Host:...And welcome back to "Who's Rights are These Anyway?" Alice and Bob, you have 2000 points, Carol, you have 10, and Dave, minus -42.
Alright. Time for "Continuous Conversations" Alice, Bob, and Carol will play, Dave will be the contestant. Alice, Bob, and Carol will each take the side of a certain topic and have to argue their points using the last words the previous person spoke. Dave, you have to guess what side of the argument they're on. Now, audience, we need a topic...
Audience screams out topics
Host: Okay, Abortion, Coke vs. Pepsi, Hemos vs CmdrTaco... ah yes, Copyright laws. Right. And for an additional treat, Alice, Bob, and Carol have use a prop to demostrate their point... how about my left shoe. *tosses shoe to Alice* Alice, you have the shoe...
Alice: "Piracy" is an issue that I like to be fanatical about. I remeber when teachers taught us that sharing was nice...
Bob: *grabs the shoe from Alice and smacks her on the head*...Sharing was nice, wasn't Alice? That is disgusting. Pirating is NOT sharing. Sharing is letting other people use your stuff at your own expense. That is honorable. Pirating is letting other people use other people's stuff at other people's expense. That is NOT honorable. Take this shoe...
Carol: *grabs shoe from Bob*...Take this shoe? Don't mind if I do! *hits Bob over head with shoe* I'm going to pertify this shoe and give it to Natalie Portman. Maybe she'll pour hot grits over me...
Alice: *grabs shoe from Carol* Maybe she'll pour hot grits over me, too, or maybe she'll download a mp3 of Metallica's "Pour Some Hot Grits on Me" and be sued by the RIAA for "pirating".
*hits Bob on head* I make shoe. You "pirate" the shoe. I have shoe. You have shoe. You haven't taken anything _from_ me, rather, I have given something to you, with no loss to myself. If you're implying the thing taken is money, not the information itself, that's on the periphery, and not considered in your analogy.
Bob: *reaches for shoe* And not considered in your analogy is this is just utter bullshit. I make shoe for a living. If you take it without paying me, I AM OUT MONEY. I wouldn't be making shoe if I wasn't getting paid, and you wouldn't be using it. *Alice throws shoe over Bob's head*
Carol: *catches shoe* And you wouldn't be using it, either, if you realized what crap your shoe was, anyhow. Besides information wants to be free. *beats Bob with shoe some more*
Alice: *takes shoe from Carol* Information wants to be free, and that's the price it should be, free. Intellectual Property is an attempt to limit the rights of people in order to create profits for the Corporation. err, artist. Yes, the inventors/creators usually like to have some control over their invention so they can profit from it, but the copyright laws in this country are way, way out of control and not at all what was originally envisioned or intended. *beats Bob into the ground with shoe*
Bob: All what was orignially grasp envisioned or intended is that there be some incentive for artists to create orginal work. Intellectual Property was created to give artists a way to protect their orginal works from being ripped off or pirated for someone else's profit.
*stands up*"Pirating" software or mp3 doesn't envolve the physical thief of anything, but you saved the $13 to $15 on the CD you would have bought if you couldn't have copied it. Yes, these prices are high, yes, the music and software industries are making the profits and not the artists, but *starts thumping chest* these are the mechinisms artists use to get published and without them, artists' works will never get out to the general public other through continuous touring and through the small amount of people on the internet. And even then, if artists can't expect people to pay for recorded music, they're stuck living lives of a traveling musicans, lucky if they can find an enough places to play given the number of bands that would also hit the road and travel. Why would anyone prefer that lifestyle instead of receiving royalities on records and touring in support of the record instead of in support of their lifestyle?!
*shouting*AND FORGET ABOUT PROGRAMMERS, HOW THE HELL DO PROGRAMMERS PREFORM CODE "LIVE"?!
Carol: *grabs shoe and puts it on* HOW THE HELL DO PROGRAMMERS PREFORM CODE "LIVE"?! 31337 PROGRAMMERS CAN WHISTLE MODEM SOUNDS INTO A PHONE AND Hax Ur CuMpu73r, SuXoR. *kicks Bob in groin*
*Alice and Carol kick Bob to death*
Alice: Say, Carol, got the new Dr. Dre CD ripped yet?
Host: Very good, players. Alice and Carol get 31337 points, and Bob gets an ice pack. Dave, can you name what side of Copyright these three where on?
Dave: Sure. Alice was the 18-24 year old college student with internet access, no money, and lots of bands to follow. Alice is disenchanted with the whole music industry's whoring of artists' work to make a tremedous profit while leaving the artist with zip and see Napster and mp3 trade as a way to strike back against the industry's bottom line.
Host: Correct. And Bob?
Dave: Bob was the 18-24 year old college student with internet access, no money, and lots of bands to follow. Bob also is a computer programmer and sees copyrights as the only way to prevent companies like Microsoft from just taking his code and embedding it into Windows 2001. Bob also is in a rock band and would like to someday be a superstar like Metallica or Dr. Dre.
Host: Correct. And Carol.
Dave: Carol was a troll.
Host: Sorry, Dave, Carol was actually JonKatz researching his new column: "Open-sourced Hot-grits and Natalie Portman down my pants".
Dave: And all three of them are self-righteous.
Host: Correct! Unfortunately, you get a copy of Metallica's new single
Ah, The Register, forgot about them. There's a counter-example.:)
The point I was making was that Closed media has its good points, points that will ensure its survival. I guess their biggest asset, now, is the size of the profit they make, allowing them to put out a quality product, which makes them more money, etc. I'm sure if enough people were willing to subscribe to The Register as a pay site, The Register could hire better writers, editors, columnists, etc.
