I don't even believe the Mac sites that I read religiously because too many of the contributors are fanboyz with a copy of photoshop (pirated, no doubt) and too much time on their hands.
So I have to be inflicted with the same fictions on slashdot? At least give me fiction with a slight chance of being true like, oh, Longhorn really being released in ought-six. Naaah, that defies credulity, too.
Absolutely! And the corollary is "Don't steal it, either."
Nobody stole it. It was bought and paid for.
Once. That confers on you lots of rights, but sharing it with someone who didn't isn't one of them.
Life's a bitch, isn't it?
It doesn't need to be. There is no social responsibility in using underhanded methods to turn customers into criminals.
Whoa, back up with the passivity there. People turn themselves into criminals: copyright infringement was illegal long before the 1st.mp3 was ever ripped. There's no doubt about the sequence of events here.. Plus, there's no "social responsibility" in BEING a criminal. People do this to themselves. My heart doesn't bleed at all for them. And, while we're on the subject, what the eff does "social responsibility" actually MEAN? It's a great buzzword, but it's rather bereft of meaning, especially in this context.
CD's, DVDs, VHS tapes, and other media are SOLD in a "all sales are final" environment. There is no pretense that the customer is only renting the material. What is licensing but an embellished rental?
As someone once said, if you don't like it, don't buy it. But not buying it doesn't confer any other rights or abilities. The only thing I agree with in anything you've said is the government shouldn't be involved
Then we agree on all points. If the government weren't involved then 1) both of us would be satisfied and 2) this wouldn't be an issue. The fact is that the media companies rely on the government involvement to make their case for them. If the government is involved then it's obvious that the accused are guilty. Without government involvement the victims would have lawyers dying to take up the case of sale and ownership.
Nice job of selective quoting--you work on the Bush campaign, too? The government shouldn't be pursuing violators.
That's a pretty whack definition of "responsible." That's pretty much the opposite definition of anyone else's.
You're far off base.
FACT: You have a product. FACT: People want to buy that product. FACT: It is easy for people to copy and share that product. FACT: It is cheap for people to copy and share that product. FACT: People are inclined to copy and share that product.
There are no secrets in any of these. What is most socially responsible?
You wanna tell me again what socially responsible means? And what whatever that means for this? Yes, those are all facts. And as I learned years ago, "if 10 million Frenchman think the Earth is flat, that doesn't make it flat." If you're trying to say that the industry needs to re-examine their business model...you're right. HOWEVER, that doesn't make sharing NOW any less morally reprehensible.
You can lobby government to make everyone pay to hunt down whoever you feel like targeting today or...You can give intelligent thoughts to the facts before selling your product. You can't begin to tell me that media conglomerates, with multi-million dollar marketing departments, aren't fully aware that their product is easily reproduced and redistributed. Attempting to fight this fact through politics and legal finger-crossing is the most socially unresponsible and repressive idea in history.
You, if you think that, need to get out of here and get some help...and get some perspective on life, history and the world. End of conversation. We've moved from a reasonable conversation to you scaring me...
Everyone's favorite (other than listed previously) excuse is, "A CD is too expensive."
And the common response is,"Tough, don't buy it.
Absolutely! And the corollary is "Don't steal it, either."
It is no pretty picture for universities to need to police their networks. It is no pretty picture when attorneys subpoena an ISP. It is no pretty picture when I can't leave my webserver up so that I can listen to my music collection at work because some RIAA official might sue me into oblivion. It is no pretty picture when an already struggling family is handed a $5k judgement because their son decided to participate in the heinous crime of letting his friends listen to his music collection. It is no pretty picture for government officials to be actively scanning networks searching for people to label criminals.
Life's a bitch, isn't it?
This is not about pretty. This is about socially responsible. It is more socially responsible to face reality
Socially responsible? That's a pretty whack definition of "responsible." That's pretty much the opposite definition of anyone else's.
