How is this different from sombody buying land, not doing anything with it, but still stopping others from having access to it? Should real property law be scrapped altogether, because someone can buy property, and not use it for anything for a number of years? How about somebody who buys a painting and just keeps it in their garage for 20 years, doesn't look at it, and stops others from enjoying it? Should they be forced to let other people enjoy it?
While the report 28% of 40% (or about 11%) of scientists had to stop their research due to patents, 55% of scientists state that they use patents to protect their IP. So it appears that patents help about 5 times as many research projects than it stops.
I was recently surprised when I found out that iTunes lets you "reset" the number of computers authorised to play your music. You can lose authorizations if you have to re-install your OS, and forget to (or are unable to) de-authorize, or you lose your computer or something like that. However once per year, you can "reset" the number of computers that have been authorized to play your music, so you can authorize 5 new computers. Of course, because once iTunes is authorized to play your music, it doesn't contact Apple when you want to play a song, if a computer is authorized when you "reset" the authorization count, it will still be authorized to play your music.
So anyway, at least with iTunes (I am not sure about the other stores) it is more accurate to say you can authorize 5 computers *per year*
This isn't a case of moving control of the TLDs from a completely independent body to China, North Korea or Iran. It is a matter of moving control from a US controlled organization to a truely independent organization. As said in a previous discussion, it would be ludicrous to suggest that UNICEF is controlled by china to deny food to children.
ICANN has done a pretty good job, but the recent.xxx controversy shows that it is not independent from US influence. It is not too much of a stretch to foresee there is a great potential conflict with US foreign policy. Consider the situation where Chinese seat at the UN was held by Taiwan (ROC) until 1971 despite the PRC taking over the entire mainland in 1949. In 1971 the PRC was acknowledged as being the rightful holder of the Chinese seat on the UN over the objections of the US. It is not unreasonable to imaging that if control of the.cn TLD was in dispute, the US might pressure ICANN to refuse to transfer control to the PRC. Even now, although most of Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban, the.af country code is assigned to the US supported government. It is certainly true that ROC is a lot nicer than the PRC, but that is besides the point. It is also true that the official UN view of geo-politics is not always completely accurate, but it is closer to the global understanding than the US's.
As the current US president said: "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again"
How do you get a government issued photo ID? Obviously you aren't born with one. I am not specifically familiar with how the US does it, but at some point, it would probably come down to a birth certificate, and perhaps a "public figure" (anyone from a doctor to a public servant to a lawyer) vouching for your identity. It would take a bit more time than most identity thefts, but potentially a lot more damaging.
I recently had to get a Canadian Social Insurance Number. They wouldn't let me use my passport as ID, and required a Birth Certificate (which I found retarded as you need a birth certificate to get a passport, not to mention the fact the passport has a *photo*.) As I found out, the easiest way to get a Birth Certificate was to apply online. They ask a few questions. The most obscure question would probably be the birth country of my parents (which wouldn't be too tough to guess for most people.) A week later I got the Birth Certificate, and the next day I picked up my SIN without any other form of identification.
I think you are mistaking hippies for leftists/liberals. It is similar to the distinction between feminists and man-haters. In the hippies' defense, most of that evil kurd-killing happened in the 80s when Iraq was the West's (and especially the USA's) bestest buddy.
With all due respect, I think you just haven't thought about it enough. I think there are many examples, of copyright being abused, and I think that there is certainly a solid argument that the length of copyright is too long. If copyright did not exist at all, then books would not exist as we know them, because there would be no way to pay the author anything (another person/company could just do a print run without paying the author anything.) There would be no recorded music, no commercial software, no movies, no TV shows (except perhaps the news, and even that would be very different because services like Reuters and Associated Press could not exist.)
Copyrights were introduced in an era where, even though it was much harder to copy intellectual property, it was still a big issue. If an industrialized country were to remove copyrights today, a large percentage of people would lose their jobs very quickly, and the creative output would drop sharply.
I think the extent that we disagree is largely just semantics. However to respond: While the rules that Newton developed very accurate (to the extent that they are still used for the calculations of trajectories for satellites, and mars exploration missions) they are not universally true. I guess it is like saying that Robin Williams is a good actor despite that shocking job he did in Flubber - broadly accurate, but there are counter-examples.
