Let's say an engineer can generate $100k/year worth of profit for me, after overhead. Let's say there are lots of engineers out there willing to work for $10k/year. How much are those people worth?
$10k/year. Apparently, you're creating a lot of value by thinking of something clever for them to engineer. To rephrase, how much are you worth if you can run a business that makes $90k per year per employee?
This reeks of blissful ignorance. Lets get some facts straight. Repeat after me: India's population is slightly higher than North America and Europe put together.
Consequence ? Even if they sell one CD outside india, the "global" sales can far outstrip any artist in US. You think Britney is popular ? How about Madonna ?
I think you're missing the parent's point. Is there interest in artists like Rahman outside of India? If not, then India lacks the motivation of protecting his content outside of India. And without this motivation, they're perhaps less likely to compromise with foreign IP interests.
E.g., a noble paladin burning down a drow orphanage, with the drow children still in it, would probably count as just doing a good deed. Sorry, nope. No way. That's not what "good" means.
Have you ever witnessed this (or something equivalent) happening in a D&D game? If it did, I'm sure that I would blame the players, not the system. It's not like there's a page that lists XP especially for Drow orphans. Or swords +5 against Drow Orphans.
So, I think you have a point, but you example is a bit much.
I'm not sure if your statement is directed at patents in particular. But at least in terms of copyright, it is incorrect. For all the intents and purposes of my 5th amendment argument, however, I believe patent protection is analogous, given that constructive legal property, ala. patents, trademarks and copyrights are, in good standing, equivalent to actual property.
And there's no "property" taken from the inventor in violation of the 5th ammendment.
Quoth the Raven:
copyrighted material is, by definintion, private property, and to argue that an individual is taking from the public by extending his copyright requires a dyslexic misreading of the literal meaning of the amendment. the 5th amendment argument is better used by those who support an extended copyright than by those who wish to shorten it.
Taken from the blog of Lawrence Lessig, , one of the world's most prominent intellectual property lawyers.
The context here is that someone is suggesting that the 5th ammendment can be used to argue against copyright extensions. The suggestion was that the public owns the "private property", and that by extending the copyright, Congress is taking property from the public and giving it to the original writer without compensation. So, Lessig says that the 5th ammendment would make (hypothetically) a better argument for extensions that against them. But Congress doesn't need a 5th ammemdment interpretation to back granting copyrights -- it has an enumerated power.
I'm not sure what you are referring to with "natural rights"; natural persons and artificial persons (ie. corporations) are equally entitled to the constitutional provisions, just as constructive property rights are equally as applicable as common law or other rights (not sure what you mean by "natural rights", so...). I suspect I have no idea what you are talking about.:)
I'm using that term "natural law" as meant by Jefferson and Locke. Certain rights are inherit in being human, or given by God.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, . ..
I'm pointing out a distiction between this sort of right and copyright, which is a "right" invented for pragmatic purposes. That is, the advancement of the arts and useful sciences.
The US has to be careful with patent reform, perhaps because of the lesser used part of the 5th amendment. Ie.
... [No person shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
For the same reason that copyright reform may be difficult to bring about, as postulated by Mr. Lessig, Mr. Knopf, and others, it would literally cost the government a fortune to deprive owners of patents their due value, for a public purpose, as the 5th amendment guarantees them just compensation.
The lackadaisical politics is in essence digging its own grave, ensuring the continuation of a terrible intellectual property system, as the government will be unable to afford to compensate the existing privileged in the name reform for the public good.
The Congress shall have Power . .. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Unlike natural rights, people don't have exclusive rights to their "writings and discoveries" unless Congress grants it. The reason Congress grants that right is for the public good. If Congress chooses not to grant this right, it isn't taking anything away. It's just not exercising it's power to grant the right. And there's no "property" taken from the inventor in violation of the 5th ammendment.
Lucas Films is overly obsessive over the conditions in the theaters in which Star Wars movies played... they spun of THX as a certification body to make sure visual and sound equipment is upto code for everything from theaters to the recording studio used for a video game.
I watched AToC the night it came out at a theater. During the first half-hour of the film, the dialog was unintelligible. So I went to a second theater the next day. Again, the sound was distorted. I filled out a complaint form on the web. And I never heard any response.
So, my guess is they're not concerned about a substandard screening.
I assumed that readers would interpret "terrorism class" to mean "a class studying terrorism" rather than "a class that teaches one how to become a terrorist."
My mother was startled when she saw the history class "Atomic Bomb" on my freshman schedule for engineering.
Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity is the worst movie ever. It has all the plot and character development of pornography plus all the sex and nudity of the 700 Club.
It's appropriate to put scare quotes around "free" software... but the same thing applies to "purchased" software. "free" isn't completely free, but neither is "purchased" completely paid for.
I don't think so. OO is free by any useful meaning of the word free. If there's a ad in the paper for "Free Puppies", no one takes that to imply that it won't cost anything to feed them. And yet, something meaningful is completely conveyed by the use of the word free in both cases. Even if we're restricting ourselves to the free-as-in-beer sort of free.
I do imagine an HD TiVO doing just what you suggest... just not yet. The bandwidth may be there for one user. It may be there for ten users. But either your local ISP has to maintain a cache to keep it's bandwidth bills down, or someone gets to pay for it all. Bandwidth isn't dirt cheap yet.
