You have a very good point, and I absolutely agree with you. The idea of having some sort of copy protection with expiration date is a good idea. It's also possible to have an encryption/copyright protection standard that allows fair use (say, copying a one-minute segment as an example) of the material.
Of course, the technical reality of the situation is that it won't work as long as there are not fixed copyrights, and under our current system there are NO fixed copyrights, because every 5-10 years Disney's representatives in Congress extend the copyright on Steamboat Willie.
Disney, I believe, is playing a very smart game. Notice how every time the copyright law is changed in the US and in Europe, there are still significant differences between the two. This gives rise to the ready made excuse that "We need to change our law to bring it in line with the international community." (with a modest extention beyond existing laws to spur future changes on the other side of the Atlantic)
I believe in the middle ground - copyrights of fixed length that cannot be retroactively increased in length, the violation of which is punishable by civil lawsuit, or criminal prosecution in cases of for-profit violations.
And I believe that abuses of the system (price fixing of CD's and DVD's for example) should be handled by anti-trust litigation, rather than circumventing the system. Of course, the ultimate problem is that any technological system of copyright control is only good until it's decrypted, hence the DMCA. But with the internet the way it is, violations of the DMCA are not going to be possible to prosecute provided that the people who crack the next encryption standard keep their heads down.
You have a good point, about the social reality of the situation, but you're advocating that there shouldn't be any copyrights. The question is why? So what if we are blanketed with advertising? That doesn't justify copying Captain Scarlet DVD's off the internet to complete your collection. DMCA did not change this - it only made the instrumentality of circumventing encryption/copy prevention illegal. Copying was already illegal prior to DMCA (admittedly, as only a civil wrong in most cases).
Well of course it's a monopoly. Copyright is a legal monopoly. Maybe someday we'll ditch the free market for information and the prices of DVD's will be fixed by government committee. But until then, yes, the producer of a work has a monopoly on its distribution, and can sell pieces of that monopoly (regional distribution agreements) for whatever the market will bear.
If this is still a problem for you, you should remind yourself that it's only a show and you should really just relax. If you don't like what they are selling it for, then vote with your pocketbook and don't buy it. This isn't food, it's entertainment, and the government shouldn't get involved in what entertainment costs.
Cavaet: Copyright extentions still suck and are completely inappropriate, and, in my opinion, are nothing more than corporate theft from the public domain. But, while a copyright of reasonable length is still in effect, the owner of the copyright should have complete control of the work.
In the very authorized follow up to Episode IV, Alan Dean Foster's "Splinter in the Mind's Eye", Luke and Leia made out and nearly (I recall, it's been 20 years) consumated a sexual relationship. Yes, Timothy Zahn's books are great, but the post-episode continuity may not have anything to do with Zahn's books or any other Star Wars novels. The story line will be based on one premise: How much money can George Lucas make? Maybe they'll even find Earth.
Not to mention the Chevy Nova. "no va" in Spanish means "won't go".
The article is interesting, but only part of Microsoft's problems are its fault. Who would know that the Indian govt. would be overly sensitive to Kashmir? I'm sure the Pakistani govt. would reject a version of Windows that shows Kashmir to be part of India. And only God knows what Arabic governments would think about a map showing Jerusalem to be part of Israel.
If the Germans and the French were still at loggerheads, MS would probably have to show Alsase-Lorraine as belonging to both countries too. And what about Romania? And the eastern half of Poland?
...is that 20 or 30 years ago, in the US Presidential election campaign, candidates will be accusing one another of failing to qualify for marksman in America's Army, or shooting computer generated civilians.
"Is it not true, Senator Jones, that you were nothing more than a n00b camper, and that you once even used wallhack?"
Why? Because their software has a very annoying nagware component. The default real player installation leaves a blinking and blinking icon on the Windows toolbar. Even the new real one player that came on my Dell computer attempts to modify the registry every time it runs to add a "realsched" program of somesort that takes up my precious CPU cycles.
Thank god I 1) don't use real products all that often; and 2) have a nice utility pop-up that warns me whenever any software tries to add to the registry (I wish I could remember what the program is, and where I found it).