The whole Closed vs. Open media debate seems abitratory, though. I don't see much different between Salon and Slashdot, for example, except Salon hires more writers and columnists than Slashdot, and, thus, covers a wider range of topics.
...is that "closed" media tend to hire better column writers, have better distrubition channels, better access to people involved in the news (through on spot reporting and interviews), better overall professionalism, etc., and, IMHO, produce a better quality product that I'm willing to *buy*. Capitalism at work. The reason online "closed" media has been taking hits is the cost of producing content is more that the profits made off of them. Pure capitalism.
"Open" media tends more to consolidate stories from various sources into one place; "Closed" media either writes its own stories or get them off the AP. (I suspect it's cheaper to post stories from other sites and have readers submit their own stories than hiring professionals to write orginal stories.) I'll go to Macnn.com to find out news about Mac software, but I'll read the Wall Street Journal to find out how Apple the company is doing.
(BTW, why didn't Jon just come out and say "./ r001z. 51@73 5uX."?)
And my apologies for running off a flame there. I've heard enough "Catholicism is bad because of the Holocaust/Crusades" agruments that I wanted to point out the seperation between the Church and the faith.
In reality, I was just nickpicking on the use of Christianity.
Are you done pissing on Christianity? Okay, zip those trousers up.
I agree with the jist of your point. I take exception to throwing the whole of Christianity into the "Bad Religion Closet".
Now let's narrow your target, shall we? When you say Christianity, you mean the Roman Catholic Chruch, right? After all, throwing out the Holocaust and the Crusades as "crimes" usually is done when arguing against the Catholic Church, right? You know, running around blaming a *whole* religion for everything that's ever gone wrong in the world is fine and dandy. We all need something to rally against, wheither it's the Church, the Government, Republicans, Democrats, Pokemon, etc.
But I'm Catholic. Flame on about the Church all you want; but don't damn the whole faith with it.
*I* don't agree with all the Chruch's teachings. I'm sure as hell not proud that the Church sat on its papal ass durning the Holcaust, and don't even get started on the Crusades. But I truly believe that the Pope, and most of the Church leaders, from priests and nuns on up, are good people trying to help people lead moral lives. Really. However, they're *people*, and, thus, have been/are/will be wrong. I believe in a woman's right to choose; I think the Church should marry gay couples; etc. I know the Church doesn't agree with this. Maybe this makes me a bad Catholic and I should take up Wicca instead.;)
But I believe the whole nine yards about Jesus, salvation, etc. That's my *faith*. To attack *that* as being wrong or evil is to attack me.
Go after assholes claiming the Bible tells them to hate gays, kill doctors who perform abortion etc. Yell at the Church for not having women priests or promoting overpopulation in the world.
Leave my faith alone.
(On second thought, maybe we Christians have a huge prosecution complex after all. Was that little rant a cry of prosecution or what?);)
Yes, The Soul, was but a simple creature who couldn't answer simple questions like "When will Oni be released?" and "What's the sound of a million Bobs screaming?", but it never whined about its lowly station in life as your tech support. Why send it to a far worse place, like Microsoft tech support?
I think the point, Dan, is that Napster was saying in public that Napster's purpose wasn't to fascilate piracy, while in private banking on piracy to bring them to an IPO, or give them an user base to throw banner ads at, or give them an 31337 army of 18-24 year olds bend on obtaining VV@r3z. (Gee, a company being two-faced. I wonder what company they remind of me. I know... ALL of them) It's pretty *obvivous* Napster's success comes from how easy one can trade copyrighted music, since that's what users for the most part do. And, *shock*, the executives knew this and banked on it.
Don't blame the RIAA for using internal emails; all fair in love and protecting one's cash cow.;) I'm sure you'll find *plenty* internal memos from music publishers about protecting the cash cow. Hey, the industry recently agreed to stop price fixing CDs, right? I'm sure there's more dirt where that came from.
But, what do the RIAA's "sins" have to do about Napster? Nothing. Frankly, I don't want the "free music movement" lead by a shady little.com that is looking to cash in on trading other people's work. Fuck 'em. I could trade MP3s before Napster; I can trade them after they're gone.
Let them die.
George Lee
Isn't the GPL an excerise of copyrights?
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You can't contrast it. It is orthogonal. The GNU GPL is a license. Copyright it not.
<P>Correct me if I'm wrong: the GPL is used by the copyright holders (those who wrote the GPLed code) to *excerise* copyrights by saying who can and cannot distribute source code. There's licenses on CDs against reproducing them, right?
<P>Now why can't music companies excerise the same copyrights?
Creative writing courses. Take one. It'll open up your eyes if you think novelists are generally rich. Almost every decent creative writing course at a university is taught by a professional writer -- sometimes quite famous ones. Do you think they would put up with that crap if they didn't have to pay their bills that way? <P><B>I</B> thought it was because famous/sucessful writers wanted to read hundreds of pages of sophomoric sprew.;) <P>(I took a course with Joe Haldeman of "The Forever War" fame. Obviously, the course didn't take with me.);)
With all this debate on whether weakening of IP is a Good Thing(TM), whether recordable music becoming free is a Good Thing(TM), whether musicans should perform their works for a living is a Good Thing(TM), I wonder why there isn't more discussion of what this means to software development. After all, most of us on slashdot work with software on one level or another
IMHO, the end of recordable music is as an extreme future as the end of commerical, mass-marketed software. I just don't see piracy killing off CDs; just as I don't see piracy killing off commerical software. But it seems that a good number of people (include Mr. Gibson) thinks that recordable music is becoming non-profitable. What keeps software from going that route? The software industry accounts for lost sales from piracy in prices it sets, and (more importantly), it actively goes after large piracy rings whenever possible. Seems okay to me; seems okay to a lot of people on slashdot; why isn't it okay for the music industry to do the same?