As far as Einstein goes, my understanding is that in modern Physics, there are two giant (in importance) theories that are extremely accurate in their own areas, however they are not consistent. General Relativity has explained many phenomena that we had no explanation for, and predicted objects and effects that have since been discovered. However, General Relativity does not take into account the uncertainty inherent in Quantum Theory. Quantum Theory on the other hand has had similar success on the molecular, and sub-molecular scale, however ultimately, it is based in a world of Newtonian physics.
Of course, Newtonian Physics doesn't take into account either of those fields. If evolution had a hole as big as the Mercury problem you mentioned, I am sure that the IDers would try to make the most of it.
What was going on in Iraq for the last 15 years did not threaten the US in the slightest. There was no connection between Iraq and the four hijacked planes on 11th of September 2001. Osama Bin Laden reportedly hated Sadam because he maintained a relatively secular country. Even if the arguments of weapons of mass destruction were true, they wouldn't pose any threat to the US, or any other western country. Beyond that, Iraq's armed forces were relatively underpowered compared to many of the regional countries due to years of sanctions. I don't think that anyone would argue that Sadam was a nice character, but he was far from the worst leader, even in the region. Additionally there are many other countries that are in far worse shape, and treat their people a lot worse than Iraq that have not received any attention from the US
In summary, I don't think anyone would argue that Sadam was innocent, but there is no doubt that the US was a bully superpower.
It is frustrating how anti-scientists continually come back to the use of the word "theory" as proof that evolution is bogus. It is the same as refusing to go to a doctor because they are only "practicing" medicine. They never argue that Newton's theory of gravity should not be taught (or should be taught with a qualification) because they are only a theory. This is especially bullshit as Newton's theory is wrong, and has been known to be wrong for well over a Century. Even Newton's replacement, Einstein's theory of General Relativity is wrong (although it is a lot closer to reality.) In contrast, the "theory" of evolution by natural selection has repeatedly been supported by new evidence.
This has nothing to do with "Fair Use". From what I understand, the AAAS creates science documents that they authorize for use in the creation of regional text books. They have simply removed authorization for Kansas to base their text books on their documents. There would be an argument about "fair use" if someone in Kansas had written an article comparing "Intelligent Design" and Evolution, quoting the AAAS documents, and the AAAS had tried to stop distribution of the document based on their copyright.
Slashdot's interest in copyright is far from one sided. No one can dispute Slashdot's obsession with the GPL, which can only exist through copyright. Even with all of the general criticism of the RIAA and MPAA, I think only the minority of people on Slashdot would argue that an artist's work should not be protected through copyright (the issue generally arises with how the RIAA and MPAA enforces their copyright against arguably minor offenses.
Hmm, forgive me if I misunderstand you, but are you saying that Open office is both bloated, and feature-lacking? That doesn't sound like much of an endorsement to me.
Anyway (according to wikipedia), Open Office has been around for almost 20 years as Star Office (although it was only integrated about 11 years ago), while Microsoft Office was first released as an "integrated" package about 12 years ago. It is misleading to suggest that Open office hasn't had the time to compete.
I have downloaded and installed a few versions of MacOS and windows on my computer with out a problem, but I came across a few issues when looking for and considering installing linux.
* I have a recent G5. Many distributions (even "2005" versions) won't boot on this machine. I completely understand that the developers require some time before they are able to get linux to run on it, but there should be some warning of this before downloading a 3GB disk image, or even a 700MB "live CD". I can't run OS9, or 10.1 on this machine either, but most places where you can download those OSs, there are clear warnings about this. Also, windows (through VPC) didn't run for a number of months on G5s, but this was clearly advertised, so people wouldn't have to waste their bandwidth on it. * I encountered many download sites that linked to non-existent files, or had extremely slow download speeds. In contrast, whenever I have downloaded Windows or MacOS, I have never had trouble finding them, and always experienced much faster downloads.
I understand that I could go out and pay for a copy of a linux distribution, and avoid these hassles, but I am used to the convenience of reliably downloading OSs for free, and doing this with linux was not a pleasant experience.
Now, I understand that might seem unfair, to compare the work of a number of enthusiasts to multi-billion dollar companies like Apple and Microsoft. On the other hand, both of those companies leave their online distribution to fans, and provide little, if any financial support to these download sites.
The problem (assuming it's a problem and not a deliberate choice) is the insistence of Stallman and the FSF on redefining existing words for their own purposes and then insisting that everyone else is misusing them.
