I switched from MySQL to Postgres fanboyism around the time I tried PG and realized I didn't have to choose between (InnoDB) integrity and (MyISAM) fast I/O in FOSS RDBMS. And I could have honest-to-god booleans. I love PG so much.:3
FDA approval. Government's always interfering in the implementation of good ideas!
(For those who don't clue in, btw, Swift was kidding to make a point.)
A large fancy building, in which dwells the ruler of a nation, which is paid for by the people of that nation, but which the people cannot enter, is called a palace. Doesn't matter if you call it the White House, the Louvre, or Buckingham, it's a symbol of the different, superior nature of those who live in it, and their right to rule.
I found much of your political argument quite good, and I agree with much of what you say- on points I don't address you may assume I agree with you.
Sounds to me like your government is betraying the contract it has with its citizens.
Not quite. It would be, in America, where e.g. the right to property is part of that contract, or where the electoral college provides political weight to resource-rich, population-poor areas to prevent them from being looted. Canada has neither of those.
A law against cracking DRM regardless of the copyright status of the content has almost no public support.
That is a case of the public being apathetic or placing the issue at a lower priority.
Ah, I didn't make this clear; the public made their feelings quite clear. The federal government had a public consultation, where private citizens could offer their opinion on copyright law. That public consultation was clearly and firmly against DRM. It's not a question of apathy, in this case.
Good point, but are you trying to imply that the Canadian or US governments are Tyrannical because they have some bad laws?
No, just that I didn't feel the argument really supported obeying bad laws. I see value in obeying bad laws, or ridiculous ones; I don't think a revolution is necessary for jaywalking or stupid taxes. On the other hand, too many bad laws accumulate into tyranny; I don't think nations snap, I think they slouch.
It sure looks like you did to me: "These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible."
Well, this is like the jaywalking example. It's not a law I'd break for convenience (to cross the street faster/to get mp3s without paying), but it is one I'd break for moral reasons (to save a life/to ensure the continuation of an important idea). I'm not advocating piracy as an end in itself, any more than I'd suggest people ought to shoot each other to solve problems. It's just one option that can be pursued with moral clarity, given the correct circumstances.
No it doesn't. If your government has started passing laws enforcing one religion where previously it did not, then it is betraying it's contract.
Only if that contract included freedom of religion. Many of the early American colonies, for example, had some astonishingly draconian religious laws- ones democratically discussed and established. Those laws, while entirely democratic, were also profoundly unpleasant. The state can't be the arbiter of moral action. The early colonies are a fantastic example, by the way, of why I support separation of church and state, and why I refuse to consider the state a valid arbiter of behaviour. It was (democratially) legal- in fact, required- to mutilate Quaker missionaries at one point.
It appears to me as though you are fed up with the Canadian government not upholding it's end of your contract as you understand it.
Oh, if only. No, I'm afraid they're keeping with the contract made, as I understand it. My problem is with the contract itself. Not all of us have a revolutionary history, and many governments democratic in name become undemocratic in practice.
That is your decision to make, but you will still face the consequences of your actions if caught willfully breaking laws that the majority of the citizenry find inconvenient, but not amoral.
Absolutely correct; while I don't have a martyr complex, I am perfectly willing to face legal punishment for committing acts I see as morally necessary. Selling grain isn't the noblest-sounding activity, but if I was a grain farmer you can bet I'd be driving down to the border every fall to get arrested. Ballot, soap, jury, ammo; use these boxes in order.
However, your primary justification for willful copyright infringement seems to be that changing the law, or negotiating with copyright holders before hand is inconvenient and laborious.
Nope. the justification is that, first, corporations are buying laws in Canada, as we type, that are against the clearly expressed will of the citizens. Political accountability has been a problem in Canada for decades, but this incident exposes a subverted process. It's not an issue of inconvenience. Secondly, the issue itself is fairly important; a jaywalking law wouldn't be a major problem, murder would be. This is somewhere in between, but it directly affects matters of conscience- in that expressions of conscience are illegal to distribute in certain circumstances.
Almost by definition, no law is going to be universally approved of.
While I agree with the statement as factual, you may not be aware of its political application in Canada. Many legislators believe in shaping public behaviour by implementing laws that are disapproved of by the majority, or that are split almost directly down the middle. A law against murder has broad public support, except from murderers. A law against cracking DRM regardless of the copyright status of the content has almost no public support. So, I hope you can see that, while I agree some laws could be unpopular with segments of the population, there's more concern- at least in Canada- with laws that are unpopular with everyone but are pushed by well-financed special interest groups.
