Lest anyone think that TFA is saying that BitTorrent is used almost exclusively (to a degree of 99%) for copyright infringement, remember that this study focused on DHT-based, trackerless torrents. Legit torrents, like Jamendo and Linux distributions, usually use their own trackers. There's no reason for them to use DHT. So the study will naturally underrepresent legal BitTorrent content.
Also, the bit about DRM doesn't surprise me one bit. Nobody likes DRM except rights holders. It causes many more problems than it solves (which are very few already), not the least of which is perpetual content control even after the copyright expires. Far from banning circumvention of it, we need to heavily discourage (or outright ban) the use of DRM as we know it.
That article was written four years ago, and apparently Google's stance towards China has changed since then, what with the recent hacking. You might want to find a better example of Google being evil.
I agree. Every tech news website that I've visited is flooded with articles about the iPad. I do not care about the iPad and am already rather tired of the spam. The only saving grace here is that other news is still flowing (hur hur, iPad, flowing, I'm so clever).
As a professional code writer (programmer) who agrees with the petition but doesn't have any published books, should I sign or is it not for me and I would harm their process by signing?
By supporting restrictions on the free and open dissemination of information, you'd be harming society as a whole by signing.
Although a great recurring Slashdot meme, the "just fix your business model" viewpoint is utterly and completely retarded and ignorant.
It would not be validly applied in any other circumstance.
Good for those other circumstances. It does, however, apply with respect to Big Content. And I'm pretty sure there are a lot of non-Slashdotters that agree with the viewpoint.
-You can't sing in the shower without paying royalties -Digital formats move to a pay-per-view or pay-per-listen model, where your TV or computer can count the number of heads in the room and charge you for each -Your Internet connection is fully monitored by your ISP (doubling your subscriber rate, but it's to stop piracy!) -Content restriction software becomes mandatory on every computer (this will outlaw Linux as nobody will take the time to produce a version of this software for Linux) (alternately we could just make Trusted Computing mandatory) -All your devices will connect to an authorization server and check a whitelist of "approved" content each time you try to play a song or whatever, and will not play any file that is not explicitly authorized (has the added effect of forcing you to buy RIAA music instead of competing indie music) -Fair use is abolished (has sort of happened in the US with the DMCA) and infringement is a criminal offense -Copyright terms are perpetual... maybe with "minus a day" put in to technically adhere to the Constitution -Portable storage devices such as flash drives must connect with an authorization server if you try to copy a file from them (goodbye sneakernet) -Use of a VPN, use of encryption, and use of Tor or any similar network is illegal -Having Freenet, a BitTorrent client, a client for any other p2p program, an IRC client, an email client or an IM client is illegal, since you can use any of them for piracy
An injustice occurred, and now it's been righted. I suppose I could say "goodo" or "w00t" or something. I mean, it's just a little weird, because I'm used to attacking wrongs, not praising rights.
Oh, wait. "managaed" in TFS is a typo. There, I've justified my comment.
On a more serious note, I mean it when I say "good for them." I do admit that it's a little weird for a parody/criticism website of a person to use a URL that is not obviously parody/criticism. But I tend to err on the side of the little guy when he's pitted towards the big guy.
(Also, it's a little ironic that the issue behind the website's existence is online censorship.)
The only way to fight this is for everyone to start using strong encryption for everything and protecting their anonymity even if it isn't always convenient, and even if they have nothing to hide.
Apart from internet cafes, which are blanketed with CCTV cameras, all users in Western nations also need to register to use the internet.
No, you only have to register to have a connection at your house or business or whatever. There are lots of places where you can anonymously use open wifi networks- McDonald's has free wifi. Most public libraries have free wifi (although some might require you to log in with your library ID). Neighbors that don't secure their networks essentially give you free wifi. Those are just three examples and there are lots more.
This proposed law is totally different; from my interpretation of TFA, it requires each individual citizen to have his or her own account through which they can access the Internet.