That point aside, what would happen if it became no longer profitable to sell commerical software? It seems to me few people (outside of the FSF) would argue that *all* software companies should start giving away software for free and start building custom software on a customer by customer basis. (I don't know what the FSF's stance on custom software systems are. I assume they're more concerned with mass-marketed software.) However, it seems a good number of people would like to see musicans stop selling mass-marketed recordings and stick to live preformances to eek out a living. I don't think neither the computer software industry nor the music industry would last long under these conditions; the cost vs. profit ratio is too high for custom products to support these mammount industries.
As a programmer, would I care if I worked on a commerical product or a custom one? No. As a musican, would I care if I made money through selling recordings of my music or playing live? No. (I would die of shock that someone would pay me to play for them and not to stop playing.) As someone would wants a career in computer programming, would I care that the number of jobs in the industry shrank because commerical software become unprofitable to make? Absolutely. And I bet musicans feel the same way about their industry. There's only so much code one can write and so many people able to pay for whole systems, and there's only so music one can play and venues that will pay to hear them.
This is just an idea, but does anyone think living years and years under the threath of fiery nuclear death from above has any to do with this?
Here's where I'm coming from: When I was just a wee little geek (back in the 80's), the biggest threath to our little green planet wasn't pollution, nor overpopulation, nor Microsoft, it was that the USA and USSR got into a game of red rover with their IBMs. Sort of makes one think twice about investing in long-time projects, like CDs, mortages, husbands/wives, etc.
And all of a sudden, *poof*, the USSR turns into a bunch of small, third world countries with little of the international clout the USSR once had. Now what? Well, for the past ten or so years (the 90's), we've been hunting for the next big bad boogie man, wheither it's a rouge nation (hi Saddam), terrorists (from both beyond and within our borders), our kids, our food, our companies (hi Mr. Gates), or even our computers (hi Melissa) and the folks who run them(hi 31173 d00Dz). At least with the USSR around, you knew who could do us all in. Now, our society is paranoidly looking over its shoulder to see who's going to slip the knife in its back.
"Sorry honey, I can't go out tonight. I could get AIDS, bombed, shot, sued, poisoned, hacked, downsized, policed, profiled, or spammed.
How about watching an video instead?"
(An aside, doesn't the game show Greed seem 15 years too late? They even have Chuck Woolery hosting it, for Christsakes!)
George Lee
313173 d3(1@R@710N 0f 1nD3p3Nd3n[3
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<flame> I'm tempted to print out a copy of that "declaration" and piss on it, but that wouldn't count a legitimate use of office equipment, now would it? What a load of William Gibson-inspired hooey! "Our identities have no bodies"?!!!!! Comparing the Internet community to the Pre-Revolutionary Colonists? Why didn't Mr. Barlow just come out and express his 311373ness? </flame>
*sigh* Pretension bull like that makes me question what the FSF is really all about.
I guess we could do a little acid test to see if posting these Kerberos docs under "fair use". (IANAL, BTW.)
From Copyright Act of 1976:
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use 38 Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teach-ing (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an in-fringement of copyright.
Criticism, check!
News reporting, check!
teaching, check!
Slashdot 1, M$ 0.
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
I don't think anyone made money by posting these docs on slashdot, and there was an educational element to posting them. (Namely to educate readers about the lameness that is M$ Kerberos.)
Slashdot 2, M$ 0.
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
This could go either way. Seeing the docs pertained to M$'s business, I'll guess that they'll have a stronger arguement against this point.
Slashdot 2, M$ 1.
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copy-righted work as a whole; and
No contest. Publishing entire works is a no-no, in general.
Slashdot 2, M$ 2.
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copy-righted work.
I just don't see how publishing these docs ruined the market for it, seeing how these docs were free and all.
Slashdot 3, M$ 2.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
Another point in Slashdot's favor if these docs were unpublished.:)
Doesn't look like this is an open and shut case for either side, though.
I happen to work at a startup, Links2Go, Inc., which approaches the "better search engine" problem from a different direction than most engines. Instead of farming huge numbers of web pages and doing greps on them for relevant text, our server sorts these pages by topic automatically and rates a page's relevance, not by the number of keywords on the page, but the number of times the page is referenced from other pages.
Users can then search on our servers by topic *or* by the URL of a page. What the user gets back is either a list of the most relevant pages to a specific topic *or* to a specific URL.
Going offtopic, but... Point 1. There was no warrant at the time of the raid.
None was needed. Custody of the child was given to the father. Technically, that makes the Miami family kidnappers. INS was enforcing the law. Second of all, a warrant for what? They weren't searching for any evidence or arresting anyone. They were executing a court order.
Point 2. Janet Reno is not a judge. She has NO legal authority to give anyone a "deadline".
She was being lennant by not raiding that house the minute custody was transferred. The Miami family refused to hand back Elian, and earned themselves a raid.
I challenge anyone to name one instance where a "Copyright" has helped a consumer, rather than an information-hoarder.
The fact copyrights protect an artist from having someone else steal their work gives them incentive to actually PUBISH their work, which customers can buy. No copyrights mean much less money to be made publishing works of art, meaning less works for customers to buy.
Remember, the CUSTOMER wanting to buy books/music/movies etc. create the market for the books/music/movies. If the market goes *poof*, so do the works. Back before recordable media, artists were paid by rich kings and nobles to create their works for an once time fee. Else they created their works as a hobby for free.
I don't think there were that many books back then as there is now. (Not totally a bad thing... there weren't many trashy books-based-on-movies back and cheezy romance novels back then.);)
Long version: Jon, arguing that Metallica's exercising of their right to protect their copyright is going to crush the open source movement is equivalent to arguing that a homeowner protecting the crap on his/her lawn from thief is going to destroy the yard sale movement.
