know how much clear it can be than that, sorry.
>it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
The only real IP I know of is Internet Protocol. "intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users. IMHO, it rates right up there with "speed kills" and "this baby is crying because it's dad was killed by a drunk driver".
>So, your thinking that even though you took it, the fact that they still have it (wow, magic), let's you off the hook is just plain wrong.
I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, as it only deprives the owner of an imagined profit, and, in fact, does not cause a direct loss like shoplifting, it really bears no relation to stealing. The similarity ends at the word loss. Speaking of which, murder would be a loss of life, and therefore has the same amount in common with stealing as does piracy.
Again, just my humble opinion.
That being said, I feel that piracy ISN'T a good thing, that it is illegal, but that it is overzealously punished in today's times where steamboat mickey is still copyrighted property. The only way what people will wake up and stop the insanity (put copyright terms back into the hands of the people) is if people stop making it out to be something it isn't.
>By the way, you're not even close in interpreting how copyright laws apply to these situations.
Uhh, seriously, read a law dictionary. Without something being missing from the victim, and without it being in the hands of the perpetrator (preferrably at the same time) there can be no theft.
While the crime of copyright infringement is generally punished in a federal court, and the crime of speeding violations in a municipal or provincial (or, in the US, a state) court, the style of offense is identical. They're both victimless crimes. Sure, you could say I *would* have bought a piece of pirated software rather than pirating it, but at the same time, if I get a stolen (for real) camcorder for $50 that sells for $5,000 do you think there's even a chance in hell I would have bought it if it weren't stolen? The fact is there is normally no specifically identifiable victim from piracy that can prove a loss, which is just like when you receive a speeding ticket -- nobody can prove a loss. It's just illegal, that's all.
It's always a lot more complicated to convince someone a crime is bad when there is no victim, and *THAT'S* why the BSA (et al.) want you to (wrongly) think copyright is theft. Because then they have their victim -- english teachers.
In fact, you'll find my previous dictionary definition a little lax. Merriam Webster says:
theft: 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
When dictionaries start saying specifically, and highlight it; I think they're trying to curb an improper usage of the term.
No it isn't. If it were, pirating windows would get me a $100 fine and a weekend in jail.
In fact, as far as the courts go, it SPECIFICALLY isn't theft because the crime of theft has a much more reasonable sentence. If I were to compare it (copyright infringement) to a similarly punished crime, it's like raping dead corpses.
Right, but copyright infringement isn't stealing. END OF STORY.
To steal, you must remove the property from the owner's hands *AND* have it in your possession.
ie: If I stole windows from microsoft, they would NEVER be able to sell windows against until they caught me, because I'd have all their copies. If I pirated it, I'd have a copy, and they could continue to sell it.
But that's a different crime. Copyright infringement is more like a speeding ticket. Nobody is directly hurt, but it isn't appreciated by a small segment of society, and no matter much the rest of us want to change it, we're stuck with the law because, on some level, it makes sense. However, nobody says you stole the extra speed unless your car is jacked.
>I've long since given up trying to explain what is going on to these folks or the urgency of solving their own virus problem in a timely manner.
Try this one:
"Some these viruses have been known to attmempt to destroy the computers of various military installations. The penalty in many countries for this is death. The penalty in YOUR country is a federal jail term. You may want to consider purchasing a $60 upgrade to your computer to help you avoid this problem in the future."
>Your boss likes your work so much he / she raves and raves and raves. But then he / she says, "gee, I really don't want to pay you to work here... That's OK with YOU, right?"
What if you demanded an agreement that required your boss to continue paying you even if you quit?
That's what DivX's internet activation system amounts to.
>If SCO disclaims the GPL license, they have no other right to use the software.
Actually, they may continue to use the software without accepting the license. They simply may not distribute it. The software defaults to plain copyright under these conditions.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
>Oh, or were you judging purely on taste, and not familiarily/cost/variety/speed?
Nahh, I meant bad as in "bad to eat", but also, somewhat worse in taste (however, not bad, just not great). While McDonald's did find some guy that survived eating a Big Mac a day, it's certainly a diet all doctors will tell you leads to a coronary bypass operation...
>There was an experament some people conducted in a New York resturaunt. They were selling "Luxury Bottled Water for Europe" for $7 per bottle, and people were buying, and saying how GREAT it was, and no wonder it is #1 in all of Italy, and how can I get it reguarly.
Yes, Penn and Teller really do kick ass. I taped all their shows!
