Poor Jews always singled out as the bad guys. What a crock. What you are demonstrating is how if their actions are pointed to as bad then you will bitch and wine about how they are always singled out. They are given more slack than anybody.
Thanks for showing your true colors. Care to mention how those pesky kikes have all the money?
Most Germans were never Nazis.... The situation that led to the Nazis being able to take over was, in large part, created by the allies at the end of WWI.
Those poor, misunderstood Germans! Why, any reasonable people would have chosen Hitler under the same circumstances! And anyway, it's really all America, France, and England's fault for beating Germany in WWI. The allies made the Germans elect the Nazis, violate all military treaties, pass the Nuremberg Laws, take over half of Czechoslovakia, annex Austria, and invade Poland! Don't let those Germans lose another war, or who knows what minority they'll try to exterminate next!
I do not know what you mean by Judenrein, but who fucking cares what you call the burial place. The Jewish patriarchs are nothing special. If you are one of those "jews are god's chosen people" nutjobs, then the sickeningness of that attitude won't be apparent to you.
"Judenrein" means "Jew Free" in German. It was what the Nazis were trying to do to Europe, and what most Arab countries have succeeded in doing. And that is what Hebron will be when there is a Palestinian state.
The "nutjobs who say the Jews are the Chosen People" are called, well, Jews. The only branch of Judaism that rejects the notion of being Chosen People is the Reconstructionist branch, which is pretty small. So you're spewing a lot of hate at Jews there.
And Christians quite proudly proclaim that they are the new Chosen People, after the Jews rejected Jesus. So why is it OK for Christians to be Chosen, but not Jews? Oh, right. Bigotry.
These two statements are inconsistent. If there is *any* difference between government policy regarding jewish and non jewish citizens, then discrimination *is* state policy.
You know what's even worse than Israel? You can't even LIVE in Vatican City if you aren't a Catholic. Those bastards!
The basic point I was trying to make which you are illustrating brilliantly is that the typical Iraeli zealot approach is to ignore any bad actions of Israel and to point to unrelated wrongs commited by others and accuse the person of *not* having a problem with that even though that is *not* what is being discussed. I am morally outraged by a lot of things in the modern world. Because I discuss one thing which isn't even a "moral outrage" to me, just pointing out an inconsistency, I am attacking jews.
No, I'd say that when you say that Jews get all the breaks, then I think you're attacking Jews.
The "Israeli Zealot" approach is due to the fact that no one EVER, and I mean, EVER complains about any of these actions by other countries. Do you think that if an observant Hindu was taking part in an "Ask Slashdot", people would ask him leading questions about Kashmir or the current religious riots in NW India (more than 1,000 Muslims killed since February, 100,000 refugees)? Do you see people taking to the streets to protest these attacks, calling all Hindus Nazis? Do you see Muslims attacking Hindus on college campuses world-wide? Of course not. Why is that? The silence from the world is deafening. I would have no problem with criticism of Israel if there was similar treatment of other countries. But there isn't.
I apologize for my mistake. That's what I get for not doing enough research. Thanks for the correction.
But my point stands. Substitute "Firbolgs" or "Sidhe" for "Picts" and you have a valid comparison. The Irish of today aren't the first people ever to set foot on the island. Yet no one questions their ties to Ireland. Meanwhile, idiots world-wide actually believe Arafat (born and raised in Cairo, Egypt) when he says that the Palestinians are the direct descendants of Philistines and therefore should have all of "Palestine" for themselves.
You clearly state that people who fled a war zone had their land stolen.
This is standard practice, world-wide. You support the losing side in a war and leave your land, you lose your land. Nowhere else in the world is this referred to as "stealing land." Once again, Jews are singled out for a behavior engaged in by all people. That's bigoted.
It was formed as a "Jewish State", which is a blatantly racist thing.
Racism has nothing to do with it. There are Jews of every color. Ethiopian Jews are black. The Cochin Jews from India are (shockingly enough) Indian. Jews from Arab countries look like Arabs. China had a Jewish community until the 1930's, and you can still find people in China who look, well, Chinese, and claim descent from the Chinese Jews.