This is not about pretty. This is about socially responsible. It is more socially responsible to face reality: the product is easily copied and easily distributed. Raise the price or make a better product. It is completely inexcusable for the government or the industry to target individuals. There is no secret about which entity has the greater resources. The only thing I agree with in anything you've said is the government shouldn't be involved: this is purely a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Other than that, raising prices will only exacerbate the problem, and what the heck does "better product" mean? A better distribution model? That would be great. The success of the Apple store's proven the people are willing to embrace other models. Better music? Not applicable cuz even shit is pirated today.
There is no secret that the product is easily copied and easily distributed. If the vendor is unhappy with the terms of sale they should raise the price.
Awww, c'mon--that's silly. Everyone's favorite (other than listed previously) excuse is, "A CD is too expensive." Imagine if they calculated how many copies the average person gives away and priced it accordingly...not a pretty picture, is it? At least how it is now with the sharers being sued, they're the ones bearing the direct costs--not me.
I disagree with the article's assertion that "the CAN-SPAM Act, which legalises spamming, is turning the US into the spam haven of the world." The US was the spam capital before that: it's where everybody has access to a computer, cheap.
Yes, they do have the right to send spam in this country, but only under certain conditions. Very little spam (effectively none) is in compliance with the CAN-SPAM act. If it was, we'd be filtering it out.
The problem isn't the CAN-SPAM act itself but the fact that there has been almost no enforcement. Well, that and it officially changed the paradigm to "opt-out" for the poor spam victim instead of the (always alleged) opt-in.
In the article, they even mentioned about the addresses that were trawled. But that no longer matters because of CAN-SPAM; the slimeball spammers don't even have to pretend that the user consented to getting mailed. That's a HUGE paradigm shift.
at a bare minimum music sharing is the stealing of royalties and profits.
Nope, sorry, it's not. Music sharing is violating the rcord label's legal monopoly on distributing a copyrighted song
ps--the key words in the sentence are "legal" and "copyrighted." If you don't like that arrangement that the artists willingly enter into, tough--that ain't none of our business. If you work for AcmeManufacturing and I think you're underpaid and your management makes too much and charges the customer too much, that doesn't give me the right to go steal their widgets.
No, you can use it to say that counterfeiting isn't stealing, which is true. That doesn't *justify* anything. You're missing the entire point of the "copying isn't stealing" argument. I don't think it's ethical or legal, I just don't think stealing is the right word for it.
No, I'm not missing anything: there's just not a more appropriate label.
Music sharing is violating the rcord label's legal monopoly on distributing a copyrighted song. If we grant that copyright infringment is theft, where does the stupidity stop? Do we redefine homicide as theft of life, assault and battery as theft of health, public drunkenness as theft of peace and quiet, speeding as theft of highway safety and so on?
Stupidity? What else is a homicide but the theft of a life? As even you're trying to prove, the thief doesn't have to have tangible after a crime is committed. All of your definitions are literally correct. You may not be able to put the theft of a life in your pocket, but it's a theft nonetheless.
So if we're taking a test together and I copy from yours, I guess I'm not guilty of cheating because your test answers are still on your page? You haven't lost anything, right? (Yes, this last is more a response to one of the other posts than to you....)
The fallacies have been pointed out ad nauseum ever since Napster reared its ugly head. Just because the original still exists means nothing; one can extrapolate that fallacy to justify counterfeiting, too.
The biggest point, as Lars Ulrich pointed out in his seminal slashdot interview, is of consent. If there's no consent by the artist, the copyright holders, the labels, etc, it's stealing, plain and simple. Putting aside the "music wants to be free" crack dream and the non-corporeal nature of music, at a bare minimum music sharing is the stealing of royalties and profits.
Sharing with 3 million of my closest friends isn't Fair Use. It's all a question of scale...
They're getting what they deserve. All sophistry and rationalizations aside, what they did [i]was[/i] stealing.