President Alexander Lukashenko is going a long way towards making identity theft even easier. Imagine how much simpler it would be to steal an identity with the existence of 'accounts' like this- especially as they aren't tied to specific addresses or machines, as TFA mentions that the requirements also apply to Internet cafes.
I wonder how much Prez Luka would like it if someone posted on 4chan under his "Internet passport?"
To my knowledge, the open-source movement started with the free software movement, which started with Richard Stallman deciding that proprietary, closed-source software is a threat to innovation and peoples' freedoms. In the beginning, source code was distributed with software because there was no reason to close the source. Eventually, however, the software industry began to see the economic value in proprietary software, and stopped distributing the source code. Stallman opposed this and developed the first version of the GPL, kicking off the free software movement which would eventually give birth to the separate open-source movement.
So when you ask "Was it to take advantage of copyright laws or in response to them?" I don't think it applies to either. It was developed in response to the emerging standard of proprietary software, not copyright law. Though it could be argued that permissive licenses like the GPL take advantage of copyright laws because they use the terms of copyright law to circumvent traditional copyright law by granting otherwise reserved rights to the public.
But the obvious point that you're missing is that this is not creative, nor is it innovative.
Have you even watched the movie? Or are you just assuming it's a cut-and-paste of Ocarina of Time in movie form? The plot of THOT is not all that similar to OoT's. The basic idea is the same- Ganondorf gaining the Triforce of Power, and Link and Zelda working to stop him- but aside from that, they made a lot of changes, some minor and some not-so-minor, to the storyline. It's almost its own Zelda story. Because of these changes- for example, Saria is Link's adopted Kokiri mother, instead of his friend, and the king of Hyrule holds the Triforce of Power originally, instead of the Sacred Realm- I see a fair amount of creativity in the movie.
Creative would have been coming up with their own universe to tell a story in.
I already told you that the point was a Zelda movie. Not just any fantasy movie. Can't really be a Zelda movie if you don't have any of: Link, Zelda, Ganon, Hyrule, the Master Sword, the Triforce, or any other well-known Zelda-universe names. Complete originality therefore defeats the purpose of the movie.
Innovative would be doing something on film that has never been done before.
I never said the film itself was particularly innovative. Creative, yes. I mentioned innovation because laws that stifle peoples' ability to create do stifle innovation.
and the movie's producers are retarded for not asking permission *before* they expended so much time and effort on the project.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to live in a 'permission culture' wherein we have to ask for someone else's permission before creating anything. As I've already touched on, no harm was being done here. Nintendo can whine all they want about their image, but the film was clearly an independently made work and not endorsed by Nintendo. Even says so on their website. Besides, if they want to protect the image of the LoZ franchise, there is a lot worse out there online (think rule 34) that Nintendo should be targeting. And if no harm was being done, there should be no reason to have to get permission.
Of the major gaming companies- Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo- I used to like Nintendo the most. Now I dislike them all more or less equally, and will not be likely to do business with Nintendo in the future. And I can't imagine the film's producers are happy with Nintendo either, not when it would have been so easy for Nintendo to help them out, even with just a free license.
Then WHY DIDN'T THEY ASK PERMISSION FIRST!? Christ, are they retarded? What did they think was going to happen, exactly?
I have no idea why you're expecting sympathy for something like this.
I obviously cannot speak for the producers myself, but I personally don't think that permission and/or royalties should be necessary in cases like this. It was clearly noncommercial, and clearly not sponsored by Nintendo. Laws that allow absolute control over any derivative works are a good way to strangle creativity and innovation. Hmm, maybe that's why they were enacted in the first place!
And it's not like Nintendo is abusing a copyright that should have long-since expired by now, either... they're perfectly within their legal and moral right in this case.
Moral rights? I submitted the story so I'll have to disagree with you there. Legal rights? Yes, unfortunately, Nintendo was acting within their legal rights. It was a dick move by Nintendo, but copyright law is partially to blame as well.
If they wanted to make a fantasy movie, and more power to them, they could have made an *original* one, making it an original work. Then I might be able to respect the film.
