A couple of years ago, I ran into X-Files erotica on the web. (I was looking for something G-rated, I swear...) What was amazing was not that it existed, but rather the VOLUMES that did. People were totally obsessed with Mulder and Scully getting together. (X-Files, unlike most shows, did/does a great job at keeping the sexual tension high between Mulder and Scully without ever letting them cross the line.)
Let me first say that I'm not much of an advocate of copyrights. But Stallman's anti-copyright arguments seemed fairly bizarre to me.
(1) Stallman says that the original purpose of copyright was to "encourage the publication of a diversity of written works."
My understanding has been that copyright was designed to encourage the writing of a diversity of works, by rewarding the authors monetarily. With copyright, in fact, fewer writings might be published, because publishers have to pay for the privilege.
(2) Stallman argues that with electronic versions of books, "the publishers realized that by forcing people to use specially designated software to read e-books, they can gain unprecedented power: they can compel readers to pay, and identify themselves, every time they read a book!"
So according to Stallman, there are two problematic issues: being forced to pay every time and the lack of anonymity.
As for the first, if publishers charge as much for e-books as they do for paper books, people simply will not buy. The price will have to be dramatically lower to compensate for the (current) inconvenience of an e-book. (Additionally, it would violate people's sense of fairness to have to pay a similar price for an e-book, when the publisher obviously has eliminated the cost of printing.)
The anonymity issue is somewhat trickier. But some publishers (or resellers) will provide people with anonymity if they desire it.
(3) What Stallman ends up advocating is some kind of direct micropayments to the author. In some nagware-like fashion, we will be prompted to give the author a dollar if we like the book.
Well, Stallman might be willing to click the okay button, but I doubt that such a scheme would produce reliable-enough profits for authors (let alone publishers). I do not know of any highly successful businesses that work on this model, although I'd be delighted to hear if some existed.
(4) Overall, it seems that Stallman misses the real revolution that could arrive with e-books: the elimination of large, overbearing publishers altogether. If there is no printing to be done, authors could choose to deal directly with the public, setting whatever terms they liked for the sale of their books. There would be more experimentation, more variety than publishers would ever allow. And authors that adopted terms of sale that were most conducive to the public's palette would sell more books. They could offer anonymity, micropayments, pay-if-you-liked-it schemes, special deals to loyal readers, and all kinds of other goodies that we have yet to even imagine.
One reason why authors might like to bypass publishers is that the interests of authors and the interests of publishers are not always aligned. Publishers want to sell as many books as possible. Authors want to do that too, but they also often want to (a) get their ideas out into the public forum, (b) build a reputation for themselves, and (c) build a loyal fan base. For that reason, we might see great innovation in book selling from authors than we currently see from publishers.
(5) Additionally, e-books could go the way of many internet services: free if you're willing to view targeted advertising, pay if you want the no-ad version. Such selling methods would still have to develop ways to prevent people from copying files, but the incentive to make unauthorized duplicates would be greatly reduced by having free versions available.
I do agree with Stallman that copyrights, at best, are for a prior era. But hopefully nagware e-books aren't the only future.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a wireless networking Palm so that I can update GeekPress while I'm out and about.
So my question is: Is the web browsing good enough that I could do simple updating of a news review site? Do enough news sites have Palm-friendly versions? Or should I just get a cellular modem for the very portable Sony Viao I already have? Any thoughts?
Lucas didn't mean the movie to be "pure entertainment." One of his goals was to introduce kids to the notion of God through The Force. (It's silly, but that was his intention.)
Since the creator intended moral lessons to be drawn from the movie, shouldn't we be able to criticize it if those moral lessons are warped?
I think the whole democratic election bit was a silly PC cover. She's a QUEEN. When was the last time you heard of a queen being elected?
Additionally, elections cannot be the sole criteria for a good government. Did people have another serious candidate to vote for? (Saddam Hussein is elected, but no one ever runs against him.) Are her powers limited by a constitution and other governing bodies once she is in office? (Unlimited power is never good in government.) We don't know any of these things about Queen Awidala; we just heard that there was an election.
My guess is that Lucas wanted the grandeur of royalty without the incomprehensibility of defending a ruler not democratically elected.
As for the despots, if you are correct about Lucas's view, then it's pretty sad that he's making movies where despots of one form or another are the only options!
Okay, so I understand the fuss about not being able to buy a desired movie on DVD. However, TPM was a pretty bad movie -- disjoined and meandering. The special effects were, of course, pretty spectacular, but that just can't make up for the weak plot. Lucas doesn't deserve anyone's money -- whether from DVD or VHS sales!
On a more serious note, David Brin wrote a thought provoking article for Salon a while back entitled "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" Populists. He seriously examines the moral themes of the Star Wars series and compares them to Star Trek.
Brin argues that the moral lessons that we are supposed to draw from Star Wars include:
Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.