That being said, someone needs to really fight this to cut the RIAA down to size because they're acting like a damn branch of the government now. The pendulum's swung too far in their favor.
This is restriction, NOT censorship. Censorship is something a government does. If you have a firewall at your business or home, are you "censoring" info or merely restricting it..? AFAIC, NBC paid a lot of money for exclusive rights. Whether that was wise or not is a separate discussion, but they have the right to get the most value out of their investment.
They just hid behind the immunity of vast wealth, armies of hired goons, and bought legislation. But I suppose you did know exactly who to blame when things went all pear-shaped...
Exactly. The world knew that Gould did this or Carnegie did that or Stanford did the other, etc. No Enron-style crap.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that either way is good.
Isn't this the scenario that Ayn Rand dreamed about?
Not likely. Two themes she expressed regarding capitalism were morality and accountability. 21st (and late 20th) century capitalism has neither. At least in the days of the 19th century robber barons there was accountability; they weren't hiding behind diaphanous boards of directors.
The only thing that bashing Microsoft for BS reasons does is damage credibility of the people doing so
You must not remember NT4 SP2 or SP6 (not 6a), or the nasties that Win2k SP1 introduced. No BS reasons at all. RC means "Release Candidate" which means it needs tiny tweaks --if anything--before release. Killing 60% of the test machines will take more than a tiny tweak, no?
And the worse offender I have so far is the slashdot@ address I setup here. Not that slashdot sold it of course - it's just been mined by every spammer on the block since a story submission was accepted. Lesson well learned there!
22 minutes is my record between when a story I submitted got posted and the first spam rolled in (matter of fact, I got spam before I knew it was posted). It seems that the 419 scammers continually trawl slashdot because initially all of the spams I've gotten have been them. I post 'em with sdn@mydomain incrementing n with each story posted. Unfortunately, I learned the same lesson you did with my first slashdot submission. I had to kill that alias....:-(
"Better" is in the ear of the listener, of course. but, yeah, the "louder is better" argument has been going on for decades.
The answer: Louder is better until the sound is distorted or your ears hurt.
That's the point: It's disorted before it's even had a chance to play, and it makes the discerning listener's ears hurt. Nothing the user can do can make that CD sound better. Joe Bonamassa's "So it's like that" CD is just as badly mastered; it's the worst one I have. It's so bad, I won't even listen to the AACs I've ripped from it. Blech. If it wasn't a gift, I'd have returned it as defective...because it is to me.
...and the shoplifting rate will be astronomical since most people expect to get what they want for free. Better hope they don't have a music department....
At the risk of looking silly replying to myself, this statement's even sillier than I thought at first: If you think about, who questions people? Cops and reporters. The man on the street doesn't walk up and start pumping you for information. Last I knew, it was illegal for US law enforcement to pretend to be reporters. Is that next to fall? If they aren't going to be cops, what's left for them, if this example wasn't a total smoke screen?
Pentagon officials say the exemption would not affect civil liberties and is needed so that its agents can obtain information from sources who may be afraid of government agents, such as a green-card-holding professor of nanotechnology who formerly lived under a repressive government.
ey, can I start a microkernel flame war here? Is Linus or Tannenbaum reading?).
You can do whatever you like, but the market and the computer science research community already decided the issue 20 years ago, as well as the wisdom of PS/PDF-based window systems. Furthermore, Darwin isn't a microkernel anyway, and even if it was, its performance is close enough to other kernels not to say much about whether its design is good or bad.
I was talking about Apple's MK (MicroKernel) Linux, not Darwin. And it was a joke, anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't even believe the Mac sites that I read religiously because too many of the contributors are fanboyz with a copy of photoshop (pirated, no doubt) and too much time on their hands.
So I have to be inflicted with the same fictions on slashdot? At least give me fiction with a slight chance of being true like, oh, Longhorn really being released in ought-six. Naaah, that defies credulity, too.