Hey, other than the break down on the HL-760, the printers work well (and the recall doesn't affect performance). I've just been unimpressed by the way TCO worked out for me. I guess it depends on wether you remember to put money aside for the drum. I never do, so when the drum's up, the printer's up.:-/
>Brother makes solid stuff, and their >cartridges are pretty reasonable.
However, their drums normally cost more than the printer itself and the printer is programmed to bitch at between 10k to 20k pages (depending on your printer model). Even used ones are extraordinarialy expensive.
That and my Brother HL-760 blew up it's thermistor after printing a small book. It took over 3 weeks for Brother to ship replacement parts from Quebec to Ontario. I have a donated HL-1060 (under 10,000 pages) and the repaired HL-760. Both of the feedrollers in them are ruined. This is truly a poorly manufactured printer.
Avoid Brother like the plague, IMHO, when it comes to laser stuff. Oh, and many of their already sold laser units are fire hazards.
>Of course, we should all be using DC transmission lines anyway but that's another story....
You seriously don't want that. DC is notoriously hard to change to other voltages without heavy efficiency losses. AC is cheap and simple. Oh, and according to Edison, it makes a great way to fry up stray dogs and cats!
>Which is fine if you are one of those people with very dry skin, which I am not:)
I know what you're talking about. I'm so freaking sensitive to electricity, sometimes I can feel the juice from a 9v battery!
The worst part is anything with even the SLIGHTEST current leakage sets me off. It's really freaky considering my meter barely reads more than a few mA of current bleeding off when the item's case is shorted to ground.
Too bad I got interested in electronics. I'd better stick with TTL stuff forever, I guess...
>There might not be a lot of holes in the kernal, but there are quite a few in all the tools that ship with it.
Exactly! And those thools that ship with it not old vary from distribution to distribution, but, more importantly, aren't Linux anymore than Microsoft Office (assuming it shipped with your computer) is Windows.
When people say "Linux" they have to note that "Linux" isn't the software that's included. It's the kernel, and that's it.
Otherwise, BSD is Linux, and Solaris is Linux, and so is SCO. Heck, OSF/1, Digital UNIX, HP-UX, A/UX, AIX, and IRIX are Linux too...
>Right, asshole, because we've never seen a day go by without a root exploit listed on the SANS security bulletin.
I dunno. Seems to me it's been years since anyone could get even close to root access by hacking linux. Can you find me an example, please? I just can't find any.
>I just don't like seeing that stuff without any kind of warning about what I'm getting into, and then getting the kind of reaction I did to just raising the protest that there wasn't much of a warning kind of threw me off. I have the option turned on that warns me where links go, so I don't click on things that go to dubious domains. That's all.
No problem.
>No hard feelings, I hope.
No, don't worry about that. Slashdot helped me develop a tough skin.;-)
I can see from your comment history you're not a troll, but I just don't get it. You've been using slashdot slightly longer than me, but somehow the word "penis" is offending you... I just don't know how you've been able to use slashdot so long without going nuts if words that aren't even listed by the dictionary as vulgar are offending you. You've not yet seen a goatse ASCII here? A penis bird? TubGirl?
To me, that seems to have been part and parcel of slashdot for as long as I can remember (well, I lie, I *was* here before usernames, and before the more hardcore trolls, and could prove it if taco had the old comments searchable).
Slashdot Mirror
Self inflicted wounds don't count, sorry.
So, are they making millions now? I must assume so, since they have taken such a drastic measure. How's their stock? Did it hit peak?
We'll see how they're doing next year. I mean, if piracy really hurts them so bad, stopping it should make them billions.
Ahh, more stuff for my list. Your insightful and compelling
:-)
argument(s) about why copyright infringement isn't a big deal have been added
to the bottom.
Well, thank you. However, it is customary, when misquoting, to add an ellipsis to represent the missing section of sentence.
(Don't take that too personally!
>Some people, especially young children, seem to have a difficult time grasping that although nothing physical is taken, theft has still occurred.
No, it hasn't. Most parents (including yourself, I'm sure) tell their children, once they're old enough to read, that they should check the dictionary. I hope you don't mind if I do it for you.
theft
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
I don't know how much clear it can be than that, sorry.
>it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
The only real IP I know of is Internet Protocol. "intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users. IMHO, it rates right up there with "speed kills" and "this baby is crying because it's dad was killed by a drunk driver".
>So, your thinking that even though you took it, the fact that they still have it (wow, magic), let's you off the hook is just plain wrong.
I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, as it only deprives the owner of an imagined profit, and, in fact, does not cause a direct loss like shoplifting, it really bears no relation to stealing. The similarity ends at the word loss. Speaking of which, murder would be a loss of life, and therefore has the same amount in common with stealing as does piracy.