Anyone who is Jewish can become a citizen of Israel automatically. And anyone can convert to Judaism. Non-Jews can live in Israel and get citizenship; it's just not automatic. Compare this to Germany, for example. There are ethnic Turks whose families have been in Germany for two or three generations, yet they aren't citizens. Got any moral outrage left over for that?
Meanwhile, 400,000-600,000 Jews were thrown out of Arab countries after Israel became independant. Is this "racist" (to use your entirely poor word choice)? Where is your outrage? Oh, I forgot; only Jews deserve to be the targets of outrage.
And do you think the eventualy state of Palestine will be welcoming to Jews? Hebron had a Jewish population for about 3000 years, until 1929. In 1968, a few families moved back. The 400 or so Jews living there will almost certainly be removed in any final peace deal. Is it morally correct, oh he who sits in judgement of us all, that the supposed burial place of the Jewish patriarchs will be Judenrein?
So what about those Arabs who never left and didn't fight on the side of the attackers? They certainly do not have equal rights in the country.
They certainly do. Non-Jewish citizens of Israel have voting rights, free speech rights, social services, etc. There are about 10 Arabs in the Kenesset. There is an Arab on the Israeli Supreme Court. The only "restriction" is that Arabs are not automatically drafted into the Israeli army (neither are religious Jews). Many Druze and Bedoin still serve, though.
That said, is there discrimination in Israel? Yes. Jews are, contrary to popular belief in Europe and Muslim countries, people. Just like every place in the world, there is discrimination. But it's not state policy, and the courts have repeatedly slapped down people who are caught discriminating.
The weapons were, in fact, German. German does not equal "Nazi".
Horseshit. In 2002, calling a German a Nazi is a slur. In the 1940's, it was accurate. The planes, guns, etc. used by the Jews to defend Israel were built, designed, and intended for use by the Nazi party.
The right to found a country was given. The ability to defend it wasn't.
The only reason any country exists is due to the people defending its existance. So according to you, the UN gave Israel, well, nothing. Which is a good deal better than what Israel has gotten from the UN since.
My facts are not the least bit skewed. I am very well aware of the history of the region.
Your little history lesson is completely orthogonal to my statements.
No, you made claimed twice that Jews were just GIVEN other people's land in 1948. This is factually false. Jews bought the land in Palestine. Jews bought the weapons (ironically enough, much of it Nazi) to defend themselves when they were attacked. In fact, the oh-so-useful UN stood back and did nothing to protect or help the Jews when the Arabs attacked after rejecting the UN partition plan. So, no, nothing was given.
Especially since in your example, the Jews are the Picts, not the current Irish.
No, the Picts are the original Canaanites, the Jews and the Irish are both a people who came along later, wiped out the original inhabitants, and took the land for their homeland.
Glad you're not condemning, but you've got some seriously skewed facts going on there.
The return of the Jews to Israel is a bit of a misnomer, as there had always been some Jews who never left. When the first waves of European Jews started to arrive in the 1880's, the population of Palestine was roughly 5% of its current level; it was pretty empty. The Jews who arrived bought the land at often outrageous prices. No one was giving anyone anything.
As Jewish migration increased, two things happened. One, Arabs from neighboring areas moved to work in the factories, farms, and businesses opened by the Jewish settlers. The other was the rise of Arab nationalism in the region. This led to attacks on the Jewish settlers, including the pogrom in Hebron in 1929, driving out a Jewish community that had lived there since biblical times. Jews formed terror groups of their own to strike back at the Arabs (and at the British, who started imposing limits on the number of Jews who could legally enter Palestine in order to placate the Arabs).
As violence raged, the only solution seemed to be separation: split the land into two countries. When the UN proposed the partition, Jews accepted it, Arabs didn't, and the armies of 5 Arab countries attacked the Jews. The leaders of those countries told the Arabs living in Palestine to leave temporarily, so the armies wouldn't kill them by accident. Problem was that the Jews won, and Arabs who fled weren't allowed to return.
So, the Jews bought their land, the Arabs (who now call themselves Palestinians, even though many of them were at best first-generations of the land) fled from the land on the bad advice of corrupt dictators, and Jew Haters worldwide have found a way to blame Jews for something done by someone else.
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince tried your system (subscription for an album). It failed for him, I think. At least, I never heard about an album actually being released.