Absolutely! And the corollary is "Don't steal it, either."
.mp3 was ever ripped. There's no doubt about the sequence of events here.. Plus, there's no "social responsibility" in BEING a criminal. People do this to themselves. My heart doesn't bleed at all for them. And, while we're on the subject, what the eff does "social responsibility" actually MEAN? It's a great buzzword, but it's rather bereft of meaning, especially in this context.
Nobody stole it. It was bought and paid for.
Once. That confers on you lots of rights, but sharing it with someone who didn't isn't one of them.
Life's a bitch, isn't it?
It doesn't need to be. There is no social responsibility in using underhanded methods to turn customers into criminals.
Whoa, back up with the passivity there. People turn themselves into criminals: copyright infringement was illegal long before the 1st
CD's, DVDs, VHS tapes, and other media are SOLD in a "all sales are final" environment. There is no pretense that the customer is only renting the material. What is licensing but an embellished rental?
As someone once said, if you don't like it, don't buy it. But not buying it doesn't confer any other rights or abilities.
The only thing I agree with in anything you've said is the government shouldn't be involved
Then we agree on all points. If the government weren't involved then 1) both of us would be satisfied and 2) this wouldn't be an issue. The fact is that the media companies rely on the government involvement to make their case for them. If the government is involved then it's obvious that the accused are guilty. Without government involvement the victims would have lawyers dying to take up the case of sale and ownership.
Nice job of selective quoting--you work on the Bush campaign, too? The government shouldn't be pursuing violators.
That's a pretty whack definition of "responsible." That's pretty much the opposite definition of anyone else's.
You're far off base.
FACT: You have a product.
FACT: People want to buy that product.
FACT: It is easy for people to copy and share that product.
FACT: It is cheap for people to copy and share that product.
FACT: People are inclined to copy and share that product.
There are no secrets in any of these.
What is most socially responsible?
You wanna tell me again what socially responsible means? And what whatever that means for this? Yes, those are all facts. And as I learned years ago, "if 10 million Frenchman think the Earth is flat, that doesn't make it flat." If you're trying to say that the industry needs to re-examine their business model...you're right. HOWEVER, that doesn't make sharing NOW any less morally reprehensible.
You can lobby government to make everyone pay to hunt down whoever you feel like targeting today or...You can give intelligent thoughts to the facts before selling your product. You can't begin to tell me that media conglomerates, with multi-million dollar marketing departments, aren't fully aware that their product is easily reproduced and redistributed. Attempting to fight this fact through politics and legal finger-crossing is the most socially unresponsible and repressive idea in history.
You, if you think that, need to get out of here and get some help...and get some perspective on life, history and the world. End of conversation. We've moved from a reasonable conversation to you scaring me...
Everyone's favorite (other than listed previously) excuse is, "A CD is too expensive."
And the common response is,"Tough, don't buy it.
Absolutely! And the corollary is "Don't steal it, either."
It is no pretty picture for universities to need to police their networks. It is no pretty picture when attorneys subpoena an ISP. It is no pretty picture when I can't leave my webserver up so that I can listen to my music collection at work because some RIAA official might sue me into oblivion. It is no pretty picture when an already struggling family is handed a $5k judgement because their son decided to participate in the heinous crime of letting his friends listen to his music collection. It is no pretty picture for government officials to be actively scanning networks searching for people to label criminals.
Life's a bitch, isn't it?
This is not about pretty. This is about socially responsible. It is more socially responsible to face reality
Socially responsible? That's a pretty whack definition of "responsible." That's pretty much the opposite definition of anyone else's.
This is not about pretty. This is about socially responsible. It is more socially responsible to face reality: the product is easily copied and easily distributed. Raise the price or make a better product. It is completely inexcusable for the government or the industry to target individuals. There is no secret about which entity has the greater resources.