To me, even as a Windows user who bought an iPod and will never ever buy an Apple PC, Apple has been for the most part a class act. Real has not. Although, admittedly, quicktime does the same thing... Why can't they be more like Adobe Reader, which has the common decency to check for updates only when it runs, rather than wanting to do it every time you turn on the damn computer?
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
OK. He didn't say "invented", but he didn't say anything about securing funding for the internet either. Gore used the word created, which is defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as:
Main Entry: 1create Pronunciation: krE-'At, 'krE-" Function: verb Inflected Form(s): created; creating Etymology: Middle English, from Latin creatus, past participle of creare; akin to Latin crescere to grow -- more at CRESCENT transitive senses 1 : to bring into existence 2 a : to invest with a new form, office, or rank b : to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior 3 : CAUSE, OCCASION 4 a : to produce through imaginative skill b : DESIGN intransitive senses : to make or bring into existence something new.
The bottom line - Gore was claimed that the internet was created as the result of his initiative. While he may have contributed on a political level to its creation, that's not what he said, and his statement can readily be interpreted as him attempting to take more credit than he was properly entitled to. The "smear" has a basis in fact, if only because Gore didn't say what he later said he had meant to say.
And it was funny. It's the same sort of thing as Dan Quayle mispelling "potatoe". The statement was a mistake that made Gore look stupid and egotistical. The right capitalized on it in the same manner that the left capitalizes on Bush's mistatements and malapropisms.
You're right. 1G of storage - that's equivalent to two whole USB keychains. It couldn't possibly get off the ground.
Here's how I see it. It's a freakin' prototype. It doesn't have to be elegant. It just has to work. And maybe they want to add other functionality later, such as "look out for that tree" and "don't fly into the building, even if it's a waypoint".
Besides, autonomous flying machines need all that extra power to run Skynet anyway.
Forget posting to Usenet, post to/. as an anonymous coward, type something supporting Microsoft and attacking Linux, followed by your terrorist communication. Get modded down to -1, and most people will never see your message anyway.
Unless it's funny. That's why Al Quaida had to stop using it's initial protocol, which consisted of references to Natalie Portman and hot grits being poured into pants.
The number of question marks in the typical underwear gnomes joke - that's code too, if you know what it means. The frequent use of Admiral Ackbar saying "It's a trap" on www.fark.com - code. "In Soviet Russia..." jokes - not code, but that's just to throw us off.
The citizens had the same rights as the corporations. They just agreed to give up their rights in return for having a job. If enough IT professionals refused to do agree to this, then the industry will be forced to change their policies (or, I'm afraid to say, outsource everything to India).
In some ways, corporate America really treats employees like slaves.
No. They treat them like employees. The employees are paid for this, and are therefore not slaves. The solution is to not work for these corporations. Jobs and Woz and Gates and Allen and Hewlett and Packart have one thing in common: They left the security of being employees and maintained ownership of their ideas. Consequently, they are very very rich, and the people who work for them don't own their ideas.
Forget Ringworld, this tech has been around since the 1970's. Ever play with a "Stretch Armstrong" doll? you could stretch and manipulate the doll anyway you want, but it would resist pressure from any sudden impact, such as when you hit it with a hammer or threw it at your brother. Maybe it's just a rubber suit filled with pockets of infinitely flexible goo.
Actually it's the sort of "land of the free" in which the government provides security to a group of government leaders having dinner at a private citizen's house. The secret service would have been involved had the National Governor's Association met at the local IHOP.
And honestly, if Gates had the foot the bill for this, do you really think he wouldn't have done it without batting an eyelash? His home's annual gardening budget is probably more than what the security cost that day.
Any nerd worth his salt knows to first check the headers of the e-mail and Lookup the IP to see where the mail really came from, and/or view the source of the HTML and identify obfusicated URL redirects. Then again, any IT guy who is using HTML-enabled e-mail should have his geek license revoked in the first place.
As a nerd not worth his salt, would there perhaps be an e-mail client that will actually do all of this for me that would also allow me to forward offending e-mails to the FBI and the bank/other business whose accounts are being phished? That would be somewhat cool.