Again, just my humble opinion.
That being said, I feel that piracy ISN'T a good thing, that it is illegal, but that it is overzealously punished in today's times where steamboat mickey is still copyrighted property. The only way what people will wake up and stop the insanity (put copyright terms back into the hands of the people) is if people stop making it out to be something it isn't.
>By the way, you're not even close in interpreting how copyright laws apply to these situations.
Uhh, seriously, read a law dictionary. Without something being missing from the victim, and without it being in the hands of the perpetrator (preferrably at the same time) there can be no theft.
While the crime of copyright infringement is generally punished in a federal court, and the crime of speeding violations in a municipal or provincial (or, in the US, a state) court, the style of offense is identical. They're both victimless crimes. Sure, you could say I *would* have bought a piece of pirated software rather than pirating it, but at the same time, if I get a stolen (for real) camcorder for $50 that sells for $5,000 do you think there's even a chance in hell I would have bought it if it weren't stolen? The fact is there is normally no specifically identifiable victim from piracy that can prove a loss, which is just like when you receive a speeding ticket -- nobody can prove a loss. It's just illegal, that's all.
It's always a lot more complicated to convince someone a crime is bad when there is no victim, and *THAT'S* why the BSA (et al.) want you to (wrongly) think copyright is theft. Because then they have their victim -- english teachers.
In fact, you'll find my previous dictionary definition a little lax. Merriam Webster says:
theft: 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
When dictionaries start saying specifically, and highlight it; I think they're trying to curb an improper usage of the term.
>It is theft.
No it isn't. If it were, pirating windows would get me a $100 fine and a weekend in jail.
In fact, as far as the courts go, it SPECIFICALLY isn't theft because the crime of theft has a much more reasonable sentence. If I were to compare it (copyright infringement) to a similarly punished crime, it's like raping dead corpses.
>STEALING IS A CRIME... end of story.
Right, but copyright infringement isn't stealing. END OF STORY.
To steal, you must remove the property from the owner's hands *AND* have it in your possession.
ie: If I stole windows from microsoft, they would NEVER be able to sell windows against until they caught me, because I'd have all their copies. If I pirated it, I'd have a copy, and they could continue to sell it.
But that's a different crime. Copyright infringement is more like a speeding ticket. Nobody is directly hurt, but it isn't appreciated by a small segment of society, and no matter much the rest of us want to change it, we're stuck with the law because, on some level, it makes sense. However, nobody says you stole the extra speed unless your car is jacked.
>I've long since given up trying to explain what is going on to these folks or the urgency of solving their own virus problem in a timely manner.
Try this one:
"Some these viruses have been known to attmempt to destroy the computers of various military installations. The penalty in many countries for this is death. The penalty in YOUR country is a federal jail term. You may want to consider purchasing a $60 upgrade to your computer to help you avoid this problem in the future."
>Your boss likes your work so much he / she raves and raves and raves. But then he / she says, "gee, I really don't want to pay you to work here... That's OK with YOU, right?"
What if you demanded an agreement that required your boss to continue paying you even if you quit?
That's what DivX's internet activation system amounts to.
>The 'use' was supposed to be 'distribute'.
:)
No problem. My fault for not paying more attention.
>If SCO disclaims the GPL license, they have no other right to use the software.
Actually, they may continue to use the software without accepting the license. They simply may not distribute it. The software defaults to plain copyright under these conditions.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
the Program or works based on it.
>Oh, or were you judging purely on taste, and not familiarily/cost/variety/speed?
Nahh, I meant bad as in "bad to eat", but also, somewhat worse in taste (however, not bad, just not great). While McDonald's did find some guy that survived eating a Big Mac a day, it's certainly a diet all doctors will tell you leads to a coronary bypass operation...
Why McDonalds?
;-)
;-)
Okay...
>1. Cheap.
Today's music is made by people who haven't even graduated. It's so cheap many artists lose money rather than make any at all.
>2. Filling.
RIAA Musak fills more malls than I care to know about.
>3. Readily available everywhere.
RIAA music is only available everywhere...
>4. Fast.
I can't finger one right now, but some RIAA bands are pressured to put as many as 3 or more albums out a year.
>But probably chief among all of these is a combination of low expectations coupled with constant quality.
BINGO! All bubblegum music sounds the same. I always have low expectations, and it always meets them!
>Oh. Let's not forget well-marketed.
Well, the RIAA does try!