And society does value authoring books. That was the reason for the creation of copyright in the first place. It's been a pretty workable system for a few hundred years, and it's probably here to stay. The abuses need to be curbed (the virtually perpetual copyright is clearly out of bounds, and corporations probably shouldn't be able to hold copyrights), but the existence of abuses in a system doesn't mean the system is worthless, just that it is not perfect. Fix rather than throw out is usually the best course of action.
I believe by "ancestral homeland" you mean the land that they commited genocide on the previous occupants of to steal because their god told them to.
As opposed to every other people on the planet, who were crafted out of mud by their gods in the exact spot they happen to inhabit, right?
Your post is flamebait and a racist accusation, as it specifically condemns Jews for a practice engaged in by everyone, everywhere, at every time. Israel is as much the ancestral homeland of the Jews as Ireland is the ancestral homeland of the Irish, wiping out of the Picts notwithstanding. And what percentage of the people living in the Western Hemisphere are actually descendants of the pre-1492 Indians? (and what happened to the peoples who were wiped out by the pre-1492 Indians?)
1. All "rights" are human constructs. Ask a drowning man about his "right to life." Just because copyright is a human construct doesn't weaken it any more than it weakens any other right.
2. A record label owns the music created by an artist because the artist signs away those rights; they gave them away.
3. Holding the copyright on the latest drek from J.Lo or N*Sync is hardly comparable to dumping toxic waste in the water supply. If anything, it's holding toxic waste back. (ba-dum-bump).
4. Some other genius is arguing that copyright should just go away. Fine. Find a way to compensate artists without it.
I'm sure Stephen King could get 10,000 people to each pay $10 for him to write his next novel.
He tried, he failed. King tried to do a book "shareware" over the web. Pay by the chapter. Way too few people did, so he stopped. If Stephen King can't sell a book this way, who could?
How is King going to afford the printing press? Where are his production costs in your $100,000 figure? Who would give him a loan to do a production run, knowing that the only collateral he has (the book) is worthless?
Any why would people buy the book from King? Why not go to someone who already bought the book and copy it from that person for less money (because they're rich, already own their own printing press, so their costs are lower)?
Saying "well, some sort of compensation will probably happen" isn't a solution, it's hand-waving. Provide a concrete solution that prevents exploitation of content creators in a copyright-free system.
You mean that a country founded by people returning to their ancestral homeland after being persecuted world-wide for the past 2,000 years wants to make sure that they aren't going to be a persecuted minority in their own homeland?
Shocking, simply shocking. In tomorrow's question, we're going to wonder why American Indians don't trust the US Government.
You're implying that there's no difference between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
One of those countries is democratic, socialist-capitalist, with freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, religious freedom, and a vibrant educational system. A Budweiser-esque beer called Macabee is available for purchase.
The other is a theocratic, klepto-dictatorship with full censorship over the press and internet, where women are forbidden to drive, beaten if they go out in public with sufficient coverings, forbids any sort of religious minority from existing, and graduates more students in religious studies than engineering. Oh, and possessing beer will get you 50 lashes in the public square.
"Religion answers the question "Why" and science answers the question "How". A poor mind confuses these questions, but most people can't outthink a grapefruit."
I also believe that when and if copyright laws are repealed (along with the notion that sentences can be owned), companies like napster which helped form the underground resistance against copyright law will be looked upon as revolutionaries, not criminals.
OK, I think you are missing a very, very, very huge point here.
An artist's record label is acting as an agent for the artist.
Let's take your ideas to heart. Poof! No more copyright! Take a book by your favorite author. Now, once that author inks a deal to publish his book, ANY other publisher in NonCopyrightLand can go to the store, buy the book, and then sell their own copies of the book. No money goes to the original publisher, but more importantly, no money goes to the author.
But wait, it gets worse. Since every publisher could just copy what every other publisher is printing, why would anyone bother to sign an artist to a contract? You've just removed all value from the creation of intellectual property. As soon as anyone releases any intellectual property of value, it will be sold by people who will not reimburse the original creator.