Um, the film's producers wanted to create a tribute to the popular LoZ series, not just any fantasy movie. Kind of defeats the purpose of total originality.
The only reason they did a Zelda adaptation in the first place is to cash-in on the name recognition. Cha-ching.
Did you RTFS? The film is nonprofit. It wasn't some group of undesireables trying to pirate Nintendo's IP and profit from it. It was a bunch of Zelda lovers creating a fan film for funsies. Nintendo must be taking lessons from the RIAA on harassing their customers.
I agree with this, though I would go so far as to say that copyleft in general, not simply the GPL, is the perfect answer to ever-increasing copyright. Copyleft is just awesome- it lets people use creative works in ways that conventional copyright does not, and has the double whammy of protecting these works from the big corps using the power of conventional copyright.
Oh, and did I mention that freely available, permissively licensed content is direct competition to the entertainment industry's products? Suck it, RIAA. I don't need you for my music.
There is a limiting of the works for the benefit of the copyright holders, but the works still exist and are accessible. The works are even available at lending libraries.
Do you really think that every creative work produced since the 1920s or so is easily available today? And even if there is a copy in some library, that copy is still bound to physical limitations- just because the one copy exists doesn't mean anyone can access it. Not so online, and if these works were in the public domain, they could be legally and freely available online. But since some insanely low number (something like 6%) of works created in the 1920s era are commercially viable and therefore commercially available, a vast majority of that 94% of "non-viable" works are pretty much nonexistent.
Big Content opposes proposed laws that enrich the public domain, even if said laws have little to no effect on their own IP. What else could they be besides usurpers of the public domain and, by extension, our culture?
No, no, my point was that the WTO might need to look into this "no formalities" policy and maybe, possibly, chuck it out the window. I mean, is there a reason for this policy? Formalities such as registration and renewal are arguably good for society for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread: a registry of copyright owners with contact information, plus a healthier public domain that results from copyright renewal (the logic is that rightsholders won't bother renewing works they aren't profiting off of).
One of the arguments of Dr. Seuss Enterprises in favor of copyright term extension was that a work's author deserves the exclusive right over adaptations in media invented after the publication of the original work, like the CG-film version of Horton Hears a Who.
Then why can't we grant a different copyright to the new adaptation? If I write a book and then make a movie based on the book in sixty years, it shouldn't affect the book's copyright.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not like Ars did the research themselves.
Lest anyone think that TFA is saying that BitTorrent is used almost exclusively (to a degree of 99%) for copyright infringement, remember that this study focused on DHT-based, trackerless torrents. Legit torrents, like Jamendo and Linux distributions, usually use their own trackers. There's no reason for them to use DHT. So the study will naturally underrepresent legal BitTorrent content.
Also, the bit about DRM doesn't surprise me one bit. Nobody likes DRM except rights holders. It causes many more problems than it solves (which are very few already), not the least of which is perpetual content control even after the copyright expires. Far from banning circumvention of it, we need to heavily discourage (or outright ban) the use of DRM as we know it.
That article was written four years ago, and apparently Google's stance towards China has changed since then, what with the recent hacking. You might want to find a better example of Google being evil.
I agree. Every tech news website that I've visited is flooded with articles about the iPad. I do not care about the iPad and am already rather tired of the spam. The only saving grace here is that other news is still flowing (hur hur, iPad, flowing, I'm so clever).
By supporting restrictions on the free and open dissemination of information, you'd be harming society as a whole by signing.
Why "offtopic?" I'd mod it Funny if I had points.
You do understand that Creative Commons licenses are legally based on the very same copyright you want to get rid of, right?
So regular people weren't the only ones caught up in the sensationalism that is/was swine flu. Governments were hooked by it too...
Although a great recurring Slashdot meme, the "just fix your business model" viewpoint is utterly and completely retarded and ignorant. It would not be validly applied in any other circumstance.
Good for those other circumstances. It does, however, apply with respect to Big Content. And I'm pretty sure there are a lot of non-Slashdotters that agree with the viewpoint.