Down the road, Metallica -- which has always marketed itself as rebellious and independent -- may be better known as the first major music group to challenge free (or, depending on one's perspective, "pirated") music
Oh, so because they (were) "rebellious", they can't be concerned about copyrights and other "corporate matters". Give me a break! This is their living. If they didn't care about who was and wasn't buying their records, the Black album, "Load", "Re-Load", "Full'er Up Again", etc., wouldn't happened. (Wait... that might be a good thing...)
IMO, "Free" music is music that is given away for free by the artist. "Pirated" music is music given away for free by someone other than the artist. One has *nothing* to do with the other.
And a final point, if Napster folds and dies because "pirated" music doesn't flow though its service, I don't think it deserved to live in the first place. They even have a policy against piracy; if their survival *depends* on it, doesn't that make them hypocritical?
Let's see if I've got this straight, Jon. You're saying that the killers were also victims, but of another crime, the Crime of Being Picked On For Being Different. Thus, they deserved some of the mourning their victims received? Am I reading this correctly? Calling someone who had a bad high school experience, someone who was "geek profiled", and someone who was innocently gunned down all "victims", in the same breathe, is outrageous, Jon. Yes, the "geek profiling" or whatever teachers and parents used to throw "dangerous" kids out of school was just plain wrong. These kids were "victims" of teachers and parents trying to do what they thought was best for their kids. This doesn't justify what the adults did, though. But let's not be lumping every high school outcast into this victim bin, shall we? Sorry to say, some people bring misery upon themselves, for whatever reason. Happens in high school, happens in adulthood. In fact, being an outcast hardly qualifies for victimhood. What is an outcast a victim of? People not like him or her? People being mean to him or her? People not inviting him or her to parties? Etc... Guess what? Everyone does not have to like everyone else and be buddy-buddy with them. Do we know for sure why these killers were outcasts? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. What we do know is they killed their classmates. These aren't the type of "victims" to be pitied.
Here's your "happy" medium, where everyone eventually loses, because this situation can become circular. Customers use MP3s because they can't afford/don't want to buy CDs. The industry raises CD prices (fairly or not) to cover the lost business. Those customers who can't afford the higher CD costs use MP3s if they can, otherwise they bite the bullet.
Continue until no one is buying CDs, the industry collapses, and the amount of recordable music made drops through the floor.
I am saying that they ARE unenforcable. The most that can be done is a few people be caught now and again, only the biggest "offenders". When someone copies a work, no dead body is left. Nothing that would tip someone off to the fact that it has happened. It is impossible to stop unauthorized copying now that everyone and their brother has the ability to do it. (back when only a small number of people had ready access to the technology needed, then copyright was enforcable)
Ah, okay, you mean unenforceable, as in "You can't enforce copyrights for every violation." I was talking about the right to enforce. I agree with you here. The holder of the copyright has the responsiblity to enforce it. This doesn't mean they lose the copyright if they can't catch every instance of its violation. Catching the "big offenders" can, in fact, help them coupe any "losses" they suffered on a whole. Of course, this is why RIAA is all over Napster's ass. Is Napster a fair target? That's for the courts to decide, I guess.
Claiming the rights of the authors or artists seems a little backwards. What you are advocating is the right of an author to dictate the actions of other people. This is, in essence, my problem with "Intellectual property" claims. it is claiming the rights to something which exists entirely in someone elses posession and on someone elses equipment.
That is *exactly* what I'm advocating. That is what a copyright is all about, protecting intellectual property. If I wrote a book, I don't want to see someone else publishing that book under their name, or standing on the street corner handling out free copies *without* my permission. Same would go if I recorded a CD. And if *definately* goes with software I write.
Please don't take this question as a personal attack, but I'm wondering if you're a programmer or writer or musican etc, and, if you are, I'm wondering what your views are about use of your own work.
Rememeber, the original intent of copyright was to make producing works profitable to authors so that they would make works, in a time when most authors did not have the ability to publish on their own and thus to encourage them to publish, offered them a way to make sure that the publisher pays them.
Today, the means needed for publishing is available to any author. The technology for publishing is available to most any author. I do not believe that we need, any longer, to cede our rights to copy to the authors (which is what copyright technically is) to encourage the production of works.
What technology? The Internet? Sorry, ain't going to fly right now. Stephen King just release on of the first "eBooks", and only because he's very famous and *very* rich (he can afford a lost.) Can you *honestly* say there are more people who would *buy* a eBook than buy a hardcopy?
Is this bad for some buisnesses? Only if they are unwilling to adapt. Change happens. It will happen no matter how much the RIAA and others kick and scream about it. Survivors adapt and move on. Its called progress.
No, it's called justification for not putting down some coin. So you're basically saying "Pirating is going to happen anyway, so people in the entertainment business should stop expect profits from published materal." What a load of hooey. Musicans are at least able to tour and preform. What's a author to do? *Read* his book at people? You end up with no books, no recorded music, no movies, no media because there's no longer any profit from it. That's not the type of "revolution" I had in mind.
I guess the main point is that services like ICQ, Napster, Gnutella and such _are_ service providers - they're not "access" ISPs, but by literal terms, they ARE ISPs of a sort. I do agree with you that the term ISP is VERY vague though.
This case might clarify what is and isn't an ISP under the DMCA. I just hope the DMCA maintains intact afterwards.
I guess I'm on the side of the RIAA on this one. I can see RIAA's point about the piracy, and I think Napster has been wink-winking at the whole copyright issue, and then covering themselves with the First Admendment when the shat hits the fan. I *like* using Napster, but the idea of a company IPOing off of pirated music makes me queasy... then again, maybe this is just veiled professional jealously, since my company probability won't make a tenth they do.;)
(Yet another aside: That yahoo article claims Napster is an "startup". What is Napster's business plan? Do they even have one?)