Therefore it is necessary that all citizens of the society obey all of the laws, not just those they approve of.
Whereas I think it is a moral responsibility as well as a patriotic duty to disobey laws, not because one "disapproves" of them (which seems to be code for "has lousy reasons for disliking"), but which one clearly and carefully understands as harmful to the moral or political fabric of the nation. For instance, several provinces in Canada have passed legislation which makes prayer illegal within a certain distance from abortion clinics. Think what you want about religion, but banning prayer in any context is extremely dangerous for democracy. I have similar problems with federal and provincial government agencies who make it illegal to say certain words, and I have a towering rage regarding some laws that ban private individuals from selling the products of their labour (wheat, for pity's sake) to anyone but the government; there have been arrests of Canadians who attempted to sell grain on the open market.
These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible.
It is not the fault of the lobbyists that a bill doesn't serve my interests.
Actually, I think it kind of is. A lot of lobbyists seek to harm the majority in order to acquire special treatment or resources. In those situations, it is their fault that the bill doesn't serve your interests, or the interests of the rest of the nation. It's politically irresponsible- but, as I've said, a corporation is an immortal sociopath, so it's not unexpected that they do such things. That doesn't mean I have to accept their actions, or the laws they buy.
Not necessarily because they are right, but because without them we have anarchy.
But that's only an argument for laws, not for good laws. Tyranny is as bad as anarchy.
No, I say that the moral argument is post-hoc rationalization.
Which is both uncharitable and incorrect. Perhaps you don't approach issues with a moral assumption, but others do. Accusing me of not liking to pay for things? Profoundly ignorant of you; I've never said or suggested that was my motivation for objecting to copyright laws. I'm not using a vague feel-goo
If you're using it as a reference, yes- but if your study is on a single work, as the studies I mentioned were, then you have to quote extensively, hence the chilling effect on study. See also cryptographic research, DRM, and lawsuits to prevent publishing results.
I know of no moral framework that encourages the breaking of laws simply because they are inconvenient.
I like how you minimized the entirety of my concerns to "inconvenience." I'd explain more about why this isn't an issue of convenience, but see the following point.
indicate beating your wife, mutilating your children, or killing certain people is morally acceptable.
Right. Like killing Jews, women, and children. That's never been the laws of any government, elected or not, in history. No, I'm not trying to Godwin you, I'm just pointing out that if your argument against religion as a moral basis and- as it seems to be- for the state is that religions have done naughty things, you shoot your own argument down. Because everyone's been naughty. This is why I won't bother to address the point above- there are some very substantial religious concerns about copyright, but since you feel it's appropriate to trot out a tired Hitchens argument against religion, obviously harm to religion won't be a sufficient argument for you. While I greatly suspect the problems facing theologians are similar to ones facing artists, I only have understanding of the religious issues, so I can't offer you any other argument.
Last I checked, American companies don't get a vote in Canadian elections, and don't get to vote on Canadian legislation.
Right, and major defense contractors in the USA can't influence congressional spending bills.
If you are going to continue under the erroneous belief that you can break the law with impunity simply because you don't approve of it,
In what circumstance is "don't approve of it" insufficient? Jefferson seemed to object to some British problems, and he rebelled because of it. You minimize other people's motives for moral lawbreaking as trivial, and you seem to assert that their moral reasons can't possibly be valid, because you don't think they are. You haven't explained why cultural impoverishment is trivial. You haven't explained why your dragging religion in as a whipping boy is any more apropos than my mentioning the personhood of Time Warner. Why are your standards for what constitutes an unconscionably bad law better than mine, exactly?
And to clarify, I mentioned Time Warner because it's an immortal, sociopathic, legal person. The implications of that for cultural heritage should be pretty obvious.
I can read a book that has 100 years left to it's copyright and still use it.
You can gain the information from any book you can acquire; the issue is whether you can acquire the book, and whether you can use the information in a useful way. How often do you see Mickey Mouse, the cultural icon, in any context in which the Disney Corporation does not own? How many books do you have that were printed in 1953, saw a limited run, have a high value for a small number of people, and are still freely accessible despite the lack of monetizability to match high technical, academic, or cultural value?
I can even quote sections verbatim or in summary as long as I provide appropriate citation.
No, you can't. Even academically, there are limits on how much of a work you can quote- in fact, there are several useful media studies that have not been done because they would have required quoting substantial portions of copyrighted work. The chilling effect of copyright law on culture and learning isn't a theory.
Feeling that taxes are too high does not make tax evasion morally acceptable.