The author's sentences aren't owned by the author, but they are going to enrich the guy who had the money to own a large printing press and distribution network. Meanwhile, what did the author get for his work? Nothing. How can the author spend time creating works of art if he never gets compensated for his work? He can't, unless he's got someone to support him. Do you want to have guaranteed welfare for life for anyone who says they are an artist? Hell, if that's the case, I'm picking up a guitar and waiting for my check to arrive. So will everyone else.
See how these nice, lofty goals just end up screwing the little guy while enriching the already rich?
Now, if you think that it's OK for the rich industrialist to screw the poor artist, that's fine. But I don't think you do. As long as there is money to be made in distribution and promotion (especially promotion!) of intellectual property, abolishing copyright isn't going to work.
I don't think you are paying attention to Napster's goals.
Sharing music FOR FREE is one thing. Napster was going to charge for their service; they just didn't survive to make it to the "pay me" bit. If I put an ad in a newspaper "Send me a blank CD and $5, and I'll copy any album for you", I would be (quite rightfully) shut down. I am violating copyright.
Now, do I think record companies are being short-sighted? Yup. But it's their property, they can do whatever they want with it.
I'm not attacking. I just want a source for your opinion. If you don't have one, then the opinion is invalid. Any resulting discussion is going to be highly pointless.
As for Napster and copyright, you said:
Napster is not about stealing. It's about the freedom to do whatever I want with the CD that I legally purchased.
See, that's not quite true when it comes to replication and distribution. Let's look at the word "copyright." It refers to (and this shouldn't be a shock) the right to make a copy of something. The holder of the copyright is the one who gets to determine who can make copies and distribute them. The government, which grants the copyright, has codified a "fair use" principle from common law that puts some limits on absolute control of material by the copyright holder, but that's it. You don't get a say.
If you want things to be different, petition your government to change its copyright laws and/or buy stock in the corporation whose policies towards copyrighted materials you find objectionable.
And it's not a tax. It's a restriction from a corporation. There's a huge difference.
And for those who make a living due to intellectual property, it's quite a real concept. If you create nothing of value, or if you are living off the wealth created by someone else, then you will place no value in intellectual property.
Yes, Hancock was a smuggler. But most of his money came from inheritance, not smuggling.
Furthermore, it wasn't just a two-thirds reduction in the drinking of tea from the East India Co., it was a reduction in the drinking of tea in general. So, tea smuggling wasn't the best business to be in at that point.
And let's be clear as to why people were smuggling tea in the first place. It came down to taxation without representation. England imposed taxes on tea in the colonies, because the colonists had no choice. The RIAA isn't a governmental organization imposing taxes. It is a corporation.
If you want to change corporate policy, start buying stock in the companies that make up the RIAA. When you can put together a large voting bloc, you can start to change their behavior. See, you have more opportunity to control RIAA behavior than the colonists had in 1776 to control their taxes. Funny, that.
Explain exactly how the Boston Tea Party was about profit.
The people who dumped the tea weren't other tea merchants who weren't getting discounts on tea from the British. They were members of the Sons of Liberty.
Tea wasn't a great thing to sell at the time, as there was a boycott going on that had reduced the consumption of tea in the Colonies by 2/3rds.
You can read up more at http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/teaparty/bostonxx.ht m or http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle/bostonte aparty-edenton.html
So, give a source for your opinion. Or get off the soapbox.
Just because it was a crappy, underpants gnome-esque business model doesn't invalidate my point.
Napster didn't exist for the Great Unwashed to get music cheap or to free Courtney Love from Universal. It was planning on morphing into a for-pay service using the same stupid business model as every other dot-com: get eyeballs, then charge a price when it seems that people can't live without it. The difference between Napster and, say, Pets.com was that Napster was quite rightfully sued out of existence before they ran out of money.
And the difference between all of these things and Napster?
Profit.
Napster's business model was based on stealing. Let me repeat that one more time, just in case you didn't get the point. Napster's business model was based on stealing.
While it's likely that some of the people on the Underground Railroad were in it for the money, helping slaves isn't usually a prime source of income. You'd think turning water into wine would be a money-maker, but Jesus wasn't trying to undercut Manishewitz. And the Boston Tea Party/American Revolution? Becoming independent nearly bankrupted the colonies/states (and many of the Founding Fathers did indeed die broke). Ever heard that popular expression from the 1790's "not worth a Continental?"