This is a clear example of the tactic of "Embrace and Extend"
Many jurisdictions refuse to acknowledge patents on certain medical procedures. For example, if a person devised a new procedure for conducting surgery that reduced the chance of death, then they could not patent, and demand royalties when it is performed (or more extremely prevent the procedure being used if a person could not afford to pay.
Patents involve a careful ballancing act. On the one hand, a person or company invested a certain level of creative, and financial resources expanding the the public knowledge. In exchange for sharing this knowledge, they are granted a monopoly for a short period of time.
Pharmaceutical companies invest billions of dollars creating new drugs, but they then inevitably price the drugs outside the range of many people (especially in third world countires.) After 20 years, the patent expires, and everyone else is entitled to manufacture the drug. Of course with the circumstances around the birdflu scare, it is irrelevant that the drug will be widely availale and cheap in 2 decades, as potentially hundreds millions of people will die in the intervening time.
Actually, iPods support 3 lossless formats: AIFF, WAV and Apple Lossless (Roughly equivalent to the other lossless music codecs.) iPods supported AIFF from the very first version.
I have a 15GB iPod. While I have about 45GB of music in total, I put my favorite music on there about 18 months ago, and I pretty much only change it when I buy a new CD. Of course if I had a 60GB iPod, I could fit all of my music on there.
I am not specifically familiar with US copyright, but copyright in most jurisdictions extends for 50 or 70 years after the death of the author. In your example, the copyright naturally should extend to 2013, or 2033. There are some exceptions to this. Perhaps most well known is Peter Pan which the UK has granted a perpetual copytright in favour of the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
They also said that HD DVDs would be cheaper to produce, resulting in lower prices for consumers.
Fantastic. That must be why DVDs are cheaper than VHS and CDs are cheaper than audio cassettes, and online music is almost free. I am sure that the only price difference between the HD disks and DVDs will be the marginal cost.
Slashdot Mirror
How is this different from sombody buying land, not doing anything with it, but still stopping others from having access to it? Should real property law be scrapped altogether, because someone can buy property, and not use it for anything for a number of years? How about somebody who buys a painting and just keeps it in their garage for 20 years, doesn't look at it, and stops others from enjoying it? Should they be forced to let other people enjoy it?
There is no law against being a jerk.
it was also the source of the last Mac virus (well worm) that I am aware of. Perhaps that is why it wasn't included in OSX.
While the report 28% of 40% (or about 11%) of scientists had to stop their research due to patents, 55% of scientists state that they use patents to protect their IP. So it appears that patents help about 5 times as many research projects than it stops.
I was recently surprised when I found out that iTunes lets you "reset" the number of computers authorised to play your music. You can lose authorizations if you have to re-install your OS, and forget to (or are unable to) de-authorize, or you lose your computer or something like that. However once per year, you can "reset" the number of computers that have been authorized to play your music, so you can authorize 5 new computers. Of course, because once iTunes is authorized to play your music, it doesn't contact Apple when you want to play a song, if a computer is authorized when you "reset" the authorization count, it will still be authorized to play your music.
So anyway, at least with iTunes (I am not sure about the other stores) it is more accurate to say you can authorize 5 computers *per year*
I am not intimately familiar with the wording DMCA, but this code was written in 1995, so it probably isn't covered by the DMCA.
This isn't a case of moving control of the TLDs from a completely independent body to China, North Korea or Iran. It is a matter of moving control from a US controlled organization to a truely independent organization. As said in a previous discussion, it would be ludicrous to suggest that UNICEF is controlled by china to deny food to children.
.xxx controversy shows that it is not independent from US influence. It is not too much of a stretch to foresee there is a great potential conflict with US foreign policy. Consider the situation where Chinese seat at the UN was held by Taiwan (ROC) until 1971 despite the PRC taking over the entire mainland in 1949. In 1971 the PRC was acknowledged as being the rightful holder of the Chinese seat on the UN over the objections of the US. It is not unreasonable to imaging that if control of the .cn TLD was in dispute, the US might pressure ICANN to refuse to transfer control to the PRC. Even now, although most of Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban, the .af country code is assigned to the US supported government.
ICANN has done a pretty good job, but the recent
It is certainly true that ROC is a lot nicer than the PRC, but that is besides the point. It is also true that the official UN view of geo-politics is not always completely accurate, but it is closer to the global understanding than the US's.
