One point here: "e-mail" isn't two words joined by a hyphen, it's a word and a letter joined by a hyphen. On those grounds, I'll start typing "email" when we also have the words "xray" and "uturn".
The oddest part of the agreement to me is that it bans plurals and posessives. So even if you write a positive review, you have to use circumlocutions like "The programmers of Apogee" and "More than one Duke Nukem."
It seems to me that there is a philosphy of license-writing that tries to make sure that everyone violates the license in one way or another, so they can send the subpoenas out to anyone that sufficiently pisses them off.
I'm looking to make content designed for the Web available via wireless devices. What's my best bet to reach the widest audience? WAP? HDML? Simplified HTML? Don't bother making different documents for wireless, just let the devices and/or gateways do the translating?
I'm really not looking forward to going back to the Bad Old Days of Web content, with sites providing a different page for different user agents: "If you have a Nokia FR3000, click here. If you have a Motorola Web-Smacker compatible device, click here."
As the author of this piece, I hereby demand, upon pain of lawsuit, that Slashdot delete the above post, delete this thread, delete this article, delete all backups of all Slashdot data just to be safe, ban this "177" person from the site, personally spank anyone who moderated it up, and for God's sake wash your hands afterwards.
Nah, just kidding. But thanks to everyone who set the record straight as to the authorship of this little bit of absurdity.
I run a site that gets all income from ads, plus a few T-shirt sales. I like to sell ads. I like to get money from ads. I like to spend the money I get from ads on fun stuff like huge servers and tiny cel phones. And yet, with all that, it strikes me as unmitigated nonsense to claim that not viewing ads is stealing.
It's completely unsupportable to say that by reading my page, you've entered into some sort of contract, the terms of which are hidden from you and changed according to how I'd like to make money. Yes, if people turned off all ads, it would affect my income. It would also affect my income if people stopped buying the stupid crap they see in ads (like tiny cel phones, for instance), or if they didn't want to wear T-shirts with the name of my site on them, but I'd laughed off the net if I claimed that there was some sort of invisible contract that required you to buy a shirt after enjoying so many features.
Publishers of free content, myself included, are taking advantage of a series of coincidences, that's all; sometimes these coincidences verge in such a way that someone spends some money, and thousands of companies are designed to make this happenstance more likely. It's a sign of naivete (on the part of readers) and hubris (on the part of the aforementioned companies) to claim that this thin thread of chance constitutes some sort of fundamental right to not only make money, but to make money the way you're used to.
Anyhow, all this back-and-forth could be avoided by making the invisible contract visible. Just require readers to register and sign a contract stating that they will read all ads assiduously and consider them deeply. And then you can watch as the readers fail to beat a path to your virtual door. Sometimes chance is more effective than certainty.
So what happens if banner ads disappear?. I'd be sorely surprised to see the entire Web roll over and close up shop (to mix metaphors rather badly). The very fact that paid ads for free services exist is a tribute to the ability of those who want money to get it from those who have some to spare. And if the money isn't there? Personally, I'm insulted by those who claim that all art and entertainment would dissolve into wisps if they didn't pay big bucks (not that they do now, not on the Web at least). Do these people really think that I put up cartoons about masturbating Chinese food because of the favorable cost/benefit ratio? Sure, I have no problem making money from it, in the same sense that I'd have no problem with being paid to eat tri-tip sandwiches. But the reason I do it is because these things are in my brain and I take sick pleasure in making sure people know it. The same applies to any artist or entertainer worth the name.
This is an oversimplification. As far as I'm aware, there are no cases where "intent to cause harm" is the one and only test for legality of speech.
Libel and fraud aren't really good analogies for source code, anyway. I can imagine libelous comments and strings in source code, and libelous output from compiled source code, but an inherently libelous algorithm is tough to imagine.
At any rate, the most relevant sort of unprotected speech is speech that advocates lawless action. (Not specifically harmful, mind you, but lawless.) To be prohibited, this speech must not only be intended to cause the lawless action, but it must be likely to cause imminent lawless action.
I think that it's the "imminent" there that makes or breaks virus source code. Normally, I'm not prohibited from saying "bring me the head of Ed Begley, Jr." unless I'm speaking to someone who has the power to immediately go kill Ed Begley, Jr. and bring me his head.
Source code is interesting, however, in that it can transform itself into something that can perform the lawless act it's "advocating." That's something that even the Anarchist's Cookbook can't do. In a manner of speaking, it's like a gun with "bring me the head of Ed Begley, Jr." written on it. Or a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook packaged with the chemicals needed to make a powerful explosive. (At the same time, however, it's very different. That's what makes it so interesting.)
At any rate, I'm not going to do anything potentially useful here like predicting what's going to happen with cases like these. The question is too new and the cases too few to generalize. But I just wanted to clear up the "intent to harm" thing.
Slashdot Mirror
One point here: "e-mail" isn't two words joined by a hyphen, it's a word and a letter joined by a hyphen. On those grounds, I'll start typing "email" when we also have the words "xray" and "uturn".