Um. I realize it's the 5th instead of the 4th right now, and I realize that it wasn't the whole issue of the Revolution, and I realize there's a difference between "taxed too much" and "taxed without representation," but I'm pretty sure there's a passage in the American Declaration of Independence that asserts it is, in fact, morally acceptable to refuse to pay onerous taxes. As I understand it the issue was that taxation without representation caused taxes to become to high, which is what brought the issue to people's attention... but regardless of the details, I disagree; it can be moral to "evade" taxes when taxes are too high.
If you don't like it, then you can work to change it.
And so can- in Canada, right now, for example- the CRIA and major American record labels, whose financial and political pressure have had such a significant impact on our law-making process that a bill currently under discussion includes protection for DRM, despite both the Ministries of Culture and Industry having completed studies that suggest it's a bad idea, and despite a firm, clearly expressed opinion of Canadian citizens against DRM, in a recent consultation the government made, soliciting comments- which the new, CRIA-influenced bill ignores entirely.
Simply because breaking the law is easy, and the law is oppressive in your opinion, does not grant you the moral prerogative to break the law with impunity.
Actually, it does. Depending on the law, of course; one that made crossing the street painfully difficult isn't necessarily one I'd ignore for convenience, but I'd ignore it to save a life. And, to be more pointed about it, an oppressive law by its nature grants citizens the moral right to break it. Law is not the origin of moral behaviour or good citizenship or life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I don't want to get offensive, but how arrogant are you that you feel your opinion trumps the decisions of the SCOTUS on this issue.
Well, for one thing, I'm Canadian, not American, so I guess I'm at best only half as arrogant as you thought I was.:P I'm not a legal scholar, and I'm not talking about the legality of copyright, I'm talking about the utility and morality of it. I don't give a damn for what your courts say, and I'm fairly pissed that your corporations are trying to buy laws in my country. Who's arrogant?
the copyright holder [of Happy Birthday], who happens to be Time Warner.
Time Warner is not a person. Time Warner is incapable of creativity. Time Warner did not write the song. The people who did write the song are long dead, and copied the tune in the first place. Restaurants cannot have staff sing a 150-year-old cultural song of celebration because a legal fiction masquerading as a person in courts will sue them if they don't pay for it. This is not a hassle, this is insanity!
So please explain exactly what ideas has he failed to pay for?
The idea of musical notation. The idea of (dunno if he uses any of these, but;) rondo, ternary, variational, and sonata forms. The idea of flutes as an instrument. The idea of paper, ink, and binding. The idea of harmony. The idea of the entire body of musical theory in human history; what he paid for in school was access to knowledgeable and skilled teachers, and certification that he had learned, not the information itself.
Not saying the guy doesn't deserve to be paid for his work, but his creative contribution is insignificant compared to the cultural borrowing he did. I'm pretty sure he realizes all of this, too.
Most of the greatest works of mankind, whether scientific or literary, are freely available, because they were created before Mickey. While it's not right to say that anyone who uses any existing cultural artifact in their work shouldn't profit from it, it's equally wrong to suggest that every work is entirely the author's own and they're justified in locking other people out of using their work in exactly the same way they used others'. I get that you think copyright lasts too long- but I think that excessive duration of copyright does make copyright violation morally acceptable. James Joyce and Walt Disney are dead, man. Their work is removed from the well they drew from, and held back from returning. It's not only culturally self-destructive, it creatively impoverishes a planet's worth of other artists, writers, filmmakers, etc., and in so doing does harm the the whole culture. If this isn't a moral issue regarding creativity, what is?
2: Fair use of works is only a useful provision of law if copyright holders don't have the ability to blanket any use of their work (legal/fair use or not) in DMCA notices and attack lawyers. It's not just the duration of copyright, but the depth of application; it costs 10 grand to clear an independent film of copyright issues. Using any post-'25 work in new work invites financial disaster, whether or not it's legally defensible.
Except that the laws protecting DRM are draconic and independent of the laws protecting copyright. In other words, a work released under a CC license, or old enough to be out of the public domain, released on, say, the Kindle, is legally free to share; either copyright doesn't protect it or the author has given explicit permission to share. But because DRM locks are protected by law, this freely shareable work cannot be shared without breaking the (DRM) law. Now, this ignores the fact that an author can release a copy on the net as well as Kindle (see Doctorow, Baen), and the fact that if it's out of copyright it's likely available on Gutenberg Press, but I think it's still important to draw the distinction between "illegal to copy because the author asserts copyright" and "illegal to copy because the delivery platform is sacrosanct."