As the current US president said:
"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again"
Of course you then have the problem of what to do with millions of tons of wood. The solution is of course to burn it.
How do you get a government issued photo ID? Obviously you aren't born with one. I am not specifically familiar with how the US does it, but at some point, it would probably come down to a birth certificate, and perhaps a "public figure" (anyone from a doctor to a public servant to a lawyer) vouching for your identity. It would take a bit more time than most identity thefts, but potentially a lot more damaging.
I recently had to get a Canadian Social Insurance Number. They wouldn't let me use my passport as ID, and required a Birth Certificate (which I found retarded as you need a birth certificate to get a passport, not to mention the fact the passport has a *photo*.) As I found out, the easiest way to get a Birth Certificate was to apply online. They ask a few questions. The most obscure question would probably be the birth country of my parents (which wouldn't be too tough to guess for most people.) A week later I got the Birth Certificate, and the next day I picked up my SIN without any other form of identification.
I think you are mistaking hippies for leftists/liberals. It is similar to the distinction between feminists and man-haters. In the hippies' defense, most of that evil kurd-killing happened in the 80s when Iraq was the West's (and especially the USA's) bestest buddy.
With all due respect, I think you just haven't thought about it enough. I think there are many examples, of copyright being abused, and I think that there is certainly a solid argument that the length of copyright is too long. If copyright did not exist at all, then books would not exist as we know them, because there would be no way to pay the author anything (another person/company could just do a print run without paying the author anything.) There would be no recorded music, no commercial software, no movies, no TV shows (except perhaps the news, and even that would be very different because services like Reuters and Associated Press could not exist.)
Copyrights were introduced in an era where, even though it was much harder to copy intellectual property, it was still a big issue. If an industrialized country were to remove copyrights today, a large percentage of people would lose their jobs very quickly, and the creative output would drop sharply.
I think the extent that we disagree is largely just semantics. However to respond:
While the rules that Newton developed very accurate (to the extent that they are still used for the calculations of trajectories for satellites, and mars exploration missions) they are not universally true. I guess it is like saying that Robin Williams is a good actor despite that shocking job he did in Flubber - broadly accurate, but there are counter-examples.
As far as Einstein goes, my understanding is that in modern Physics, there are two giant (in importance) theories that are extremely accurate in their own areas, however they are not consistent. General Relativity has explained many phenomena that we had no explanation for, and predicted objects and effects that have since been discovered. However, General Relativity does not take into account the uncertainty inherent in Quantum Theory. Quantum Theory on the other hand has had similar success on the molecular, and sub-molecular scale, however ultimately, it is based in a world of Newtonian physics.
Of course, Newtonian Physics doesn't take into account either of those fields. If evolution had a hole as big as the Mercury problem you mentioned, I am sure that the IDers would try to make the most of it.
What was going on in Iraq for the last 15 years did not threaten the US in the slightest. There was no connection between Iraq and the four hijacked planes on 11th of September 2001. Osama Bin Laden reportedly hated Sadam because he maintained a relatively secular country. Even if the arguments of weapons of mass destruction were true, they wouldn't pose any threat to the US, or any other western country. Beyond that, Iraq's armed forces were relatively underpowered compared to many of the regional countries due to years of sanctions.
I don't think that anyone would argue that Sadam was a nice character, but he was far from the worst leader, even in the region. Additionally there are many other countries that are in far worse shape, and treat their people a lot worse than Iraq that have not received any attention from the US
In summary, I don't think anyone would argue that Sadam was innocent, but there is no doubt that the US was a bully superpower.
It is frustrating how anti-scientists continually come back to the use of the word "theory" as proof that evolution is bogus. It is the same as refusing to go to a doctor because they are only "practicing" medicine.
They never argue that Newton's theory of gravity should not be taught (or should be taught with a qualification) because they are only a theory. This is especially bullshit as Newton's theory is wrong, and has been known to be wrong for well over a Century. Even Newton's replacement, Einstein's theory of General Relativity is wrong (although it is a lot closer to reality.) In contrast, the "theory" of evolution by natural selection has repeatedly been supported by new evidence.
This has nothing to do with "Fair Use". From what I understand, the AAAS creates science documents that they authorize for use in the creation of regional text books. They have simply removed authorization for Kansas to base their text books on their documents.