Napster deserved to go under. It's a shame that BMG has rescued them. Personally, I think it shows that BMG is either pretty stupid (as there is nothing in Napster's technology that couldn't be replicated in a matter of weeks by a competent programmer) or that they have a LOT of money to throw around.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for showing your true colors. Care to mention how those pesky kikes have all the money?
Most Germans were never Nazis. ... The situation that led to the Nazis being able to take over was, in large part, created by the allies at the end of WWI.
Those poor, misunderstood Germans! Why, any reasonable people would have chosen Hitler under the same circumstances! And anyway, it's really all America, France, and England's fault for beating Germany in WWI. The allies made the Germans elect the Nazis, violate all military treaties, pass the Nuremberg Laws, take over half of Czechoslovakia, annex Austria, and invade Poland! Don't let those Germans lose another war, or who knows what minority they'll try to exterminate next!
I do not know what you mean by Judenrein, but who fucking cares what you call the burial place. The Jewish patriarchs are nothing special. If you are one of those "jews are god's chosen people" nutjobs, then the sickeningness of that attitude won't be apparent to you.
"Judenrein" means "Jew Free" in German. It was what the Nazis were trying to do to Europe, and what most Arab countries have succeeded in doing. And that is what Hebron will be when there is a Palestinian state.
The "nutjobs who say the Jews are the Chosen People" are called, well, Jews. The only branch of Judaism that rejects the notion of being Chosen People is the Reconstructionist branch, which is pretty small. So you're spewing a lot of hate at Jews there.
And Christians quite proudly proclaim that they are the new Chosen People, after the Jews rejected Jesus. So why is it OK for Christians to be Chosen, but not Jews? Oh, right. Bigotry.
These two statements are inconsistent. If there is *any* difference between government policy regarding jewish and non jewish citizens, then discrimination *is* state policy.
You know what's even worse than Israel? You can't even LIVE in Vatican City if you aren't a Catholic. Those bastards!
The basic point I was trying to make which you are illustrating brilliantly is that the typical Iraeli zealot approach is to ignore any bad actions of Israel and to point to unrelated wrongs commited by others and accuse the person of *not* having a problem with that even though that is *not* what is being discussed. I am morally outraged by a lot of things in the modern world. Because I discuss one thing which isn't even a "moral outrage" to me, just pointing out an inconsistency, I am attacking jews.
No, I'd say that when you say that Jews get all the breaks, then I think you're attacking Jews.
The "Israeli Zealot" approach is due to the fact that no one EVER, and I mean, EVER complains about any of these actions by other countries. Do you think that if an observant Hindu was taking part in an "Ask Slashdot", people would ask him leading questions about Kashmir or the current religious riots in NW India (more than 1,000 Muslims killed since February, 100,000 refugees)? Do you see people taking to the streets to protest these attacks, calling all Hindus Nazis? Do you see Muslims attacking Hindus on college campuses world-wide? Of course not. Why is that? The silence from the world is deafening. I would have no problem with criticism of Israel if there was similar treatment of other countries. But there isn't.
-jon
But my point stands. Substitute "Firbolgs" or "Sidhe" for "Picts" and you have a valid comparison. The Irish of today aren't the first people ever to set foot on the island. Yet no one questions their ties to Ireland. Meanwhile, idiots world-wide actually believe Arafat (born and raised in Cairo, Egypt) when he says that the Palestinians are the direct descendants of Philistines and therefore should have all of "Palestine" for themselves.
-jon
This is standard practice, world-wide. You support the losing side in a war and leave your land, you lose your land. Nowhere else in the world is this referred to as "stealing land." Once again, Jews are singled out for a behavior engaged in by all people. That's bigoted.
It was formed as a "Jewish State", which is a blatantly racist thing.
Racism has nothing to do with it. There are Jews of every color. Ethiopian Jews are black. The Cochin Jews from India are (shockingly enough) Indian. Jews from Arab countries look like Arabs. China had a Jewish community until the 1930's, and you can still find people in China who look, well, Chinese, and claim descent from the Chinese Jews.
Anyone who is Jewish can become a citizen of Israel automatically. And anyone can convert to Judaism. Non-Jews can live in Israel and get citizenship; it's just not automatic. Compare this to Germany, for example. There are ethnic Turks whose families have been in Germany for two or three generations, yet they aren't citizens. Got any moral outrage left over for that?