Slashdot Mirror
Host: ...And welcome back to "Who's Rights are These Anyway?" Alice and Bob, you have 2000 points, Carol, you have 10, and Dave, minus -42.
Alright. Time for "Continuous Conversations" Alice, Bob, and Carol will play, Dave will be the contestant. Alice, Bob, and Carol will each take the side of a certain topic and have to argue their points using the last words the previous person spoke. Dave, you have to guess what side of the argument they're on. Now, audience, we need a topic...
Audience screams out topics
Host: Okay, Abortion, Coke vs. Pepsi, Hemos vs CmdrTaco... ah yes, Copyright laws. Right. And for an additional treat, Alice, Bob, and Carol have use a prop to demostrate their point... how about my left shoe. *tosses shoe to Alice* Alice, you have the shoe...
Alice: "Piracy" is an issue that I like to be fanatical about. I remeber when teachers taught us that sharing was nice...
Bob: *grabs the shoe from Alice and smacks her on the head* ...Sharing was nice, wasn't Alice? That is disgusting. Pirating is NOT sharing. Sharing is letting other people use your stuff at your own expense. That is honorable. Pirating is letting other people use other people's stuff at other people's expense. That is NOT honorable. Take this shoe...
Carol: *grabs shoe from Bob* ...Take this shoe? Don't mind if I do! *hits Bob over head with shoe* I'm going to pertify this shoe and give it to Natalie Portman. Maybe she'll pour hot grits over me...
Alice: *grabs shoe from Carol* Maybe she'll pour hot grits over me, too, or maybe she'll download a mp3 of Metallica's "Pour Some Hot Grits on Me" and be sued by the RIAA for "pirating".
*hits Bob on head* I make shoe. You "pirate" the shoe. I have shoe. You have shoe. You haven't taken anything _from_ me, rather, I have given something to you, with no loss to myself. If you're implying the thing taken is money, not the information itself, that's on the periphery, and not considered in your analogy.
Bob: *reaches for shoe* And not considered in your analogy is this is just utter bullshit. I make shoe for a living. If you take it without paying me, I AM OUT MONEY. I wouldn't be making shoe if I wasn't getting paid, and you wouldn't be using it. *Alice throws shoe over Bob's head*
Carol: *catches shoe* And you wouldn't be using it, either, if you realized what crap your shoe was, anyhow. Besides information wants to be free. *beats Bob with shoe some more*
Alice: *takes shoe from Carol* Information wants to be free, and that's the price it should be, free. Intellectual Property is an attempt to limit the rights of people in order to create profits for the Corporation. err, artist. Yes, the inventors/creators usually like to have some control over their invention so they can profit from it, but the copyright laws in this country are way, way out of control and not at all what was originally envisioned or intended. *beats Bob into the ground with shoe*
Bob: All what was orignially grasp envisioned or intended is that there be some incentive for artists to create orginal work. Intellectual Property was created to give artists a way to protect their orginal works from being ripped off or pirated for someone else's profit.
*stands up*"Pirating" software or mp3 doesn't envolve the physical thief of anything, but you saved the $13 to $15 on the CD you would have bought if you couldn't have copied it. Yes, these prices are high, yes, the music and software industries are making the profits and not the artists, but *starts thumping chest* these are the mechinisms artists use to get published and without them, artists' works will never get out to the general public other through continuous touring and through the small amount of people on the internet. And even then, if artists can't expect people to pay for recorded music, they're stuck living lives of a traveling musicans, lucky if they can find an enough places to play given the number of bands that would also hit the road and travel. Why would anyone prefer that lifestyle instead of receiving royalities on records and touring in support of the record instead of in support of their lifestyle?!
*shouting*AND FORGET ABOUT PROGRAMMERS, HOW THE HELL DO PROGRAMMERS PREFORM CODE "LIVE"?!
Carol: *grabs shoe and puts it on* HOW THE HELL DO PROGRAMMERS PREFORM CODE "LIVE"?! 31337 PROGRAMMERS CAN WHISTLE MODEM SOUNDS INTO A PHONE AND Hax Ur CuMpu73r, SuXoR. *kicks Bob in groin*
*Alice and Carol kick Bob to death*
Alice: Say, Carol, got the new Dr. Dre CD ripped yet?
Carol: Yeah, 91v3 m3 w@r3z & 1ll 91v3 17 2 u. *Audience applauses*
Host: Very good, players. Alice and Carol get 31337 points, and Bob gets an ice pack. Dave, can you name what side of Copyright these three where on?
Dave: Sure. Alice was the 18-24 year old college student with internet access, no money, and lots of bands to follow. Alice is disenchanted with the whole music industry's whoring of artists' work to make a tremedous profit while leaving the artist with zip and see Napster and mp3 trade as a way to strike back against the industry's bottom line.
Host: Correct. And Bob?
Dave: Bob was the 18-24 year old college student with internet access, no money, and lots of bands to follow. Bob also is a computer programmer and sees copyrights as the only way to prevent companies like Microsoft from just taking his code and embedding it into Windows 2001. Bob also is in a rock band and would like to someday be a superstar like Metallica or Dr. Dre.
Host: Correct. And Carol.
Dave: Carol was a troll.
Host: Sorry, Dave, Carol was actually JonKatz researching his new column: "Open-sourced Hot-grits and Natalie Portman down my pants".
Dave: And all three of them are self-righteous.