The only thing I agree with in anything you've said is the government shouldn't be involved: this is purely a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Other than that, raising prices will only exacerbate the problem, and what the heck does "better product" mean? A better distribution model? That would be great. The success of the Apple store's proven the people are willing to embrace other models. Better music? Not applicable cuz even shit is pirated today.
There is no secret that the product is easily copied and easily distributed. If the vendor is unhappy with the terms of sale they should raise the price.
Awww, c'mon--that's silly. Everyone's favorite (other than listed previously) excuse is, "A CD is too expensive." Imagine if they calculated how many copies the average person gives away and priced it accordingly...not a pretty picture, is it?
At least how it is now with the sharers being sued, they're the ones bearing the direct costs--not me.
I disagree with the article's assertion that "the CAN-SPAM Act, which legalises spamming, is turning the US into the spam haven of the world." The US was the spam capital before that: it's where everybody has access to a computer, cheap.
Yes, they do have the right to send spam in this country, but only under certain conditions. Very little spam (effectively none) is in compliance with the CAN-SPAM act. If it was, we'd be filtering it out.
The problem isn't the CAN-SPAM act itself but the fact that there has been almost no enforcement.
Well, that and it officially changed the paradigm to "opt-out" for the poor spam victim instead of the (always alleged) opt-in.
In the article, they even mentioned about the addresses that were trawled. But that no longer matters because of CAN-SPAM; the slimeball spammers don't even have to pretend that the user consented to getting mailed.
That's a HUGE paradigm shift.
at a bare minimum music sharing is the stealing of royalties and profits.
Nope, sorry, it's not. Music sharing is violating the rcord label's legal monopoly on distributing a copyrighted song
ps--the key words in the sentence are "legal" and "copyrighted."
If you don't like that arrangement that the artists willingly enter into, tough--that ain't none of our business.
If you work for AcmeManufacturing and I think you're underpaid and your management makes too much and charges the customer too much, that doesn't give me the right to go steal their widgets.
No, you can use it to say that counterfeiting isn't stealing, which is true. That doesn't *justify* anything. You're missing the entire point of the "copying isn't stealing" argument. I don't think it's ethical or legal, I just don't think stealing is the right word for it.
No, I'm not missing anything: there's just not a more appropriate label.
Music sharing is violating the rcord label's legal monopoly on distributing a copyrighted song. If we grant that copyright infringment is theft, where does the stupidity stop? Do we redefine homicide as theft of life, assault and battery as theft of health, public drunkenness as theft of peace and quiet, speeding as theft of highway safety and so on?
Stupidity? What else is a homicide but the theft of a life? As even you're trying to prove, the thief doesn't have to have tangible after a crime is committed. All of your definitions are literally correct. You may not be able to put the theft of a life in your pocket, but it's a theft nonetheless.
So if we're taking a test together and I copy from yours, I guess I'm not guilty of cheating because your test answers are still on your page? You haven't lost anything, right? (Yes, this last is more a response to one of the other posts than to you....)
The fallacies have been pointed out ad nauseum ever since Napster reared its ugly head. Just because the original still exists means nothing; one can extrapolate that fallacy to justify counterfeiting, too.
The biggest point, as Lars Ulrich pointed out in his seminal slashdot interview, is of consent. If there's no consent by the artist, the copyright holders, the labels, etc, it's stealing, plain and simple. Putting aside the "music wants to be free" crack dream and the non-corporeal nature of music, at a bare minimum music sharing is the stealing of royalties and profits.
Sharing with 3 million of my closest friends isn't Fair Use. It's all a question of scale...
Ahh, sophistry rears its head.....
This is more proof of why Spamhaus called CAN-SPAM the "National Right to Spam Act."
Blech. Shoot 'em all.
They're getting what they deserve. All sophistry and rationalizations aside, what they did [i]was[/i] stealing.
That being said, someone needs to really fight this to cut the RIAA down to size because they're acting like a damn branch of the government now. The pendulum's swung too far in their favor.