Meanwhile, 400,000-600,000 Jews were thrown out of Arab countries after Israel became independant. Is this "racist" (to use your entirely poor word choice)? Where is your outrage? Oh, I forgot; only Jews deserve to be the targets of outrage.
And do you think the eventualy state of Palestine will be welcoming to Jews? Hebron had a Jewish population for about 3000 years, until 1929. In 1968, a few families moved back. The 400 or so Jews living there will almost certainly be removed in any final peace deal. Is it morally correct, oh he who sits in judgement of us all, that the supposed burial place of the Jewish patriarchs will be Judenrein?
So what about those Arabs who never left and didn't fight on the side of the attackers? They certainly do not have equal rights in the country.
They certainly do. Non-Jewish citizens of Israel have voting rights, free speech rights, social services, etc. There are about 10 Arabs in the Kenesset. There is an Arab on the Israeli Supreme Court. The only "restriction" is that Arabs are not automatically drafted into the Israeli army (neither are religious Jews). Many Druze and Bedoin still serve, though.
That said, is there discrimination in Israel? Yes. Jews are, contrary to popular belief in Europe and Muslim countries, people. Just like every place in the world, there is discrimination. But it's not state policy, and the courts have repeatedly slapped down people who are caught discriminating.
The weapons were, in fact, German. German does not equal "Nazi".
Horseshit. In 2002, calling a German a Nazi is a slur. In the 1940's, it was accurate. The planes, guns, etc. used by the Jews to defend Israel were built, designed, and intended for use by the Nazi party.
The right to found a country was given. The ability to defend it wasn't.
The only reason any country exists is due to the people defending its existance. So according to you, the UN gave Israel, well, nothing. Which is a good deal better than what Israel has gotten from the UN since.
-jon
No, you made claimed twice that Jews were just GIVEN other people's land in 1948. This is factually false. Jews bought the land in Palestine. Jews bought the weapons (ironically enough, much of it Nazi) to defend themselves when they were attacked. In fact, the oh-so-useful UN stood back and did nothing to protect or help the Jews when the Arabs attacked after rejecting the UN partition plan. So, no, nothing was given.
-jon
Especially since in your example, the Jews are the Picts, not the current Irish.
No, the Picts are the original Canaanites, the Jews and the Irish are both a people who came along later, wiped out the original inhabitants, and took the land for their homeland.
-jon
What, you're not an American Indian? Well, get the fuck off their land. You're just a cracker without a conscience.
-jon
The return of the Jews to Israel is a bit of a misnomer, as there had always been some Jews who never left. When the first waves of European Jews started to arrive in the 1880's, the population of Palestine was roughly 5% of its current level; it was pretty empty. The Jews who arrived bought the land at often outrageous prices. No one was giving anyone anything.
As Jewish migration increased, two things happened. One, Arabs from neighboring areas moved to work in the factories, farms, and businesses opened by the Jewish settlers. The other was the rise of Arab nationalism in the region. This led to attacks on the Jewish settlers, including the pogrom in Hebron in 1929, driving out a Jewish community that had lived there since biblical times. Jews formed terror groups of their own to strike back at the Arabs (and at the British, who started imposing limits on the number of Jews who could legally enter Palestine in order to placate the Arabs).
As violence raged, the only solution seemed to be separation: split the land into two countries. When the UN proposed the partition, Jews accepted it, Arabs didn't, and the armies of 5 Arab countries attacked the Jews. The leaders of those countries told the Arabs living in Palestine to leave temporarily, so the armies wouldn't kill them by accident. Problem was that the Jews won, and Arabs who fled weren't allowed to return.
So, the Jews bought their land, the Arabs (who now call themselves Palestinians, even though many of them were at best first-generations of the land) fled from the land on the bad advice of corrupt dictators, and Jew Haters worldwide have found a way to blame Jews for something done by someone else.
You can thank me later for the lesson.
-jon
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince tried your system (subscription for an album). It failed for him, I think. At least, I never heard about an album actually being released.