Host: Correct! Unfortunately, you get a copy of Metallica's new single
Dave: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
George Lee
Ah, The Register, forgot about them. There's a counter-example. :)
The point I was making was that Closed media has its good points, points that will ensure its survival. I guess their biggest asset, now, is the size of the profit they make, allowing them to put out a quality product, which makes them more money, etc. I'm sure if enough people were willing to subscribe to The Register as a pay site, The Register could hire better writers, editors, columnists, etc.
The whole Closed vs. Open media debate seems abitratory, though. I don't see much different between Salon and Slashdot, for example, except Salon hires more writers and columnists than Slashdot, and, thus, covers a wider range of topics.
George Lee
...is that "closed" media tend to hire better column writers, have better distrubition channels, better access to people involved in the news (through on spot reporting and interviews), better overall professionalism, etc., and, IMHO, produce a better quality product that I'm willing to *buy*. Capitalism at work. The reason online "closed" media has been taking hits is the cost of producing content is more that the profits made off of them. Pure capitalism.
"Open" media tends more to consolidate stories from various sources into one place; "Closed" media either writes its own stories or get them off the AP. (I suspect it's cheaper to post stories from other sites and have readers submit their own stories than hiring professionals to write orginal stories.) I'll go to Macnn.com to find out news about Mac software, but I'll read the Wall Street Journal to find out how Apple the company is doing.
(BTW, why didn't Jon just come out and say "./ r001z. 51@73 5uX."?)
George Lee
And my apologies for running off a flame there. I've heard enough "Catholicism is bad because of the Holocaust/Crusades" agruments that I wanted to point out the seperation between the Church and the faith.
In reality, I was just nickpicking on the use of Christianity.
Game on! ;)
George Lee
Are you done pissing on Christianity? Okay, zip those trousers up.
I agree with the jist of your point. I take exception to throwing the whole of Christianity into the "Bad Religion Closet".
Now let's narrow your target, shall we? When you say Christianity, you mean the Roman Catholic Chruch, right? After all, throwing out the Holocaust and the Crusades as "crimes" usually is done when arguing against the Catholic Church, right? You know, running around blaming a *whole* religion for everything that's ever gone wrong in the world is fine and dandy. We all need something to rally against, wheither it's the Church, the Government, Republicans, Democrats, Pokemon, etc.
But I'm Catholic. Flame on about the Church all you want; but don't damn the whole faith with it.
*I* don't agree with all the Chruch's teachings. I'm sure as hell not proud that the Church sat on its papal ass durning the Holcaust, and don't even get started on the Crusades. But I truly believe that the Pope, and most of the Church leaders, from priests and nuns on up, are good people trying to help people lead moral lives. Really. However, they're *people*, and, thus, have been/are/will be wrong. I believe in a woman's right to choose; I think the Church should marry gay couples; etc. I know the Church doesn't agree with this. Maybe this makes me a bad Catholic and I should take up Wicca instead. ;)
But I believe the whole nine yards about Jesus, salvation, etc. That's my *faith*. To attack *that* as being wrong or evil is to attack me.
Go after assholes claiming the Bible tells them to hate gays, kill doctors who perform abortion etc. Yell at the Church for not having women priests or promoting overpopulation in the world.
Leave my faith alone.
(On second thought, maybe we Christians have a huge prosecution complex after all. Was that little rant a cry of prosecution or what?) ;)
George Lee
Why Bungie why?!
Yes, The Soul, was but a simple creature who couldn't answer simple questions like "When will Oni be released?" and "What's the sound of a million Bobs screaming?", but it never whined about its lowly station in life as your tech support. Why send it to a far worse place, like Microsoft tech support?
George Lee
I think the point, Dan, is that Napster was saying in public that Napster's purpose wasn't to fascilate piracy, while in private banking on piracy to bring them to an IPO, or give them an user base to throw banner ads at, or give them an 31337 army of 18-24 year olds bend on obtaining VV@r3z. (Gee, a company being two-faced. I wonder what company they remind of me. I know... ALL of them) It's pretty *obvivous* Napster's success comes from how easy one can trade copyrighted music, since that's what users for the most part do. And, *shock*, the executives knew this and banked on it.
Don't blame the RIAA for using internal emails; all fair in love and protecting one's cash cow. ;) I'm sure you'll find *plenty* internal memos from music publishers about protecting the cash cow. Hey, the industry recently agreed to stop price fixing CDs, right? I'm sure there's more dirt where that came from.
But, what do the RIAA's "sins" have to do about Napster? Nothing. Frankly, I don't want the "free music movement" lead by a shady little .com that is looking to cash in on trading other people's work. Fuck 'em. I could trade MP3s before Napster; I can trade them after they're gone.
Let them die.
George Lee
You can't contrast it. It is orthogonal. The GNU GPL is a license. Copyright it not.
<P>Correct me if I'm wrong: the GPL is used by the copyright holders (those who wrote the GPLed code) to *excerise* copyrights by saying who can and cannot distribute source code. There's licenses on CDs against reproducing them, right?
<P>Now why can't music companies excerise the
same copyrights?
George Lee
Creative writing courses. Take one. It'll open up your eyes if you think novelists are generally rich. Almost every decent creative writing course at a university is taught by a professional writer -- sometimes quite famous ones. Do you think they would put up with that crap if they didn't have to pay their bills that way? ;) ;)
<P><B>I</B> thought it was because famous/sucessful writers wanted to read hundreds of pages of sophomoric sprew.
<P>(I took a course with Joe Haldeman of "The Forever War" fame. Obviously, the course didn't take with me.)