The RIAA and MPAA will be satisfied when:
-You can't sing in the shower without paying royalties
-Digital formats move to a pay-per-view or pay-per-listen model, where your TV or computer can count the number of heads in the room and charge you for each
-Your Internet connection is fully monitored by your ISP (doubling your subscriber rate, but it's to stop piracy!)
-Content restriction software becomes mandatory on every computer (this will outlaw Linux as nobody will take the time to produce a version of this software for Linux) (alternately we could just make Trusted Computing mandatory)
-All your devices will connect to an authorization server and check a whitelist of "approved" content each time you try to play a song or whatever, and will not play any file that is not explicitly authorized (has the added effect of forcing you to buy RIAA music instead of competing indie music)
-Fair use is abolished (has sort of happened in the US with the DMCA) and infringement is a criminal offense
-Copyright terms are perpetual... maybe with "minus a day" put in to technically adhere to the Constitution
-Portable storage devices such as flash drives must connect with an authorization server if you try to copy a file from them (goodbye sneakernet)
-Use of a VPN, use of encryption, and use of Tor or any similar network is illegal
-Having Freenet, a BitTorrent client, a client for any other p2p program, an IRC client, an email client or an IM client is illegal, since you can use any of them for piracy
Etc etc.
So to sum up, some of France's politicians are still devoted to retarding the growth of the Internet in the name of the dinosaurs of entertainment.
Good to know.
Legally, yes. Ethically is an entirely different matter.
Our copyright system needs heavy revision.
I would rather see ads for products I'm interested in than things I'm not.
I'd rather see no ads at all.
An injustice occurred, and now it's been righted. I suppose I could say "goodo" or "w00t" or something. I mean, it's just a little weird, because I'm used to attacking wrongs, not praising rights.
Oh, wait. "managaed" in TFS is a typo. There, I've justified my comment.
On a more serious note, I mean it when I say "good for them." I do admit that it's a little weird for a parody/criticism website of a person to use a URL that is not obviously parody/criticism. But I tend to err on the side of the little guy when he's pitted towards the big guy.
(Also, it's a little ironic that the issue behind the website's existence is online censorship.)
Also this.
Seriously, this sort of thing is why Freenet was created.
No, you only have to register to have a connection at your house or business or whatever. There are lots of places where you can anonymously use open wifi networks- McDonald's has free wifi. Most public libraries have free wifi (although some might require you to log in with your library ID). Neighbors that don't secure their networks essentially give you free wifi. Those are just three examples and there are lots more.
This proposed law is totally different; from my interpretation of TFA, it requires each individual citizen to have his or her own account through which they can access the Internet.
President Alexander Lukashenko is going a long way towards making identity theft even easier. Imagine how much simpler it would be to steal an identity with the existence of 'accounts' like this- especially as they aren't tied to specific addresses or machines, as TFA mentions that the requirements also apply to Internet cafes.
I wonder how much Prez Luka would like it if someone posted on 4chan under his "Internet passport?"
To my knowledge, the open-source movement started with the free software movement, which started with Richard Stallman deciding that proprietary, closed-source software is a threat to innovation and peoples' freedoms. In the beginning, source code was distributed with software because there was no reason to close the source. Eventually, however, the software industry began to see the economic value in proprietary software, and stopped distributing the source code. Stallman opposed this and developed the first version of the GPL, kicking off the free software movement which would eventually give birth to the separate open-source movement.
So when you ask "Was it to take advantage of copyright laws or in response to them?" I don't think it applies to either. It was developed in response to the emerging standard of proprietary software, not copyright law. Though it could be argued that permissive licenses like the GPL take advantage of copyright laws because they use the terms of copyright law to circumvent traditional copyright law by granting otherwise reserved rights to the public.