And society does value authoring books. That was the reason for the creation of copyright in the first place. It's been a pretty workable system for a few hundred years, and it's probably here to stay. The abuses need to be curbed (the virtually perpetual copyright is clearly out of bounds, and corporations probably shouldn't be able to hold copyrights), but the existence of abuses in a system doesn't mean the system is worthless, just that it is not perfect. Fix rather than throw out is usually the best course of action.
-jon
As opposed to every other people on the planet, who were crafted out of mud by their gods in the exact spot they happen to inhabit, right?
Your post is flamebait and a racist accusation, as it specifically condemns Jews for a practice engaged in by everyone, everywhere, at every time. Israel is as much the ancestral homeland of the Jews as Ireland is the ancestral homeland of the Irish, wiping out of the Picts notwithstanding. And what percentage of the people living in the Western Hemisphere are actually descendants of the pre-1492 Indians? (and what happened to the peoples who were wiped out by the pre-1492 Indians?)
-jon
2. A record label owns the music created by an artist because the artist signs away those rights; they gave them away.
3. Holding the copyright on the latest drek from J.Lo or N*Sync is hardly comparable to dumping toxic waste in the water supply. If anything, it's holding toxic waste back. (ba-dum-bump).
4. Some other genius is arguing that copyright should just go away. Fine. Find a way to compensate artists without it.
-jon
He tried, he failed. King tried to do a book "shareware" over the web. Pay by the chapter. Way too few people did, so he stopped. If Stephen King can't sell a book this way, who could?
How is King going to afford the printing press? Where are his production costs in your $100,000 figure? Who would give him a loan to do a production run, knowing that the only collateral he has (the book) is worthless?
Any why would people buy the book from King? Why not go to someone who already bought the book and copy it from that person for less money (because they're rich, already own their own printing press, so their costs are lower)?
Saying "well, some sort of compensation will probably happen" isn't a solution, it's hand-waving. Provide a concrete solution that prevents exploitation of content creators in a copyright-free system.
-jon
What do you think about blowing up 14-year old girls at a disco?
What do you think about blowing up people as they sit down to a religious meal?
What do you think about people who dig up bodies of dead people to fake a massacre?
What do you think about people who fake video footage of bodies being carried away in order to fake a massacre?
Oh, and why is 53 dead in Jenin (20 or so of them civilians) a massacre, and 25,000 dead in Hama, Syria forgotten history?
-jon
Shocking, simply shocking. In tomorrow's question, we're going to wonder why American Indians don't trust the US Government.
-jon
One of those countries is democratic, socialist-capitalist, with freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, religious freedom, and a vibrant educational system. A Budweiser-esque beer called Macabee is available for purchase.
The other is a theocratic, klepto-dictatorship with full censorship over the press and internet, where women are forbidden to drive, beaten if they go out in public with sufficient coverings, forbids any sort of religious minority from existing, and graduates more students in religious studies than engineering. Oh, and possessing beer will get you 50 lashes in the public square.
Please tell me if you can't see a difference.
-jon
"Religion answers the question "Why" and science answers the question "How". A poor mind confuses these questions, but most people can't outthink a grapefruit."
-jon
It is presumed that God enjoyed creating the world; it wasn't "work." But yet He took a break from creating.
A writer who loves to write or a painter who loves to paint would still be rejoined from partaking in their craft. And so would a kernel hacker.
-jon
The Haddath (sayings of the Prophet) would be closer in spirit to the Talmud.
-jon
OK, I think you are missing a very, very, very huge point here.
An artist's record label is acting as an agent for the artist.
Let's take your ideas to heart. Poof! No more copyright! Take a book by your favorite author. Now, once that author inks a deal to publish his book, ANY other publisher in NonCopyrightLand can go to the store, buy the book, and then sell their own copies of the book. No money goes to the original publisher, but more importantly, no money goes to the author.
But wait, it gets worse. Since every publisher could just copy what every other publisher is printing, why would anyone bother to sign an artist to a contract? You've just removed all value from the creation of intellectual property. As soon as anyone releases any intellectual property of value, it will be sold by people who will not reimburse the original creator.
