You never know what those talented fish-hackers will come up with next.
Re:Jesus ... now every dipshit on earth will want
on
Boogie Bass Hacked
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· Score: 2
...now when I go over to people's houses, they're stupid fucking fish will be saying stupid fucking things to me that only THEY find funny.
You mean instead of saying stupid fucking things that NO ONE finds funny... like they do now?
I gotta admit that hacking those god-awful talking fish trophies is a good idea. Almost as good as hacking the Taco Bell dogs (which are even more annoying than the singing bass IMHO). But buying them pre-made? Where's the fun in that?
Now that I think of it, the used-books-over-the-net trade would probably has the potential to improve the quality of new books, by introducing the market requirement that new releases be keepers, lest they be destined for perpetual net-facilitated swapping.
It could certainly improve the quality of new books, but not for that reason exactly. New books that are keepers would make more money (indeed they already do, because of public libraries and bricks-and-mortar used book stores) but crappy new books would not be bought and sold endlessly. Sooner or later word gets out that a particular work is crap. Crap typically ends up in the trash heap. Why keep trying to sell something that no one will buy?
Why Amazon instead of the myriad small used book dealers who do the same thing? Probably because small book sellers - especially of the bricks and mortar variety - are often fixtures of their communities, and any attack on them would be seen as unAmerican. Ditto for public libraries. But Amazon is seen by many as a big threatening behemoth of commerce. And it exists on that den of degradation and filth - the internet (shudder).
Or it could be just because Amazon has a lot of money.
may be a bit premature. Sure there's a down-turn. It can happen in any industry. It's happened in the defense industry too. But there were few predictions of the demise of the defense industry. Dot-commerce is relatively new, and there's bound to be a shakeout as the shine wears off and it becomes just another way of doing business. But it's not dead and buried.
If the defense industry needs more computer-savvy employees, it had better push for better educations programs to train them. Relying on dot-com layoffs won't cut it.
Thank you for providing a concrete example of the high costs of research. However I don't see that it supports your argument. Oil exploration is expensive too, but you don't see oil companies patenting the use of oil as fuel. (Maybe they just wish they'd thought of it sooner)
Research is damned expensive and without assurance of return, it's not entirely feasible to invest the resources.
Assurance? What assurance? There aren't any assurances of a return on investments (for projects like the sequencing of Arabidopsis). There's the off-chance of a return, and big payoffs get more probable when patents are awarded, but it's still not much of an assurance.
Patents are a means of holding information hostage. I understand the need for them but I don't have to like them. I particularly don't like them when what is being patented is a process that a living organism has been doing for free since time immemorial.
If I invent a new widget, I have the right to hold the schematics hostage, releasing them only to those who pay. But who invented the gene that codes for usefulase? I don't claim to know, but I'd bet money it's not the one applying for the patent!
I've done that, and you can too. Just leave a banana sitting on a countertop for a couple weeks.
Yeah, I know, spontaneous generation was debunked over a century ago, and baby Drosophila (Drosophilae?)come from mommy and daddy Drosophila(e). So please no "what are you, stupid?" rants.
The only argument against cloning is that "humans will live unnaturally longer".
1) Is this a bad thing?
No. It is a thing. Sanitation, proper nutrition, and even earlier, tool use and fire all led to longer human life spans. That's good. But humans still breed like rabbits, even though they don't suffer die-offs like rabbits. This has led to severe overpopulation, and a great deal of suffering has resulted. Too many people on this rock. That's bad.
2) According to this argument, we should outlaw medecine and nutrition.
Okay, assume that we accept that medicine and nutrition cause people to live unnaturally longer (as opposed to *naturally* longer). Even then, it does not follow that they should be outlawed. Nor should genetic engineering or cloning BTW. But humans may need to change their ways so that they can enjoy the benefits of their technology without the detriments that can follow. F'rinstance if medicine or nutrition or biotech allows all your children to survive where in earlier times many of them would have died, you compensate by having fewer children. Technology has even allowed humans to keep screwing like rabbits, while reproducing more like pandas. It's called contraception. Ain't technology wonderful? Now all we have to do is use it.
(Katz wrote)Unfortunately, the off-screen world already has plenty of heedless bio-tech companies, hard at work on profiting from gene mapping, promising to eliminate cancer, aging, heart disease -- perhaps one day, even death itself.
Cure diseases and extend human lifepsans? Those bastards! How dare they!
I can't speak for Katz, but it looks to me like the "unfortunate" part of the whole bit is not that "heedless bio-tech companies" are working on cures for diseases, but that they're working on profits first and foremost. So if it's more profitable to invent a new artificial flavoring than it is to cure dengue, that's what they'll do.
If it's more profitable to do it without telling people what's in those flavorings, they'll do that too.
I certainly don't mind genetic engineering when it's being used to cure diseases. But I don't see the need for it as a means to create a fluffier snack cake. And if there are going to be gene-altered snack cakes on the store shelves (there already are), I'd at least appreciate being told that that's what they are so that I can make an informed decision whether or not to consume them.
It's also unfortunate if the tech firms are heedless, which Katz seems to take as a given. Actually I do too, IF it's the CEOs who are calling all the shots. The gene-tweakers in the trenches probably understand more about the consequences of their actions than the shareholders or the general public ever will. But they're not the ones making the decisions.