George Lee
With all this debate on whether weakening of IP is a Good Thing(TM), whether recordable music becoming free is a Good Thing(TM), whether musicans should perform their works for a living is a Good Thing(TM), I wonder why there isn't more discussion of what this means to software development. After all, most of us on slashdot work with software on one level or another
IMHO, the end of recordable music is as an extreme future as the end of commerical, mass-marketed software. I just don't see piracy killing off CDs; just as I don't see piracy killing off commerical software. But it seems that a good number of people (include Mr. Gibson) thinks that recordable music is becoming non-profitable. What keeps software from going that route? The software industry accounts for lost sales from piracy in prices it sets, and (more importantly), it actively goes after large piracy rings whenever possible. Seems okay to me; seems okay to a lot of people on slashdot; why isn't it okay for the music industry to do the same?
That point aside, what would happen if it became no longer profitable to sell commerical software? It seems to me few people (outside of the FSF) would argue that *all* software companies should start giving away software for free and start building custom software on a customer by customer basis. (I don't know what the FSF's stance on custom software systems are. I assume they're more concerned with mass-marketed software.) However, it seems a good number of people would like to see musicans stop selling mass-marketed recordings and stick to live preformances to eek out a living. I don't think neither the computer software industry nor the music industry would last long under these conditions; the cost vs. profit ratio is too high for custom products to support these mammount industries.
As a programmer, would I care if I worked on a commerical product or a custom one? No. As a musican, would I care if I made money through selling recordings of my music or playing live? No. (I would die of shock that someone would pay me to play for them and not to stop playing.) As someone would wants a career in computer programming, would I care that the number of jobs in the industry shrank because commerical software become unprofitable to make? Absolutely. And I bet musicans feel the same way about their industry. There's only so much code one can write and so many people able to pay for whole systems, and there's only so music one can play and venues that will pay to hear them.
George Lee
This is just an idea, but does anyone think living years and years under the threath of fiery nuclear death from above has any to do with this?
Here's where I'm coming from: When I was just a wee little geek (back in the 80's), the biggest threath to our little green planet wasn't pollution, nor overpopulation, nor Microsoft, it was that the USA and USSR got into a game of red rover with their IBMs. Sort of makes one think twice about investing in long-time projects, like CDs, mortages, husbands/wives, etc.
And all of a sudden, *poof*, the USSR turns into a bunch of small, third world countries with little of the international clout the USSR once had. Now what? Well, for the past ten or so years (the 90's), we've been hunting for the next big bad boogie man, wheither it's a rouge nation (hi Saddam), terrorists (from both beyond and within our borders), our kids, our food, our companies (hi Mr. Gates), or even our computers (hi Melissa) and the folks who run them(hi 31173 d00Dz). At least with the USSR around, you knew who could do us all in. Now, our society is paranoidly looking over its shoulder to see who's going to slip the knife in its back.
"Sorry honey, I can't go out tonight. I could get AIDS, bombed, shot, sued, poisoned, hacked, downsized, policed, profiled, or spammed.
How about watching an video instead?"
(An aside, doesn't the game show Greed seem 15 years too late? They even have Chuck Woolery hosting it, for Christsakes!)
George Lee
Where was I... oh yes.
<flame>
I'm tempted to print out a copy of that "declaration" and piss on it, but that wouldn't count a legitimate use of office equipment, now would it? What a load of William Gibson-inspired hooey! "Our identities have no bodies"?!!!!! Comparing the Internet community to the Pre-Revolutionary Colonists? Why didn't Mr. Barlow just come out and express his 311373ness?
</flame>
*sigh* Pretension bull like that makes me question what the FSF is really all about.
George Lee
I guess we could do a little acid test to see if posting these Kerberos docs under "fair use". (IANAL, BTW.)
From Copyright Act of 1976:
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use 38 Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teach-ing (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an in-fringement of copyright.
Criticism, check!
News reporting, check!
teaching, check!
Slashdot 1, M$ 0.
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
I don't think anyone made money by posting these docs on slashdot, and there was an educational element to posting them. (Namely to educate readers about the lameness that is M$ Kerberos.)
Slashdot 2, M$ 0.
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
This could go either way. Seeing the docs pertained to M$'s business, I'll guess that they'll have a stronger arguement against this point.
Slashdot 2, M$ 1.
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copy-righted work as a whole; and
No contest. Publishing entire works is a no-no, in general.
Slashdot 2, M$ 2.
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copy-righted work.
I just don't see how publishing these docs ruined the market for it, seeing how these docs were free and all.
Slashdot 3, M$ 2.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
Another point in Slashdot's favor if these docs were unpublished. :)
Doesn't look like this is an open and shut case for either side, though.
George Lee
I'm a little coder,
here's my spout!
Drop in specs,
and code comes out!
</singing>
George Lee
Isn't this what Google does, and does very well?
;)
;D
Google? What's a Google?
g0o0G13 5UX! L1NX2g0 rUl3z!
George Lee
I happen to work at a startup, Links2Go, Inc., which approaches the "better search engine" problem from a different direction than most engines. Instead of farming huge numbers of web pages and doing greps on them for relevant text, our server sorts these pages by topic automatically and rates a page's relevance, not by the number of keywords on the page, but the number of times the page is referenced from other pages.
Users can then search on our servers by topic *or* by the URL of a page. What the user gets back is either a list of the most relevant pages to a specific topic *or* to a specific URL.
George Lee
George Lee
Going offtopic, but... Point 1. There was no warrant at the time of the raid.
None was needed. Custody of the child was given to the father. Technically, that makes the Miami family kidnappers. INS was enforcing the law. Second of all, a warrant for what? They weren't searching for any evidence or arresting anyone. They were executing a court order.
Point 2. Janet Reno is not a judge. She has NO legal authority to give anyone a "deadline".
She was being lennant by not raiding that house the minute custody was transferred. The Miami family refused to hand back Elian, and earned themselves a raid.