I personally do a lot of media sharing; Daniel Bautista's guitar rock, freely available on Jamendo.com, for example, or CC-licensed books from Doctorow, or linking people to Baen's free online SF library. I don't think there's a practical barrier to sharing stuff that authors want shared- but you and I are technically savvy. There are a lot of people for whom iTunes is the only music delivery system or Kindle is the only digital book delivery system; these people, with copies of work by Ringo or Doctorow, may be aware that it's legal to share those pieces, but are legally constrained from doing so; it's nearly impossible for them to share music legally amongst their own friends and family. You could dismiss them because they "just don't know how to do it," but these people represent the vast majority of media consumers; if they don't know how to do something they can do because lobbyists bought a law that makes it harder for them, something is wrong.
No "Conservative" ever gets to talk about adscam ever again.
I am so glad I quit being a Conservative years back, when they promised to never ever ever ever tax income trusts. And then they did, about 6 months after the elections, and my eyes were opened, and I said "Oh. All politicians are lying, cheating bastards." So when MP James Moore, a Conservative, decided to deride copyright reformers as "radical extremists" who "don't have any interest in reforming copyright" and have "babyish views" of it, I wasn't surprised any more than when other Conservatives decided to spend a billion dollars on G20 security.
My point is, every single person in office can be expected to be a lying, cheating bastard. So I think you're right; no Tory gets to complain about adscam or Liberal waste as the height of calumny. They've treated their term in office like it was a race to outspend and outlie the Liberals, and despite the difficulty of the goal, they've achieved it. By the same token, however, the Liberals, who set the bar for the Tories to pass, don't get to complain about this, either. The Bloc Quebecois, who spend all their time extorting similar volumes of cash from the rest of Canada by threatening to disrupt the ruling party's voter base, don't get to complain about it. No party has any right to complain about other parties' wasteful spending, because every party spends criminally while in power. So if one party's crimes prevent them from complaining about another party's crimes, Parliament Hill would get really quiet.
I think, instead, maybe we ought to object to wasteful government spending no matter what party we object to, belong to, or support. I think we ought to object to wasteful spending because it harms Canadians, and not to score points for our favoured party. So I decry the Conservatives spending $1B, and I decry the Conservatives for implementing the GST in the Mulrouney years, and I decry the Liberals for implementing the NEP that destroyed two provinces' economies for a decade, and I decry the Liberals for adscam. There's plenty of blame to go around and no reason to single out a certain party's sins, or assume the other parties are any better.
That depends on the delivery and licensing. DeVry uses MyScribe, a flaming piece of garbage proprietary locked-down pdf reader that renders agonizingly slowly and won't print, convert, or export, then charges online/correspondence students the usual $80+ per textbook. But the student doesn't have the option of not buying the full-price new edition, even when older editions would do fine, and if they want a paper copy they have to buy it as well rather than instead of, or as a backup of, the digital copy. MyScribe basically tries to treat the digital versions as identical in form to the paper versions, but with a bunch of DRM between the user and the text, which makes the books almost totally useless.
I know, I know, DeVry isn't a real school, etc. But it's an example of how horrifically wrong "digital textbooks" can go if the wrong people make the decisions. DeVry would be a great example of "the wrong people," since they evidently also entered into a contract with MyScribe that requires them to force their students to use it.
I don't know, 5 or 10 minutes? I mean, assuming the export doesn't involve massive blobs or a crap network, with 15 tables a DBA should be able to optimize a query pretty well and query a minimal number of rows in each join. 2.5 hours sounds like it's triggering full-table scans per row. If your query takes longer than a backup, you're reading from disk too much.
I'm not saying RE is crap, just that their query builder doesn't optimize well. I haven't dealt with query builders hardly at all, so I don't know if that's a strike against them or expected.
Slashdot Mirror
I switched from MySQL to Postgres fanboyism around the time I tried PG and realized I didn't have to choose between (InnoDB) integrity and (MyISAM) fast I/O in FOSS RDBMS. And I could have honest-to-god booleans. I love PG so much. :3
plans to insult
Oh gods, you're right! Gag him. And gag Carlin, too- oh, wait, he's dead. Okay, everybody, we're safe now!
FDA approval. Government's always interfering in the implementation of good ideas!
(For those who don't clue in, btw, Swift was kidding to make a point.)