I've seen Jib-Jab's song, which is a very clever and well-done piece of bipartisan fun. The problem though, is that parody can't use an entire work - either all the words or all the melody or both. Appropriating the entire song and changing some of the lyrics goes beyond the normal bounds of fair use. It's why Weird Al Yankovic gets the copyright holder's permission before publishing his parody songs, and it's why Mad Magazine sets limits to the song parodys it publishes.
Of course, the present copyright holders of "This Land is Our Land" are still being dickheads.
I'll never forget May 7, 1989, the day I was initiated by his Majesty Neptunus Rex, Ruler of the Raging Main, into the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep.
But what you be doin', spilling the beans to these Polywog scum? His Majesty, Davy Jones, and the Royal Baby would have to put in overtime if they were slashdotted. There's not enough room on the forecastle for the lot of 'em and it would take years to get them all through the rebirthing chamber.
No, of course not. You don't have to watch TV. And TV is bad for you anyway. And you're not illegally or immorally depriving Sony of PS2 Royalties if you don't buy a PS2, or buy PS2 games. You're not ripping of/. either if you don't bother clicking on their banner ads, either.
Use of a PS2 mod-chip to play homebrewed games is as violative of Sony's rights as using the mod-chip to pay illegally duplicated games. Consoles are not sold for much of a profit (or any profit as all - just look at the XBox). Sony makes its money on licensing fees paid by publishers of games playable on the PS2. Create a homebrew game and play it on your modded PS2, and you are depriving Sony of its licensing fee.
How, exactly, will you be showing your respect for Mr. Buffett's point of view now?
When he's dead. I'll respect his point of view before then as soon as he starts giving away his "undeserved" tax breaks now, rather than waiting until his death.
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You have a very good point, and I absolutely agree with you. The idea of having some sort of copy protection with expiration date is a good idea. It's also possible to have an encryption/copyright protection standard that allows fair use (say, copying a one-minute segment as an example) of the material.
Of course, the technical reality of the situation is that it won't work as long as there are not fixed copyrights, and under our current system there are NO fixed copyrights, because every 5-10 years Disney's representatives in Congress extend the copyright on Steamboat Willie.
Disney, I believe, is playing a very smart game. Notice how every time the copyright law is changed in the US and in Europe, there are still significant differences between the two. This gives rise to the ready made excuse that "We need to change our law to bring it in line with the international community." (with a modest extention beyond existing laws to spur future changes on the other side of the Atlantic)
I believe in the middle ground - copyrights of fixed length that cannot be retroactively increased in length, the violation of which is punishable by civil lawsuit, or criminal prosecution in cases of for-profit violations.
And I believe that abuses of the system (price fixing of CD's and DVD's for example) should be handled by anti-trust litigation, rather than circumventing the system. Of course, the ultimate problem is that any technological system of copyright control is only good until it's decrypted, hence the DMCA. But with the internet the way it is, violations of the DMCA are not going to be possible to prosecute provided that the people who crack the next encryption standard keep their heads down.
You have a good point, about the social reality of the situation, but you're advocating that there shouldn't be any copyrights. The question is why? So what if we are blanketed with advertising? That doesn't justify copying Captain Scarlet DVD's off the internet to complete your collection. DMCA did not change this - it only made the instrumentality of circumventing encryption/copy prevention illegal. Copying was already illegal prior to DMCA (admittedly, as only a civil wrong in most cases).
Well of course it's a monopoly. Copyright is a legal monopoly. Maybe someday we'll ditch the free market for information and the prices of DVD's will be fixed by government committee. But until then, yes, the producer of a work has a monopoly on its distribution, and can sell pieces of that monopoly (regional distribution agreements) for whatever the market will bear.
If this is still a problem for you, you should remind yourself that it's only a show and you should really just relax. If you don't like what they are selling it for, then vote with your pocketbook and don't buy it. This isn't food, it's entertainment, and the government shouldn't get involved in what entertainment costs.