>There was an experament some people conducted in a New York resturaunt. They were selling "Luxury Bottled Water for Europe" for $7 per bottle, and people were buying, and saying how GREAT it was, and no wonder it is #1 in all of Italy, and how can I get it reguarly.
Yes, Penn and Teller really do kick ass. I taped all their shows!
>If the RIAA music is so shit why do some many people want to steal it?
If McDonald's food is so bad (compared to, let's say, an expensive steak house), why do so many people eat it?
Popularity != Quality.
Hey, other than the break down on the HL-760, the printers work well (and the recall doesn't affect performance). I've just been unimpressed by the way TCO worked out for me. I guess it depends on wether you remember to put money aside for the drum. I never do, so when the drum's up, the printer's up. :-/
>Brother makes solid stuff, and their
>cartridges are pretty reasonable.
However, their drums normally cost more than the printer itself and the printer is programmed to bitch at between 10k to 20k pages (depending on your printer model). Even used ones are extraordinarialy expensive.
That and my Brother HL-760 blew up it's thermistor after printing a small book. It took over 3 weeks for Brother to ship replacement parts from Quebec to Ontario. I have a donated HL-1060 (under 10,000 pages) and the repaired HL-760. Both of the feedrollers in them are ruined. This is truly a poorly manufactured printer.
Avoid Brother like the plague, IMHO, when it comes to laser stuff. Oh, and many of their already sold laser units are fire hazards.
>You can't take something that's public, slap a copyright on it, and then claim ownership.
Hmmm, then I can post ftp and ping from windows here without any fear of M$ wrath? Nice!
Face it. Unless all of SCOs copies of the source code have magically been transported into Linus' home, no theft, nor stealing has occurred, period.
And, if you want to take this further, I have evidence that these words have meant that for longer than the lifetime of any human being.
If you're going to lie, at least do it without making the english language your casualty.
>Of course, we should all be using DC transmission lines anyway but that's another story....
You seriously don't want that. DC is notoriously hard to change to other voltages without heavy efficiency losses. AC is cheap and simple. Oh, and according to Edison, it makes a great way to fry up stray dogs and cats!
>Which is fine if you are one of those people with very dry skin, which I am not :)
I know what you're talking about. I'm so freaking sensitive to electricity, sometimes I can feel the juice from a 9v battery!
The worst part is anything with even the SLIGHTEST current leakage sets me off. It's really freaky considering my meter barely reads more than a few mA of current bleeding off when the item's case is shorted to ground.
Too bad I got interested in electronics. I'd better stick with TTL stuff forever, I guess...
Will it be called Chernobyl II?
>There might not be a lot of holes in the kernal, but there are quite a few in all the tools that ship with it.
Exactly! And those thools that ship with it not old vary from distribution to distribution, but, more importantly, aren't Linux anymore than Microsoft Office (assuming it shipped with your computer) is Windows.
When people say "Linux" they have to note that "Linux" isn't the software that's included. It's the kernel, and that's it.
Otherwise, BSD is Linux, and Solaris is Linux, and so is SCO. Heck, OSF/1, Digital UNIX, HP-UX, A/UX, AIX, and IRIX are Linux too...
>Right, asshole, because we've never seen a day go by without a root exploit listed on the SANS security bulletin.
I dunno. Seems to me it's been years since anyone could get even close to root access by hacking linux. Can you find me an example, please? I just can't find any.
>I just don't like seeing that stuff without any kind of warning about what I'm getting into, and then getting the kind of reaction I did to just raising the protest that there wasn't much of a warning kind of threw me off. I have the option turned on that warns me where links go, so I don't click on things that go to dubious domains. That's all.
;-)
No problem.
>No hard feelings, I hope.
No, don't worry about that. Slashdot helped me develop a tough skin.
I can see from your comment history you're not a troll, but I just don't get it. You've been using slashdot slightly longer than me, but somehow the word "penis" is offending you... I just don't know how you've been able to use slashdot so long without going nuts if words that aren't even listed by the dictionary as vulgar are offending you. You've not yet seen a goatse ASCII here? A penis bird? TubGirl?
To me, that seems to have been part and parcel of slashdot for as long as I can remember (well, I lie, I *was* here before usernames, and before the more hardcore trolls, and could prove it if taco had the old comments searchable).
>If the best you can do is to personally insult somebody, then I think I'm not the one who needs to grow up around here.
Okay.
Install net nanny if that offends you. Don't forget to block slashdot because something people post words like:
AoNoAoL RoIoM JoOoBoS CoHoEoAoP
Which netnanny is too stupid to filter.
Thanks, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!