Bags of holding are not as heavy as their contents; ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_of_holding ) depending on the edition and type of bag, she's only going to be about another 15-60 pounds on top of her regular 300. While Humvees are indeed heavier than this (5200-5900 pounds, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humvee), fat chicks with bags of holding are not an appropriate standard of weight class for military vehicles. I suggest using Huge ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Huge_Animated_Object ) or Gargantuan ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Gargantuan_Animated_Object ) animated objects.
/pedant
UVB-76, UVB-76 — 93 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 — 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan, nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4? That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage.
Well... (1/kidding)/2
Fixed that for you.
Which doesn't ensure I'd get in. As it shouldn't, my not being a citizen of that nation of having paid for its construction or upke-
Oh hey wait! I'm Canadian! We did pay for its reconstruction! Maybe we're ensured access, too.
Haha, no I can't! I'm not American!
...
However, I see your point about the tours. My bad. *shrug*
A large fancy building, in which dwells the ruler of a nation, which is paid for by the people of that nation, but which the people cannot enter, is called a palace. Doesn't matter if you call it the White House, the Louvre, or Buckingham, it's a symbol of the different, superior nature of those who live in it, and their right to rule.
OW.
Well, it is a significant improvement from the beta version that stopped at 255.
Actually, I think it will turn into a wet paper bag, which evidently some people can't X their way out of, for various values of X.
Prison clothing for incompetents!
As far as sexual assault goes, groping is the least evil.
Sounds to me like your government is betraying the contract it has with its citizens.
Not quite. It would be, in America, where e.g. the right to property is part of that contract, or where the electoral college provides political weight to resource-rich, population-poor areas to prevent them from being looted. Canada has neither of those.
A law against cracking DRM regardless of the copyright status of the content has almost no public support.
That is a case of the public being apathetic or placing the issue at a lower priority.
Ah, I didn't make this clear; the public made their feelings quite clear. The federal government had a public consultation, where private citizens could offer their opinion on copyright law. That public consultation was clearly and firmly against DRM. It's not a question of apathy, in this case.
Good point, but are you trying to imply that the Canadian or US governments are Tyrannical because they have some bad laws?
No, just that I didn't feel the argument really supported obeying bad laws. I see value in obeying bad laws, or ridiculous ones; I don't think a revolution is necessary for jaywalking or stupid taxes. On the other hand, too many bad laws accumulate into tyranny; I don't think nations snap, I think they slouch.
It sure looks like you did to me: "These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible."
Well, this is like the jaywalking example. It's not a law I'd break for convenience (to cross the street faster/to get mp3s without paying), but it is one I'd break for moral reasons (to save a life/to ensure the continuation of an important idea). I'm not advocating piracy as an end in itself, any more than I'd suggest people ought to shoot each other to solve problems. It's just one option that can be pursued with moral clarity, given the correct circumstances.
No it doesn't. If your government has started passing laws enforcing one religion where previously it did not, then it is betraying it's contract.
Only if that contract included freedom of religion. Many of the early American colonies, for example, had some astonishingly draconian religious laws- ones democratically discussed and established. Those laws, while entirely democratic, were also profoundly unpleasant. The state can't be the arbiter of moral action. The early colonies are a fantastic example, by the way, of why I support separation of church and state, and why I refuse to consider the state a valid arbiter of behaviour. It was (democratially) legal- in fact, required- to mutilate Quaker missionaries at one point.
It appears to me as though you are fed up with the Canadian government not upholding it's end of your contract as you understand it.
Oh, if only. No, I'm afraid they're keeping with the contract made, as I understand it. My problem is with the contract itself. Not all of us have a revolutionary history, and many governments democratic in name become undemocratic in practice.
That is your decision to make, but you will still face the consequences of your actions if caught willfully breaking laws that the majority of the citizenry find inconvenient, but not amoral.
Absolutely correct; while I don't have a martyr complex, I am perfectly willing to face legal punishment for committing acts I see as morally necessary. Selling grain isn't the noblest-sounding activity, but if I was a grain farmer you can bet I'd be driving down to the border every fall to get arrested. Ballot, soap, jury, ammo; use these boxes in order.
However, your primary justification for willful copyright infringement seems to be that changing the law, or negotiating with copyright holders before hand is inconvenient and laborious.
Nope. the justification is that, first, corporations are buying laws in Canada, as we type, that are against the clearly expressed will of the citizens. Political accountability has been a problem in Canada for decades, but this incident exposes a subverted process. It's not an issue of inconvenience. Secondly, the issue itself is fairly important; a jaywalking law wouldn't be a major problem, murder would be. This is somewhere in between, but it directly affects matters of conscience- in that expressions of conscience are illegal to distribute in certain circumstances.