Cavaet: Copyright extentions still suck and are completely inappropriate, and, in my opinion, are nothing more than corporate theft from the public domain. But, while a copyright of reasonable length is still in effect, the owner of the copyright should have complete control of the work.
In the very authorized follow up to Episode IV, Alan Dean Foster's "Splinter in the Mind's Eye", Luke and Leia made out and nearly (I recall, it's been 20 years) consumated a sexual relationship. Yes, Timothy Zahn's books are great, but the post-episode continuity may not have anything to do with Zahn's books or any other Star Wars novels. The story line will be based on one premise: How much money can George Lucas make? Maybe they'll even find Earth.
Not to mention the Chevy Nova. "no va" in Spanish means "won't go".
The article is interesting, but only part of Microsoft's problems are its fault. Who would know that the Indian govt. would be overly sensitive to Kashmir? I'm sure the Pakistani govt. would reject a version of Windows that shows Kashmir to be part of India. And only God knows what Arabic governments would think about a map showing Jerusalem to be part of Israel.
If the Germans and the French were still at loggerheads, MS would probably have to show Alsase-Lorraine as belonging to both countries too. And what about Romania? And the eastern half of Poland?
...is that 20 or 30 years ago, in the US Presidential election campaign, candidates will be accusing one another of failing to qualify for marksman in America's Army, or shooting computer generated civilians.
"Is it not true, Senator Jones, that you were nothing more than a n00b camper, and that you once even used wallhack?"
Real has the reputation of being jerks.
Why? Because their software has a very annoying nagware component. The default real player installation leaves a blinking and blinking icon on the Windows toolbar. Even the new real one player that came on my Dell computer attempts to modify the registry every time it runs to add a "realsched" program of somesort that takes up my precious CPU cycles.
Thank god I 1) don't use real products all that often; and 2) have a nice utility pop-up that warns me whenever any software tries to add to the registry (I wish I could remember what the program is, and where I found it).
To me, even as a Windows user who bought an iPod and will never ever buy an Apple PC, Apple has been for the most part a class act. Real has not. Although, admittedly, quicktime does the same thing... Why can't they be more like Adobe Reader, which has the common decency to check for updates only when it runs, rather than wanting to do it every time you turn on the damn computer?
Al Gore's exact quote is this:
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
OK. He didn't say "invented", but he didn't say anything about securing funding for the internet either. Gore used the word created, which is defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as:
Main Entry: 1create
Pronunciation: krE-'At, 'krE-"
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): created; creating
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin creatus, past participle of creare; akin to Latin crescere to grow -- more at CRESCENT
transitive senses
1 : to bring into existence
2 a : to invest with a new form, office, or rank b : to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior
3 : CAUSE, OCCASION
4 a : to produce through imaginative skill b : DESIGN
intransitive senses : to make or bring into existence something new.
The bottom line - Gore was claimed that the internet was created as the result of his initiative. While he may have contributed on a political level to its creation, that's not what he said, and his statement can readily be interpreted as him attempting to take more credit than he was properly entitled to. The "smear" has a basis in fact, if only because Gore didn't say what he later said he had meant to say.
And it was funny. It's the same sort of thing as Dan Quayle mispelling "potatoe". The statement was a mistake that made Gore look stupid and egotistical. The right capitalized on it in the same manner that the left capitalizes on Bush's mistatements and malapropisms.
You're right. 1G of storage - that's equivalent to two whole USB keychains. It couldn't possibly get off the ground.
Here's how I see it. It's a freakin' prototype. It doesn't have to be elegant. It just has to work. And maybe they want to add other functionality later, such as "look out for that tree" and "don't fly into the building, even if it's a waypoint".
Besides, autonomous flying machines need all that extra power to run Skynet anyway.
The extra memory space is for Skynet.
Forget posting to Usenet, post to /. as an anonymous coward, type something supporting Microsoft and attacking Linux, followed by your terrorist communication. Get modded down to -1, and most people will never see your message anyway.
Unless it's funny. That's why Al Quaida had to stop using it's initial protocol, which consisted of references to Natalie Portman and hot grits being poured into pants.