Not too surprising given Lucas's view that "there's probably no better form of government than a good despot." (New York Times interview, March 1999)
Brin makes one particularly interesting point about Darth Vader's redemption in Return of the Jedi. He writes:
To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler's defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence:
"But, your honors... Adolf did save the life of his own son!"
Gasp! The prosecutors blanch in chagrin. "We didn't know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!"
The allies then throw a big parade for Hitler, down the avenues of Nuremberg.
It may sound silly, but that's exactly the lesson taught by "Return of the Jedi," wherein Darth Vader is forgiven all his sins, because he saved the life of his own son.
A couple of people have mentioned Clifford Stoll's new book High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian. About a week ago, I posted a summary of nice NYTimes article on this new book of Stoll's to GeekPress.
Two interesting passages from the article are included below:
"Stoll rejects the idea that students need to use computers intensively and at an early age to become computer literate. In fact, he says, the computer skills needed by adults in the modern world are relatively few and easily learned. A high school graduate should be able to use a word-processing program, be familiar with spreadsheets and data bases, and be comfortable sending e-mail and browsing the Web. Stoll says these are skills that are easily mastered in a few weeks and hardly require a battery of computers in every classroom from kindergarten through 12th grade."
"Stoll argues that students raised on video games and television need less exposure to image-filled screens, not more, if they are to be engaged in the tough task of meaningful learning. 'The computer promotes the expectation that anything can be made more fun,' he said. 'But many things important in life are, unfortunately, difficult to learn and require a great deal of mental effort. Innovative technology will make it appear to be fun. But try to make school into a fun, entertaining experience and you will gut the very essence of learning.'"
I tend to agree with Stoll on these two points, although I am a computer junkie myself (of course). I have yet to see any computer program that does as well in teaching as a good teacher does. A teacher can interact with the child and address misunderstandings in a way that no compter program currently can.
There are certain aspects of learning that computers may be useful for, such as showing complicated graphs that can't be easily drawn on the board or quizzing students to help them memorize addition tables or French vocabulary. But these tasks require a computer lab and computers available for teachers to "rent" for a given class, not computers for every child.
GB provides an interesting glimpse into what the US legal landscape would look like without the First Amendment. Our legal traditions are similar to GB's, given that we inherited our common law from them. But in GB, because they do not have an explicit, overarching committment to free speech, not only is fairly harmless speech banned, but businesses such as these ISPs are put into very difficult situations.
It's much easier to appreciate the First Amendment with such a contrast case available!
I submitted this story to slashdot, but in case it doesn't get posted:
As I posted on GeekPress: According to a BBC article, researchers at the University of Massachusetts have made two major advances towards creating nanomachines from matter: a glue to group particles into highly ordered clusters and the capacity to move single atoms at room temperature. Looks like it's going to be a while before DNA rewriters replace colored contact lenses, though.
The NY Times article indicated that it may be the terms and conditions that forbid deep linking. Given that few people ever read the legal mumbo jumbo on a web site, it's somewhat disturbing that it may actually be legally enforcable. I am reluctant to call anything a contact that I haven't signed, let alone read!
My site, GeekPress deep links to news on other sites, like slashdot. My hope is simply that those links will be regarded as bringing users into the site that might not have otherwise arrived.
One more thought: Why doesn't ticketmaster block or redirect incoming traffic from tickets.com? Shouldn't technical remedies come before legal ones?
Slashdot Mirror
I did a quick search and came up with an X-Files Erotica page, although there aren't a ton of stories. I also found an X-Files choose your own adventure story (here's another).
-- Diana Hsieh
(This comment was also posted to GeekPress.)
Let me first say that I'm not much of an advocate of copyrights. But Stallman's anti-copyright arguments seemed fairly bizarre to me.
(1) Stallman says that the original purpose of copyright was to "encourage the publication of a diversity of written works."
My understanding has been that copyright was designed to encourage the writing of a diversity of works, by rewarding the authors monetarily. With copyright, in fact, fewer writings might be published, because publishers have to pay for the privilege.
(2) Stallman argues that with electronic versions of books, "the publishers realized that by forcing people to use specially designated software to read e-books, they can gain unprecedented power: they can compel readers to pay, and identify themselves, every time they read a book!"
So according to Stallman, there are two problematic issues: being forced to pay every time and the lack of anonymity.
As for the first, if publishers charge as much for e-books as they do for paper books, people simply will not buy. The price will have to be dramatically lower to compensate for the (current) inconvenience of an e-book. (Additionally, it would violate people's sense of fairness to have to pay a similar price for an e-book, when the publisher obviously has eliminated the cost of printing.)
The anonymity issue is somewhat trickier. But some publishers (or resellers) will provide people with anonymity if they desire it.
(3) What Stallman ends up advocating is some kind of direct micropayments to the author. In some nagware-like fashion, we will be prompted to give the author a dollar if we like the book.
Well, Stallman might be willing to click the okay button, but I doubt that such a scheme would produce reliable-enough profits for authors (let alone publishers). I do not know of any highly successful businesses that work on this model, although I'd be delighted to hear if some existed.