George Lee
The fact copyrights protect an artist from having someone else steal their work gives them incentive to actually PUBISH their work, which customers can buy. No copyrights mean much less money to be made publishing works of art, meaning less works for customers to buy.
Remember, the CUSTOMER wanting to buy books/music/movies etc. create the market for the books/music/movies. If the market goes *poof*, so do the works. Back before recordable media, artists were paid by rich kings and nobles to create their works for an once time fee. Else they created their works as a hobby for free.
I don't think there were that many books back then as there is now. (Not totally a bad thing... there weren't many trashy books-based-on-movies back and cheezy romance novels back then.) ;)
George Lee
Short version: Jon, you're full of crap.
Long version: Jon, arguing that Metallica's exercising of their right to protect their copyright is going to crush the open source movement is equivalent to arguing that a homeowner protecting the crap on his/her lawn from thief is going to destroy the yard sale movement.
Down the road, Metallica -- which has always marketed itself as rebellious and independent -- may be better known as the first major music group to challenge free (or, depending on one's perspective, "pirated") music
Oh, so because they (were) "rebellious", they can't be concerned about copyrights and other "corporate matters". Give me a break! This is their living. If they didn't care about who was and wasn't buying their records, the Black album, "Load", "Re-Load", "Full'er Up Again", etc., wouldn't happened. (Wait... that might be a good thing...)
IMO, "Free" music is music that is given away for free by the artist. "Pirated" music is music given away for free by someone other than the artist. One has *nothing* to do with the other.
And a final point, if Napster folds and dies because "pirated" music doesn't flow though its service, I don't think it deserved to live in the first place. They even have a policy against piracy; if their survival *depends* on it, doesn't that make them hypocritical?
George Lee
George Lee
There has to be a happy middle someplace
Here's your "happy" medium, where everyone eventually loses, because this situation can become circular. Customers use MP3s because they can't afford/don't want to buy CDs. The industry raises CD prices (fairly or not) to cover the lost business. Those customers who can't afford the higher CD costs use MP3s if they can, otherwise they bite the bullet.
Continue until no one is buying CDs, the industry collapses, and the amount of recordable music made drops through the floor.
George Lee
Well said.
George Lee
I am saying that they ARE unenforcable. The most that can be done is a few people be caught now and again, only the biggest "offenders". When someone copies a work, no dead body is left. Nothing that would tip someone off to the fact that it has happened. It is impossible to stop unauthorized copying now that everyone and their brother has the ability to do it. (back when only a small number of people had ready access to the technology needed, then copyright was enforcable)
Ah, okay, you mean unenforceable, as in "You can't enforce copyrights for every violation." I was talking about the right to enforce. I agree with you here. The holder of the copyright has the responsiblity to enforce it. This doesn't mean they lose the copyright if they can't catch every instance of its violation. Catching the "big offenders" can, in fact, help them coupe any "losses" they suffered on a whole. Of course, this is why RIAA is all over Napster's ass. Is Napster a fair target? That's for the courts to decide, I guess.
Claiming the rights of the authors or artists seems a little backwards. What you are advocating is the right of an author to dictate the actions of other people. This is, in essence, my problem with "Intellectual property" claims. it is claiming the rights to something which exists entirely in someone elses posession and on someone elses equipment.
That is *exactly* what I'm advocating. That is what a copyright is all about, protecting intellectual property. If I wrote a book, I don't want to see someone else publishing that book under their name, or standing on the street corner handling out free copies *without* my permission. Same would go if I recorded a CD. And if *definately* goes with software I write.
Please don't take this question as a personal attack, but I'm wondering if you're a programmer or writer or musican etc, and, if you are, I'm wondering what your views are about use of your own work.
Rememeber, the original intent of copyright was to make producing works profitable to authors so that they would make works, in a time when most authors did not have the ability to publish on their own and thus to encourage them to publish, offered them a way to make sure that the publisher pays them.
Today, the means needed for publishing is available to any author. The technology for publishing is available to most any author. I do not believe that we need, any longer, to cede our rights to copy to the authors (which is what copyright technically is) to encourage the production of works.
What technology? The Internet? Sorry, ain't going to fly right now. Stephen King just release on of the first "eBooks", and only because he's very famous and *very* rich (he can afford a lost.) Can you *honestly* say there are more people who would *buy* a eBook than buy a hardcopy?
Is this bad for some buisnesses? Only if they are unwilling to adapt. Change happens. It will happen no matter how much the RIAA and others kick and scream about it. Survivors adapt and move on. Its called progress.
No, it's called justification for not putting down some coin. So you're basically saying "Pirating is going to happen anyway, so people in the entertainment business should stop expect profits from published materal." What a load of hooey. Musicans are at least able to tour and preform. What's a author to do? *Read* his book at people? You end up with no books, no recorded music, no movies, no media because there's no longer any profit from it. That's not the type of "revolution" I had in mind.
George Lee
I guess the main point is that services like ICQ, Napster, Gnutella and such _are_ service providers - they're not "access" ISPs, but by literal terms, they ARE ISPs of a sort. I do agree with you that the term ISP is VERY vague though.
This case might clarify what is and isn't an ISP under the DMCA. I just hope the DMCA maintains intact afterwards.
I guess I'm on the side of the RIAA on this one. I can see RIAA's point about the piracy, and I think Napster has been wink-winking at the whole copyright issue, and then covering themselves with the First Admendment when the shat hits the fan. I *like* using Napster, but the idea of a company IPOing off of pirated music makes me queasy... then again, maybe this is just veiled professional jealously, since my company probability won't make a tenth they do. ;)
(Yet another aside: That yahoo article claims Napster is an "startup". What is Napster's business plan? Do they even have one?)
George Lee