The number of question marks in the typical underwear gnomes joke - that's code too, if you know what it means. The frequent use of Admiral Ackbar saying "It's a trap" on www.fark.com - code. "In Soviet Russia..." jokes - not code, but that's just to throw us off.
The citizens had the same rights as the corporations. They just agreed to give up their rights in return for having a job. If enough IT professionals refused to do agree to this, then the industry will be forced to change their policies (or, I'm afraid to say, outsource everything to India).
In some ways, corporate America really treats employees like slaves.
No. They treat them like employees. The employees are paid for this, and are therefore not slaves. The solution is to not work for these corporations. Jobs and Woz and Gates and Allen and Hewlett and Packart have one thing in common: They left the security of being employees and maintained ownership of their ideas. Consequently, they are very very rich, and the people who work for them don't own their ideas.
Forget Ringworld, this tech has been around since the 1970's. Ever play with a "Stretch Armstrong" doll? you could stretch and manipulate the doll anyway you want, but it would resist pressure from any sudden impact, such as when you hit it with a hammer or threw it at your brother. Maybe it's just a rubber suit filled with pockets of infinitely flexible goo.
Actually it's the sort of "land of the free" in which the government provides security to a group of government leaders having dinner at a private citizen's house. The secret service would have been involved had the National Governor's Association met at the local IHOP.
And honestly, if Gates had the foot the bill for this, do you really think he wouldn't have done it without batting an eyelash? His home's annual gardening budget is probably more than what the security cost that day.
...and now they're goin' to do DNA testing of the ocean. Where the hell can I pee now?
Any nerd worth his salt knows to first check the headers of the e-mail and Lookup the IP to see where the mail really came from, and/or view the source of the HTML and identify obfusicated URL redirects. Then again, any IT guy who is using HTML-enabled e-mail should have his geek license revoked in the first place.
As a nerd not worth his salt, would there perhaps be an e-mail client that will actually do all of this for me that would also allow me to forward offending e-mails to the FBI and the bank/other business whose accounts are being phished? That would be somewhat cool.
I've seen Jib-Jab's song, which is a very clever and well-done piece of bipartisan fun. The problem though, is that parody can't use an entire work - either all the words or all the melody or both. Appropriating the entire song and changing some of the lyrics goes beyond the normal bounds of fair use. It's why Weird Al Yankovic gets the copyright holder's permission before publishing his parody songs, and it's why Mad Magazine sets limits to the song parodys it publishes.
Of course, the present copyright holders of "This Land is Our Land" are still being dickheads.
I'll never forget May 7, 1989, the day I was initiated by his Majesty Neptunus Rex, Ruler of the Raging Main, into the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep.
But what you be doin', spilling the beans to these Polywog scum? His Majesty, Davy Jones, and the Royal Baby would have to put in overtime if they were slashdotted. There's not enough room on the forecastle for the lot of 'em and it would take years to get them all through the rebirthing chamber.
No, of course not. You don't have to watch TV. And TV is bad for you anyway. And you're not illegally or immorally depriving Sony of PS2 Royalties if you don't buy a PS2, or buy PS2 games. You're not ripping of /. either if you don't bother clicking on their banner ads, either.
Use of a PS2 mod-chip to play homebrewed games is as violative of Sony's rights as using the mod-chip to pay illegally duplicated games. Consoles are not sold for much of a profit (or any profit as all - just look at the XBox). Sony makes its money on licensing fees paid by publishers of games playable on the PS2. Create a homebrew game and play it on your modded PS2, and you are depriving Sony of its licensing fee.
In America, Daimler-Chrysler is pronounced "Daym-ler Cry-sler".
In Germany, however, the Chrysler is silent.
One of the recent episodes of the TV show x-play showed some ridiculous examples of physical modeling and costuming in video games.
Please insert obligatory Morgan Webb joke here.
Asimov had written a book in each of the Dewey Decimal systems' classifications
Asimov wrote pr0n?
How, exactly, will you be showing your respect for Mr. Buffett's point of view now?
When he's dead. I'll respect his point of view before then as soon as he starts giving away his "undeserved" tax breaks now, rather than waiting until his death.