Have you even watched the movie? Or are you just assuming it's a cut-and-paste of Ocarina of Time in movie form? The plot of THOT is not all that similar to OoT's. The basic idea is the same- Ganondorf gaining the Triforce of Power, and Link and Zelda working to stop him- but aside from that, they made a lot of changes, some minor and some not-so-minor, to the storyline. It's almost its own Zelda story. Because of these changes- for example, Saria is Link's adopted Kokiri mother, instead of his friend, and the king of Hyrule holds the Triforce of Power originally, instead of the Sacred Realm- I see a fair amount of creativity in the movie.
I already told you that the point was a Zelda movie. Not just any fantasy movie. Can't really be a Zelda movie if you don't have any of: Link, Zelda, Ganon, Hyrule, the Master Sword, the Triforce, or any other well-known Zelda-universe names. Complete originality therefore defeats the purpose of the movie.
I never said the film itself was particularly innovative. Creative, yes. I mentioned innovation because laws that stifle peoples' ability to create do stifle innovation.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to live in a 'permission culture' wherein we have to ask for someone else's permission before creating anything. As I've already touched on, no harm was being done here. Nintendo can whine all they want about their image, but the film was clearly an independently made work and not endorsed by Nintendo. Even says so on their website. Besides, if they want to protect the image of the LoZ franchise, there is a lot worse out there online (think rule 34) that Nintendo should be targeting. And if no harm was being done, there should be no reason to have to get permission.
Of the major gaming companies- Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo- I used to like Nintendo the most. Now I dislike them all more or less equally, and will not be likely to do business with Nintendo in the future. And I can't imagine the film's producers are happy with Nintendo either, not when it would have been so easy for Nintendo to help them out, even with just a free license.
I obviously cannot speak for the producers myself, but I personally don't think that permission and/or royalties should be necessary in cases like this. It was clearly noncommercial, and clearly not sponsored by Nintendo. Laws that allow absolute control over any derivative works are a good way to strangle creativity and innovation. Hmm, maybe that's why they were enacted in the first place!
Moral rights? I submitted the story so I'll have to disagree with you there. Legal rights? Yes, unfortunately, Nintendo was acting within their legal rights. It was a dick move by Nintendo, but copyright law is partially to blame as well.
Um, the film's producers wanted to create a tribute to the popular LoZ series, not just any fantasy movie. Kind of defeats the purpose of total originality.
Did you RTFS? The film is nonprofit. It wasn't some group of undesireables trying to pirate Nintendo's IP and profit from it. It was a bunch of Zelda lovers creating a fan film for funsies. Nintendo must be taking lessons from the RIAA on harassing their customers.
I agree with this, though I would go so far as to say that copyleft in general, not simply the GPL, is the perfect answer to ever-increasing copyright. Copyleft is just awesome- it lets people use creative works in ways that conventional copyright does not, and has the double whammy of protecting these works from the big corps using the power of conventional copyright.
Oh, and did I mention that freely available, permissively licensed content is direct competition to the entertainment industry's products? Suck it, RIAA. I don't need you for my music.
Do you really think that every creative work produced since the 1920s or so is easily available today? And even if there is a copy in some library, that copy is still bound to physical limitations- just because the one copy exists doesn't mean anyone can access it. Not so online, and if these works were in the public domain, they could be legally and freely available online. But since some insanely low number (something like 6%) of works created in the 1920s era are commercially viable and therefore commercially available, a vast majority of that 94% of "non-viable" works are pretty much nonexistent.
Big Content opposes proposed laws that enrich the public domain, even if said laws have little to no effect on their own IP. What else could they be besides usurpers of the public domain and, by extension, our culture?
No, no, my point was that the WTO might need to look into this "no formalities" policy and maybe, possibly, chuck it out the window. I mean, is there a reason for this policy? Formalities such as registration and renewal are arguably good for society for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread: a registry of copyright owners with contact information, plus a healthier public domain that results from copyright renewal (the logic is that rightsholders won't bother renewing works they aren't profiting off of).
Then why can't we grant a different copyright to the new adaptation? If I write a book and then make a movie based on the book in sixty years, it shouldn't affect the book's copyright.