This is restriction, NOT censorship. Censorship is something a government does.
If you have a firewall at your business or home, are you "censoring" info or merely restricting it..?
AFAIC, NBC paid a lot of money for exclusive rights. Whether that was wise or not is a separate discussion, but they have the right to get the most value out of their investment.
They just hid behind the immunity of vast wealth, armies of hired goons, and bought legislation. But I suppose you did know exactly who to blame when things went all pear-shaped...
Exactly. The world knew that Gould did this or Carnegie did that or Stanford did the other, etc. No Enron-style crap.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that either way is good.
...I have a Mac. :-)
Isn't this the scenario that Ayn Rand dreamed about?
Not likely. Two themes she expressed regarding capitalism were morality and accountability.
21st (and late 20th) century capitalism has neither. At least in the days of the 19th century robber barons there was accountability; they weren't hiding behind diaphanous boards of directors.
The only thing that bashing Microsoft for BS reasons does is damage credibility of the people doing so
You must not remember NT4 SP2 or SP6 (not 6a), or the nasties that Win2k SP1 introduced. No BS reasons at all.
RC means "Release Candidate" which means it needs tiny tweaks --if anything--before release. Killing 60% of the test machines will take more than a tiny tweak, no?
And the worse offender I have so far is the slashdot@ address I setup here. Not that slashdot sold it of course - it's just been mined by every spammer on the block since a story submission was accepted. Lesson well learned there!
22 minutes is my record between when a story I submitted got posted and the first spam rolled in (matter of fact, I got spam before I knew it was posted). It seems that the 419 scammers continually trawl slashdot because initially all of the spams I've gotten have been them. I post 'em with sdn@mydomain incrementing n with each story posted. Unfortunately, I learned the same lesson you did with my first slashdot submission. I had to kill that alias....:-(
"Better" is in the ear of the listener, of course. but, yeah, the "louder is better" argument has been going on for decades.
The answer: Louder is better until the sound is distorted or your ears hurt.
That's the point: It's disorted before it's even had a chance to play, and it makes the discerning listener's ears hurt. Nothing the user can do can make that CD sound better. Joe Bonamassa's "So it's like that" CD is just as badly mastered; it's the worst one I have. It's so bad, I won't even listen to the AACs I've ripped from it. Blech. If it wasn't a gift, I'd have returned it as defective...because it is to me.
I always put 867-5309 for my phone #.
Me, too! And if I have to put a (fake) name in, it'll be (First Name) Jenny (Last Name) Jenny.
...and the shoplifting rate will be astronomical since most people expect to get what they want for free.
Better hope they don't have a music department....
At the risk of looking silly replying to myself, this statement's even sillier than I thought at first: If you think about, who questions people? Cops and reporters. The man on the street doesn't walk up and start pumping you for information.
Last I knew, it was illegal for US law enforcement to pretend to be reporters. Is that next to fall? If they aren't going to be cops, what's left for them, if this example wasn't a total smoke screen?
Pentagon officials say the exemption would not affect civil liberties and is needed so that its agents can obtain information from sources who may be afraid of government agents, such as a green-card-holding professor of nanotechnology who formerly lived under a repressive government.
We're getting there....
...is always "I don't know" (with the usually unsaid corollary of "I'll find out") rather than making up bullshit.
AOL should distribute their CDs with little rubber cushions on printed side, so people can actually use it for coasters at home.
:-)
Naah, they should have the little rubber feet on the data side.
ey, can I start a microkernel flame war here? Is Linus or Tannenbaum reading?).
You can do whatever you like, but the market and the computer science research community already decided the issue 20 years ago, as well as the wisdom of PS/PDF-based window systems. Furthermore, Darwin isn't a microkernel anyway, and even if it was, its performance is close enough to other kernels not to say much about whether its design is good or bad.
I was talking about Apple's MK (MicroKernel) Linux, not Darwin. And it was a joke, anyway.