There would be an argument about "fair use" if someone in Kansas had written an article comparing "Intelligent Design" and Evolution, quoting the AAAS documents, and the AAAS had tried to stop distribution of the document based on their copyright.
Slashdot's interest in copyright is far from one sided. No one can dispute Slashdot's obsession with the GPL, which can only exist through copyright. Even with all of the general criticism of the RIAA and MPAA, I think only the minority of people on Slashdot would argue that an artist's work should not be protected through copyright (the issue generally arises with how the RIAA and MPAA enforces their copyright against arguably minor offenses.
Hmm, forgive me if I misunderstand you, but are you saying that Open office is both bloated, and feature-lacking? That doesn't sound like much of an endorsement to me.
Anyway (according to wikipedia), Open Office has been around for almost 20 years as Star Office (although it was only integrated about 11 years ago), while Microsoft Office was first released as an "integrated" package about 12 years ago. It is misleading to suggest that Open office hasn't had the time to compete.
I have downloaded and installed a few versions of MacOS and windows on my computer with out a problem, but I came across a few issues when looking for and considering installing linux.
* I have a recent G5. Many distributions (even "2005" versions) won't boot on this machine. I completely understand that the developers require some time before they are able to get linux to run on it, but there should be some warning of this before downloading a 3GB disk image, or even a 700MB "live CD". I can't run OS9, or 10.1 on this machine either, but most places where you can download those OSs, there are clear warnings about this. Also, windows (through VPC) didn't run for a number of months on G5s, but this was clearly advertised, so people wouldn't have to waste their bandwidth on it.
* I encountered many download sites that linked to non-existent files, or had extremely slow download speeds. In contrast, whenever I have downloaded Windows or MacOS, I have never had trouble finding them, and always experienced much faster downloads.
I understand that I could go out and pay for a copy of a linux distribution, and avoid these hassles, but I am used to the convenience of reliably downloading OSs for free, and doing this with linux was not a pleasant experience.
Now, I understand that might seem unfair, to compare the work of a number of enthusiasts to multi-billion dollar companies like Apple and Microsoft. On the other hand, both of those companies leave their online distribution to fans, and provide little, if any financial support to these download sites.
The problem (assuming it's a problem and not a deliberate choice) is the insistence of Stallman and the FSF on redefining existing words for their own purposes and then insisting that everyone else is misusing them.
This is a clear example of the tactic of "Embrace and Extend"
Many jurisdictions refuse to acknowledge patents on certain medical procedures. For example, if a person devised a new procedure for conducting surgery that reduced the chance of death, then they could not patent, and demand royalties when it is performed (or more extremely prevent the procedure being used if a person could not afford to pay.
Patents involve a careful ballancing act. On the one hand, a person or company invested a certain level of creative, and financial resources expanding the the public knowledge. In exchange for sharing this knowledge, they are granted a monopoly for a short period of time.
Pharmaceutical companies invest billions of dollars creating new drugs, but they then inevitably price the drugs outside the range of many people (especially in third world countires.) After 20 years, the patent expires, and everyone else is entitled to manufacture the drug. Of course with the circumstances around the birdflu scare, it is irrelevant that the drug will be widely availale and cheap in 2 decades, as potentially hundreds millions of people will die in the intervening time.
Actually, iPods support 3 lossless formats: AIFF, WAV and Apple Lossless (Roughly equivalent to the other lossless music codecs.) iPods supported AIFF from the very first version.
I have a 15GB iPod. While I have about 45GB of music in total, I put my favorite music on there about 18 months ago, and I pretty much only change it when I buy a new CD. Of course if I had a 60GB iPod, I could fit all of my music on there.
In probably the most extreme case of flash overkill, all of the headings in the new Onion are done with Flash.
Isn't that what the original MP3.com was? Independent artists essentially letting everyone download their music for free.
I am not specifically familiar with US copyright, but copyright in most jurisdictions extends for 50 or 70 years after the death of the author. In your example, the copyright naturally should extend to 2013, or 2033.
There are some exceptions to this. Perhaps most well known is Peter Pan which the UK has granted a perpetual copytright in favour of the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
They also said that HD DVDs would be cheaper to produce, resulting in lower prices for consumers.
Fantastic. That must be why DVDs are cheaper than VHS and CDs are cheaper than audio cassettes, and online music is almost free. I am sure that the only price difference between the HD disks and DVDs will be the marginal cost.