(4) Overall, it seems that Stallman misses the real revolution that could arrive with e-books: the elimination of large, overbearing publishers altogether. If there is no printing to be done, authors could choose to deal directly with the public, setting whatever terms they liked for the sale of their books. There would be more experimentation, more variety than publishers would ever allow. And authors that adopted terms of sale that were most conducive to the public's palette would sell more books. They could offer anonymity, micropayments, pay-if-you-liked-it schemes, special deals to loyal readers, and all kinds of other goodies that we have yet to even imagine.
One reason why authors might like to bypass publishers is that the interests of authors and the interests of publishers are not always aligned. Publishers want to sell as many books as possible. Authors want to do that too, but they also often want to (a) get their ideas out into the public forum, (b) build a reputation for themselves, and (c) build a loyal fan base. For that reason, we might see great innovation in book selling from authors than we currently see from publishers.
(5) Additionally, e-books could go the way of many internet services: free if you're willing to view targeted advertising, pay if you want the no-ad version. Such selling methods would still have to develop ways to prevent people from copying files, but the incentive to make unauthorized duplicates would be greatly reduced by having free versions available.
I do agree with Stallman that copyrights, at best, are for a prior era. But hopefully nagware e-books aren't the only future.
-- Diana Hsieh
So my question is: Is the web browsing good enough that I could do simple updating of a news review site? Do enough news sites have Palm-friendly versions? Or should I just get a cellular modem for the very portable Sony Viao I already have? Any thoughts?
-- Diana Hsieh
Since the creator intended moral lessons to be drawn from the movie, shouldn't we be able to criticize it if those moral lessons are warped?
-- Diana Hsieh
Additionally, elections cannot be the sole criteria for a good government. Did people have another serious candidate to vote for? (Saddam Hussein is elected, but no one ever runs against him.) Are her powers limited by a constitution and other governing bodies once she is in office? (Unlimited power is never good in government.) We don't know any of these things about Queen Awidala; we just heard that there was an election.
My guess is that Lucas wanted the grandeur of royalty without the incomprehensibility of defending a ruler not democratically elected.
As for the despots, if you are correct about Lucas's view, then it's pretty sad that he's making movies where despots of one form or another are the only options!
-- Diana Hsieh
On a more serious note, David Brin wrote a thought provoking article for Salon a while back entitled "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" Populists. He seriously examines the moral themes of the Star Wars series and compares them to Star Trek.
Brin argues that the moral lessons that we are supposed to draw from Star Wars include:
Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.
Not too surprising given Lucas's view that "there's probably no better form of government than a good despot." (New York Times interview, March 1999)
Brin makes one particularly interesting point about Darth Vader's redemption in Return of the Jedi. He writes:
-- Diana Hsieh
Two interesting passages from the article are included below:
"Stoll rejects the idea that students need to use computers intensively and at an early age to become computer literate. In fact, he says, the computer skills needed by adults in the modern world are relatively few and easily learned. A high school graduate should be able to use a word-processing program, be familiar with spreadsheets and data bases, and be comfortable sending e-mail and browsing the Web. Stoll says these are skills that are easily mastered in a few weeks and hardly require a battery of computers in every classroom from kindergarten through 12th grade."
"Stoll argues that students raised on video games and television need less exposure to image-filled screens, not more, if they are to be engaged in the tough task of meaningful learning. 'The computer promotes the expectation that anything can be made more fun,' he said. 'But many things important in life are, unfortunately, difficult to learn and require a great deal of mental effort. Innovative technology will make it appear to be fun. But try to make school into a fun, entertaining experience and you will gut the very essence of learning.'"
I tend to agree with Stoll on these two points, although I am a computer junkie myself (of course). I have yet to see any computer program that does as well in teaching as a good teacher does. A teacher can interact with the child and address misunderstandings in a way that no compter program currently can.
There are certain aspects of learning that computers may be useful for, such as showing complicated graphs that can't be easily drawn on the board or quizzing students to help them memorize addition tables or French vocabulary. But these tasks require a computer lab and computers available for teachers to "rent" for a given class, not computers for every child.
-- Diana Hsieh
It's much easier to appreciate the First Amendment with such a contrast case available!
-- Diana Hsieh
As I posted on GeekPress: According to a BBC article, researchers at the University of Massachusetts have made two major advances towards creating nanomachines from matter: a glue to group particles into highly ordered clusters and the capacity to move single atoms at room temperature. Looks like it's going to be a while before DNA rewriters replace colored contact lenses, though.
-- Diana Hsieh
My site, GeekPress deep links to news on other sites, like slashdot. My hope is simply that those links will be regarded as bringing users into the site that might not have otherwise arrived.
One more thought: Why doesn't ticketmaster block or redirect incoming traffic from tickets.com? Shouldn't technical remedies come before legal ones?
-- Diana Hsieh