We shouldn't assume that all of that data has to traverse the traditional internet. Most of this video data is beginning its life as IP in the Telco's CO. The Telco is getting video from satellite or other sources. Heck, there are many possible applications for running big chunks of data between Telco customers.
I have never met anyone in Canada that pronounces "about" as "aboot".
The Canadians I know say "aboot" but they don't know it. One of them asked us about the reference in South park. "What's all that aboot? We don't say aboooot."
You kill a few hundred thousand bacteria (animals) . ..
Bacteria aren't animals. If you classify life into just plants and animals, they're plants. If you classify life into more kingdoms, they're Prokaryotes, or other scentific gibberish.
I was able to gauge my progress through school and college based on the number of significant digits in g. "g is 10", "g is 9.8m/s", "g is 9.81ms^-1", "screw g; you want G!", "G? This is General Relativity!"
Apparently you skipped the stage when you considered g to be 9.8/ms^-2 instead.
"He [Solomon] made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it"
It says "circular", not "perfect circle".
If I can add to that, I don't see a reason to think that the original diameter is intended to express more than one significant digit.
And frankly, can't we just call it something new and start from 1 again?
I hope not. It seems a lot easier to me if releases for anything proceed sequentially. Then there's no question which is newer than which. (E.g., Is Windows ME before or after Windows 98? Solaris vs. Sun OS and such.)
Slashdot Mirror
$10k/year. Apparently, you're creating a lot of value by thinking of something clever for them to engineer. To rephrase, how much are you worth if you can run a business that makes $90k per year per employee?
I really doubt it. Have you ever personally seen anyone make this mistake? I'd classify that one as an urban legend.
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
I think you're missing the parent's point. Is there interest in artists like Rahman outside of India? If not, then India lacks the motivation of protecting his content outside of India. And without this motivation, they're perhaps less likely to compromise with foreign IP interests.
I trust most people know that statement was just a joke, and Quale didn't actually say that. But just in case . .
Have you ever witnessed this (or something equivalent) happening in a D&D game? If it did, I'm sure that I would blame the players, not the system. It's not like there's a page that lists XP especially for Drow orphans. Or swords +5 against Drow Orphans.
So, I think you have a point, but you example is a bit much.
The context here is that someone is suggesting that the 5th ammendment can be used to argue against copyright extensions. The suggestion was that the public owns the "private property", and that by extending the copyright, Congress is taking property from the public and giving it to the original writer without compensation. So, Lessig says that the 5th ammendment would make (hypothetically) a better argument for extensions that against them. But Congress doesn't need a 5th ammemdment interpretation to back granting copyrights -- it has an enumerated power.
I'm using that term "natural law" as meant by Jefferson and Locke. Certain rights are inherit in being human, or given by God.
I'm pointing out a distiction between this sort of right and copyright, which is a "right" invented for pragmatic purposes. That is, the advancement of the arts and useful sciences.
Here's a relevent bit in the US constitution:
Unlike natural rights, people don't have exclusive rights to their "writings and discoveries" unless Congress grants it. The reason Congress grants that right is for the public good. If Congress chooses not to grant this right, it isn't taking anything away. It's just not exercising it's power to grant the right. And there's no "property" taken from the inventor in violation of the 5th ammendment.
I watched AToC the night it came out at a theater. During the first half-hour of the film, the dialog was unintelligible.
So I went to a second theater the next day. Again, the sound was distorted.
I filled out a complaint form on the web. And I never heard any response.
So, my guess is they're not concerned about a substandard screening.
My mother was startled when she saw the history class "Atomic Bomb" on my freshman schedule for engineering.
Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity is the worst movie ever.
It has all the plot and character development of pornography plus all the sex and nudity of the 700 Club.
I don't think so. OO is free by any useful meaning of the word free. If there's a ad in the paper for "Free Puppies", no one takes that to imply that it won't cost anything to feed them. And yet, something meaningful is completely conveyed by the use of the word free in both cases. Even if we're restricting ourselves to the free-as-in-beer sort of free.
Well, one percent of that is from people switching to Mozilla.
You are full of shit.
Well, maybe not you, but other people on Slashdot.
USB, firewire, fat32 (versus 95a)
We shouldn't assume that all of that data has to traverse the traditional internet. Most of this video data is beginning its life as IP in the Telco's CO. The Telco is getting video from satellite or other sources. Heck, there are many possible applications for running big chunks of data between Telco customers.
I was with you until there.
I love Mozilla, and use it as my number one browser. But the darn thing crashes about 10 times a day for me (on Windows 98) when I change profiles.
Anybody else?
The Canadians I know say "aboot" but they don't know it. One of them asked us about the reference in South park. "What's all that aboot? We don't say aboooot."
Bacteria aren't animals. If you classify life into just plants and animals, they're plants. If you classify life into more kingdoms, they're Prokaryotes, or other scentific gibberish.
All they need now is another $199.
You could ridicule me back for writing it wrong, too. 9.8 m/s^2 not that crap I wrote.
Apparently you skipped the stage when you considered g to be 9.8/ms^-2 instead.
If I can add to that, I don't see a reason to think that the original diameter is intended to express more than one significant digit.
I hope not. It seems a lot easier to me if releases for anything proceed sequentially. Then there's no question which is newer than which. (E.g., Is Windows ME before or after Windows 98? Solaris vs. Sun OS and such.)
Just my $0.02.