Almost by definition, no law is going to be universally approved of.
While I agree with the statement as factual, you may not be aware of its political application in Canada. Many legislators believe in shaping public behaviour by implementing laws that are disapproved of by the majority, or that are split almost directly down the middle. A law against murder has broad public support, except from murderers. A law against cracking DRM regardless of the copyright status of the content has almost no public support. So, I hope you can see that, while I agree some laws could be unpopular with segments of the population, there's more concern- at least in Canada- with laws that are unpopular with everyone but are pushed by well-financed special interest groups.
Therefore it is necessary that all citizens of the society obey all of the laws, not just those they approve of.
Whereas I think it is a moral responsibility as well as a patriotic duty to disobey laws, not because one "disapproves" of them (which seems to be code for "has lousy reasons for disliking"), but which one clearly and carefully understands as harmful to the moral or political fabric of the nation. For instance, several provinces in Canada have passed legislation which makes prayer illegal within a certain distance from abortion clinics. Think what you want about religion, but banning prayer in any context is extremely dangerous for democracy. I have similar problems with federal and provincial government agencies who make it illegal to say certain words, and I have a towering rage regarding some laws that ban private individuals from selling the products of their labour (wheat, for pity's sake) to anyone but the government; there have been arrests of Canadians who attempted to sell grain on the open market.
These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible.
It is not the fault of the lobbyists that a bill doesn't serve my interests.
Actually, I think it kind of is. A lot of lobbyists seek to harm the majority in order to acquire special treatment or resources. In those situations, it is their fault that the bill doesn't serve your interests, or the interests of the rest of the nation. It's politically irresponsible- but, as I've said, a corporation is an immortal sociopath, so it's not unexpected that they do such things. That doesn't mean I have to accept their actions, or the laws they buy.
Not necessarily because they are right, but because without them we have anarchy.
But that's only an argument for laws, not for good laws. Tyranny is as bad as anarchy.
No, I say that the moral argument is post-hoc rationalization.
Which is both uncharitable and incorrect. Perhaps you don't approach issues with a moral assumption, but others do. Accusing me of not liking to pay for things? Profoundly ignorant of you; I've never said or suggested that was my motivation for objecting to copyright laws. I'm not using a vague feel-goo
as long as you cite it and you do it sparingly.
If you're using it as a reference, yes- but if your study is on a single work, as the studies I mentioned were, then you have to quote extensively, hence the chilling effect on study. See also cryptographic research, DRM, and lawsuits to prevent publishing results.
I know of no moral framework that encourages the breaking of laws simply because they are inconvenient.
I like how you minimized the entirety of my concerns to "inconvenience." I'd explain more about why this isn't an issue of convenience, but see the following point.
indicate beating your wife, mutilating your children, or killing certain people is morally acceptable.
Right. Like killing Jews, women, and children. That's never been the laws of any government, elected or not, in history. No, I'm not trying to Godwin you, I'm just pointing out that if your argument against religion as a moral basis and- as it seems to be- for the state is that religions have done naughty things, you shoot your own argument down. Because everyone's been naughty. This is why I won't bother to address the point above- there are some very substantial religious concerns about copyright, but since you feel it's appropriate to trot out a tired Hitchens argument against religion, obviously harm to religion won't be a sufficient argument for you. While I greatly suspect the problems facing theologians are similar to ones facing artists, I only have understanding of the religious issues, so I can't offer you any other argument.
Last I checked, American companies don't get a vote in Canadian elections, and don't get to vote on Canadian legislation.
Right, and major defense contractors in the USA can't influence congressional spending bills.
If you are going to continue under the erroneous belief that you can break the law with impunity simply because you don't approve of it,
In what circumstance is "don't approve of it" insufficient? Jefferson seemed to object to some British problems, and he rebelled because of it. You minimize other people's motives for moral lawbreaking as trivial, and you seem to assert that their moral reasons can't possibly be valid, because you don't think they are. You haven't explained why cultural impoverishment is trivial. You haven't explained why your dragging religion in as a whipping boy is any more apropos than my mentioning the personhood of Time Warner. Why are your standards for what constitutes an unconscionably bad law better than mine, exactly?
And to clarify, I mentioned Time Warner because it's an immortal, sociopathic, legal person. The implications of that for cultural heritage should be pretty obvious.
I can read a book that has 100 years left to it's copyright and still use it.