That settles it, it's "e-mail".
On the other hand, this test gives us "donut" as the proper spelling of "doughnut," which is one battle I will never surrender.
I have a patent on "Claiming to Have One or More Ridiculous Patents In Order to Make an Ironic or Satirical Point."
So watch it.
The oddest part of the agreement to me is that it bans plurals and posessives. So even if you write a positive review, you have to use circumlocutions like "The programmers of Apogee" and "More than one Duke Nukem."
It seems to me that there is a philosphy of license-writing that tries to make sure that everyone violates the license in one way or another, so they can send the subpoenas out to anyone that sufficiently pisses them off.
I'm looking to make content designed for the Web available via wireless devices. What's my best bet to reach the widest audience? WAP? HDML? Simplified HTML? Don't bother making different documents for wireless, just let the devices and/or gateways do the translating?
I'm really not looking forward to going back to the Bad Old Days of Web content, with sites providing a different page for different user agents: "If you have a Nokia FR3000, click here. If you have a Motorola Web-Smacker compatible device, click here."
As the author of this piece, I hereby demand, upon pain of lawsuit, that Slashdot delete the above post, delete this thread, delete this article, delete all backups of all Slashdot data just to be safe, ban this "177" person from the site, personally spank anyone who moderated it up, and for God's sake wash your hands afterwards.
Nah, just kidding. But thanks to everyone who set the record straight as to the authorship of this little bit of absurdity.
I run a site that gets all income from ads, plus a few T-shirt sales. I like to sell ads. I like to get money from ads. I like to spend the money I get from ads on fun stuff like huge servers and tiny cel phones. And yet, with all that, it strikes me as unmitigated nonsense to claim that not viewing ads is stealing.
It's completely unsupportable to say that by reading my page, you've entered into some sort of contract, the terms of which are hidden from you and changed according to how I'd like to make money. Yes, if people turned off all ads, it would affect my income. It would also affect my income if people stopped buying the stupid crap they see in ads (like tiny cel phones, for instance), or if they didn't want to wear T-shirts with the name of my site on them, but I'd laughed off the net if I claimed that there was some sort of invisible contract that required you to buy a shirt after enjoying so many features.
Publishers of free content, myself included, are taking advantage of a series of coincidences, that's all; sometimes these coincidences verge in such a way that someone spends some money, and thousands of companies are designed to make this happenstance more likely. It's a sign of naivete (on the part of readers) and hubris (on the part of the aforementioned companies) to claim that this thin thread of chance constitutes some sort of fundamental right to not only make money, but to make money the way you're used to.
Anyhow, all this back-and-forth could be avoided by making the invisible contract visible. Just require readers to register and sign a contract stating that they will read all ads assiduously and consider them deeply. And then you can watch as the readers fail to beat a path to your virtual door. Sometimes chance is more effective than certainty.
So what happens if banner ads disappear?. I'd be sorely surprised to see the entire Web roll over and close up shop (to mix metaphors rather badly). The very fact that paid ads for free services exist is a tribute to the ability of those who want money to get it from those who have some to spare. And if the money isn't there? Personally, I'm insulted by those who claim that all art and entertainment would dissolve into wisps if they didn't pay big bucks (not that they do now, not on the Web at least). Do these people really think that I put up cartoons about masturbating Chinese food because of the favorable cost/benefit ratio? Sure, I have no problem making money from it, in the same sense that I'd have no problem with being paid to eat tri-tip sandwiches. But the reason I do it is because these things are in my brain and I take sick pleasure in making sure people know it. The same applies to any artist or entertainer worth the name.
This is an oversimplification. As far as I'm aware, there are no cases where "intent to cause harm" is the one and only test for legality of speech.
Libel and fraud aren't really good analogies for source code, anyway. I can imagine libelous comments and strings in source code, and libelous output from compiled source code, but an inherently libelous algorithm is tough to imagine.
At any rate, the most relevant sort of unprotected speech is speech that advocates lawless action. (Not specifically harmful, mind you, but lawless.) To be prohibited, this speech must not only be intended to cause the lawless action, but it must be likely to cause imminent lawless action.
I think that it's the "imminent" there that makes or breaks virus source code. Normally, I'm not prohibited from saying "bring me the head of Ed Begley, Jr." unless I'm speaking to someone who has the power to immediately go kill Ed Begley, Jr. and bring me his head.
Source code is interesting, however, in that it can transform itself into something that can perform the lawless act it's "advocating." That's something that even the Anarchist's Cookbook can't do. In a manner of speaking, it's like a gun with "bring me the head of Ed Begley, Jr." written on it. Or a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook packaged with the chemicals needed to make a powerful explosive. (At the same time, however, it's very different. That's what makes it so interesting.)
At any rate, I'm not going to do anything potentially useful here like predicting what's going to happen with cases like these. The question is too new and the cases too few to generalize. But I just wanted to clear up the "intent to harm" thing.