The author's sentences aren't owned by the author, but they are going to enrich the guy who had the money to own a large printing press and distribution network. Meanwhile, what did the author get for his work? Nothing. How can the author spend time creating works of art if he never gets compensated for his work? He can't, unless he's got someone to support him. Do you want to have guaranteed welfare for life for anyone who says they are an artist? Hell, if that's the case, I'm picking up a guitar and waiting for my check to arrive. So will everyone else.
See how these nice, lofty goals just end up screwing the little guy while enriching the already rich?
Now, if you think that it's OK for the rich industrialist to screw the poor artist, that's fine. But I don't think you do. As long as there is money to be made in distribution and promotion (especially promotion!) of intellectual property, abolishing copyright isn't going to work.
-jon
Sharing music FOR FREE is one thing. Napster was going to charge for their service; they just didn't survive to make it to the "pay me" bit. If I put an ad in a newspaper "Send me a blank CD and $5, and I'll copy any album for you", I would be (quite rightfully) shut down. I am violating copyright.
Now, do I think record companies are being short-sighted? Yup. But it's their property, they can do whatever they want with it.
-jon
As for Napster and copyright, you said:
Napster is not about stealing. It's about the freedom to do whatever I want with the CD that I legally purchased.
See, that's not quite true when it comes to replication and distribution. Let's look at the word "copyright." It refers to (and this shouldn't be a shock) the right to make a copy of something. The holder of the copyright is the one who gets to determine who can make copies and distribute them. The government, which grants the copyright, has codified a "fair use" principle from common law that puts some limits on absolute control of material by the copyright holder, but that's it. You don't get a say.
If you want things to be different, petition your government to change its copyright laws and/or buy stock in the corporation whose policies towards copyrighted materials you find objectionable.
And it's not a tax. It's a restriction from a corporation. There's a huge difference.
And for those who make a living due to intellectual property, it's quite a real concept. If you create nothing of value, or if you are living off the wealth created by someone else, then you will place no value in intellectual property.
-jon
Furthermore, it wasn't just a two-thirds reduction in the drinking of tea from the East India Co., it was a reduction in the drinking of tea in general. So, tea smuggling wasn't the best business to be in at that point.
And let's be clear as to why people were smuggling tea in the first place. It came down to taxation without representation. England imposed taxes on tea in the colonies, because the colonists had no choice. The RIAA isn't a governmental organization imposing taxes. It is a corporation.
If you want to change corporate policy, start buying stock in the companies that make up the RIAA. When you can put together a large voting bloc, you can start to change their behavior. See, you have more opportunity to control RIAA behavior than the colonists had in 1776 to control their taxes. Funny, that.
-jon
The people who dumped the tea weren't other tea merchants who weren't getting discounts on tea from the British. They were members of the Sons of Liberty.
Tea wasn't a great thing to sell at the time, as there was a boycott going on that had reduced the consumption of tea in the Colonies by 2/3rds.
You can read up more at http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/teaparty/bostonxx.ht m or http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle/bostonte aparty-edenton.html
So, give a source for your opinion. Or get off the soapbox.
-jon
Napster didn't exist for the Great Unwashed to get music cheap or to free Courtney Love from Universal. It was planning on morphing into a for-pay service using the same stupid business model as every other dot-com: get eyeballs, then charge a price when it seems that people can't live without it. The difference between Napster and, say, Pets.com was that Napster was quite rightfully sued out of existence before they ran out of money.
-jon
Can we find a new joke to make for any "death of Napster/Gnutella/KaZaa/P2P" news?
-jon
Profit.
Napster's business model was based on stealing. Let me repeat that one more time, just in case you didn't get the point. Napster's business model was based on stealing.
While it's likely that some of the people on the Underground Railroad were in it for the money, helping slaves isn't usually a prime source of income. You'd think turning water into wine would be a money-maker, but Jesus wasn't trying to undercut Manishewitz. And the Boston Tea Party/American Revolution? Becoming independent nearly bankrupted the colonies/states (and many of the Founding Fathers did indeed die broke). Ever heard that popular expression from the 1790's "not worth a Continental?"
Napster deserved to go under. It's a shame that BMG has rescued them. Personally, I think it shows that BMG is either pretty stupid (as there is nothing in Napster's technology that couldn't be replicated in a matter of weeks by a competent programmer) or that they have a LOT of money to throw around.
-jon