You can gain the information from any book you can acquire; the issue is whether you can acquire the book, and whether you can use the information in a useful way. How often do you see Mickey Mouse, the cultural icon, in any context in which the Disney Corporation does not own? How many books do you have that were printed in 1953, saw a limited run, have a high value for a small number of people, and are still freely accessible despite the lack of monetizability to match high technical, academic, or cultural value?
I can even quote sections verbatim or in summary as long as I provide appropriate citation.
No, you can't. Even academically, there are limits on how much of a work you can quote- in fact, there are several useful media studies that have not been done because they would have required quoting substantial portions of copyrighted work. The chilling effect of copyright law on culture and learning isn't a theory.
Feeling that taxes are too high does not make tax evasion morally acceptable.
Um. I realize it's the 5th instead of the 4th right now, and I realize that it wasn't the whole issue of the Revolution, and I realize there's a difference between "taxed too much" and "taxed without representation," but I'm pretty sure there's a passage in the American Declaration of Independence that asserts it is, in fact, morally acceptable to refuse to pay onerous taxes. As I understand it the issue was that taxation without representation caused taxes to become to high, which is what brought the issue to people's attention... but regardless of the details, I disagree; it can be moral to "evade" taxes when taxes are too high.
If you don't like it, then you can work to change it.
And so can- in Canada, right now, for example- the CRIA and major American record labels, whose financial and political pressure have had such a significant impact on our law-making process that a bill currently under discussion includes protection for DRM, despite both the Ministries of Culture and Industry having completed studies that suggest it's a bad idea, and despite a firm, clearly expressed opinion of Canadian citizens against DRM, in a recent consultation the government made, soliciting comments- which the new, CRIA-influenced bill ignores entirely.
Simply because breaking the law is easy, and the law is oppressive in your opinion, does not grant you the moral prerogative to break the law with impunity.
Actually, it does. Depending on the law, of course; one that made crossing the street painfully difficult isn't necessarily one I'd ignore for convenience, but I'd ignore it to save a life. And, to be more pointed about it, an oppressive law by its nature grants citizens the moral right to break it. Law is not the origin of moral behaviour or good citizenship or life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I don't want to get offensive, but how arrogant are you that you feel your opinion trumps the decisions of the SCOTUS on this issue.
Well, for one thing, I'm Canadian, not American, so I guess I'm at best only half as arrogant as you thought I was. :P I'm not a legal scholar, and I'm not talking about the legality of copyright, I'm talking about the utility and morality of it. I don't give a damn for what your courts say, and I'm fairly pissed that your corporations are trying to buy laws in my country. Who's arrogant?
the copyright holder [of Happy Birthday], who happens to be Time Warner.
Time Warner is not a person. Time Warner is incapable of creativity. Time Warner did not write the song. The people who did write the song are long dead, and copied the tune in the first place. Restaurants cannot have staff sing a 150-year-old cultural song of celebration because a legal fiction masquerading as a person in courts will sue them if they don't pay for it. This is not a hassle, this is insanity!
So please explain exactly what ideas has he failed to pay for?
The idea of musical notation. The idea of (dunno if he uses any of these, but;) rondo, ternary, variational, and sonata forms. The idea of flutes as an instrument. The idea of paper, ink, and binding. The idea of harmony. The idea of the entire body of musical theory in human history; what he paid for in school was access to knowledgeable and skilled teachers, and certification that he had learned, not the information itself.
Not saying the guy doesn't deserve to be paid for his work, but his creative contribution is insignificant compared to the cultural borrowing he did. I'm pretty sure he realizes all of this, too.
Two things;
Most of the greatest works of mankind, whether scientific or literary, are freely available, because they were created before Mickey. While it's not right to say that anyone who uses any existing cultural artifact in their work shouldn't profit from it, it's equally wrong to suggest that every work is entirely the author's own and they're justified in locking other people out of using their work in exactly the same way they used others'. I get that you think copyright lasts too long- but I think that excessive duration of copyright does make copyright violation morally acceptable. James Joyce and Walt Disney are dead, man. Their work is removed from the well they drew from, and held back from returning. It's not only culturally self-destructive, it creatively impoverishes a planet's worth of other artists, writers, filmmakers, etc., and in so doing does harm the the whole culture. If this isn't a moral issue regarding creativity, what is?
2: Fair use of works is only a useful provision of law if copyright holders don't have the ability to blanket any use of their work (legal/fair use or not) in DMCA notices and attack lawyers. It's not just the duration of copyright, but the depth of application; it costs 10 grand to clear an independent film of copyright issues. Using any post-'25 work in new work invites financial disaster, whether or not it's legally defensible.
Hey man, as a consumer of media, thanks for being okay with your fans sharing stuff. You want to post a link to some of those pieces, maybe?
Except that the laws protecting DRM are draconic and independent of the laws protecting copyright. In other words, a work released under a CC license, or old enough to be out of the public domain, released on, say, the Kindle, is legally free to share; either copyright doesn't protect it or the author has given explicit permission to share. But because DRM locks are protected by law, this freely shareable work cannot be shared without breaking the (DRM) law. Now, this ignores the fact that an author can release a copy on the net as well as Kindle (see Doctorow, Baen), and the fact that if it's out of copyright it's likely available on Gutenberg Press, but I think it's still important to draw the distinction between "illegal to copy because the author asserts copyright" and "illegal to copy because the delivery platform is sacrosanct."
I personally do a lot of media sharing; Daniel Bautista's guitar rock, freely available on Jamendo.com, for example, or CC-licensed books from Doctorow, or linking people to Baen's free online SF library. I don't think there's a practical barrier to sharing stuff that authors want shared- but you and I are technically savvy. There are a lot of people for whom iTunes is the only music delivery system or Kindle is the only digital book delivery system; these people, with copies of work by Ringo or Doctorow, may be aware that it's legal to share those pieces, but are legally constrained from doing so; it's nearly impossible for them to share music legally amongst their own friends and family. You could dismiss them because they "just don't know how to do it," but these people represent the vast majority of media consumers; if they don't know how to do something they can do because lobbyists bought a law that makes it harder for them, something is wrong.
Best analogy I've ever heard for both relationships.
No "Conservative" ever gets to talk about adscam ever again.
I am so glad I quit being a Conservative years back, when they promised to never ever ever ever tax income trusts. And then they did, about 6 months after the elections, and my eyes were opened, and I said "Oh. All politicians are lying, cheating bastards." So when MP James Moore, a Conservative, decided to deride copyright reformers as "radical extremists" who "don't have any interest in reforming copyright" and have "babyish views" of it, I wasn't surprised any more than when other Conservatives decided to spend a billion dollars on G20 security.
My point is, every single person in office can be expected to be a lying, cheating bastard. So I think you're right; no Tory gets to complain about adscam or Liberal waste as the height of calumny. They've treated their term in office like it was a race to outspend and outlie the Liberals, and despite the difficulty of the goal, they've achieved it. By the same token, however, the Liberals, who set the bar for the Tories to pass, don't get to complain about this, either. The Bloc Quebecois, who spend all their time extorting similar volumes of cash from the rest of Canada by threatening to disrupt the ruling party's voter base, don't get to complain about it. No party has any right to complain about other parties' wasteful spending, because every party spends criminally while in power. So if one party's crimes prevent them from complaining about another party's crimes, Parliament Hill would get really quiet.
I think, instead, maybe we ought to object to wasteful government spending no matter what party we object to, belong to, or support. I think we ought to object to wasteful spending because it harms Canadians, and not to score points for our favoured party. So I decry the Conservatives spending $1B, and I decry the Conservatives for implementing the GST in the Mulrouney years, and I decry the Liberals for implementing the NEP that destroyed two provinces' economies for a decade, and I decry the Liberals for adscam. There's plenty of blame to go around and no reason to single out a certain party's sins, or assume the other parties are any better.
That depends on the delivery and licensing. DeVry uses MyScribe, a flaming piece of garbage proprietary locked-down pdf reader that renders agonizingly slowly and won't print, convert, or export, then charges online/correspondence students the usual $80+ per textbook. But the student doesn't have the option of not buying the full-price new edition, even when older editions would do fine, and if they want a paper copy they have to buy it as well rather than instead of, or as a backup of, the digital copy. MyScribe basically tries to treat the digital versions as identical in form to the paper versions, but with a bunch of DRM between the user and the text, which makes the books almost totally useless.
I know, I know, DeVry isn't a real school, etc. But it's an example of how horrifically wrong "digital textbooks" can go if the wrong people make the decisions. DeVry would be a great example of "the wrong people," since they evidently also entered into a contract with MyScribe that requires them to force their students to use it.
I don't know, 5 or 10 minutes? I mean, assuming the export doesn't involve massive blobs or a crap network, with 15 tables a DBA should be able to optimize a query pretty well and query a minimal number of rows in each join. 2.5 hours sounds like it's triggering full-table scans per row. If your query takes longer than a backup, you're reading from disk too much.
I'm not saying RE is crap, just that their query builder doesn't optimize well. I haven't dealt with query builders hardly at all, so I don't know if that's a strike against them or expected.