Sort of like open source programming,where people compete for the biggest share of current knowledge. Those that work most out get most credit.
But don't the robots still win then? They're gonna be smarter than us, right? For things like crunching code it stands to reason that they'll get more work done faster.
Machines can dig ditches better and faster than we can; someday they'll pound out programs better and faster too. Guess humans will be relegated to scut-work like composing symphonies and painting masterpieces.
Will that pay the rent? I suppose that depends on whether the landlord is a robot. Will robots even want or need money? Will they want or need symphonies?
But if a corporation could use a gene to cure cancer, or a gene for acne medicine, which do you think will make them more money?
If a corporation could [use a gene to] cure malaria, or [use a gene to] cure male pattern baldness, which do you think would make them more money? Malaria kills, but it mostly kills poor people. Male pattern baldness has never, to my knowledge, killed anyone, but some people who get it are willing and able to pay major coin to treat or eliminate it. Sad but true.
Unfortunately there seems to be no cure for this side effect of greed. Governments and charities have tried offering bribes (they call them incentives) to pharmaceutical and biotech firms to get them to work on cures for poor-people diseases, but often all it does is allow more of the corporation's own funds to be funnelled into the rich-people disease divisions. After all, why should they fund any malaria research themselves if they can get someone else to do that?
What you should do is save valuable processor cycles by forgoing any clothes at all on female characters.
Ah, but games usally have male characters too. Do you want them all to be nekkid or clothed in spandex? I guess one could save processor cycles by putting them all in rigid body armor, but while that may be suitable for warrior characters and the like, it seems a bit odd on galactic emperors and high priests.
Realistic clothing may be neat eye candy in games - and that's a Good Thing - but it can't make up for poorly designed rules or a boring concept.
Like the late Romans, says author Margaret Wertheim, our civics are no longer sustained by a firm belief in our society; we are no longer sure of its purpose.
We? Does this Margaret Wertheim claim to speak for all of us? Or all the Romans? News flash: "we" never were "sustained by a firm belief in our society". Neither, I'd hazard a guess, were the vast majority of the late Romans. Most are too caught up in the strugle for the almighty shekel to be concerned about such lofty ideals as society's purpose and whether they/we are sure of it.
Cyberspace, she writes, will fill the void.
The Romans didn't have cyberspace. For them, gladiatorial battles filled the void. And kept the masses amused and distracted. This is not a good thing. I like to think that the internet - or cyberspace, if you must - is a good thing.
The Net, she says, is the New Jerusalem, our new common and profoundly spiritual space.
This must be some kind of figurative Jerusalem. The people living in the REAL Jerusalem seem dead set against it being a common space. The profoundly spiritual nature of it convinces them that they dare not share it with anyone whose spiritual view of it might be different.
I hope the net doesn't become like the real Jerusalem, fragmented into warring factions intent on driving out or exterminating all who disagree .
I find that the very thing that makes the net a good place to spend my time (I hesitate to call it profoundly spiritual) is the disagreements. It would become a very dull place if everyone agreed.
Al Gore and George W Bush both support turning the entire third world into a resource pool, and a market, for US goods, and support any military dictator who will uphold this.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Time was when U.S. leaders would support any third world dictator who claimed to oppose Communism. Now they'll support any third world dictator who will allow multinationals access to cheap labor and raw materials.
I guess some things change - under the old system, they at least had to pretend to be acting in the best interests of democracy. Now it's all about the Almighty Dollar. Upholding dictators in order to keep the world safe for democracy sounds more noble than upholding dictators so we can keep buying athletic shoes for cheap.
Aren't there existing laws that deal with these crimes already in existence? We already have copyright law.
Politicians seem to think that if one law is good (i.e. popular) then more will be better. In the States, there is a big push for "hate crime" laws, which would penalize people for, say f'instance, beating up minorities. While these laws may be well-intentioned (like the cybercrime treaty) they in effect require the criminal justice system to read people's minds.
Assault is already a crime. Why should there be an additional penalty added if the victim is in a protected class? Doesn't that make the rest of us less protected?
Hate crime? Isn't that redundant? People don't assault, kill, or vandalize (or, for that matter, break into computer systems and wreak havoc) out of love.
The real point of laws like this is to allow politicans to look good ("See, I'm OPPOSED to assaulting minorities", or "Look how OPPOSED I am to computer crime") without actually doing anything.
...they fail to realize that in order to get the "youth vote" they have to have some emotional investment in the youth they're attempting to persuade.
That might be true if there was such a thing as the youth vote. But youth don't vote. Or rather, they vote in insignificant numbers. The politicians know this. And since most of them lack any conscience whatsoever, they'll hammer home the issues that they think will get the best press (Slashdot not included), the most buzz, and ultimately the most votes. Regardless of whether they really believe their own spiel.
Sad to say "youth vote" continues to be an oxymoron.
An AI that can recognize the different meanings of things _In_Context_. That way I don't get "HOT PORN SEX!!" when I'm searching for "Heat sinks".
Since I'm soon going to be installing hardwood floors in my computer cave, I can relate. Seems any search with "hard" or "wood" in it turns up mostly Viagra vendors and porn.
But I doubt that any AI widget could fix that. Not without angering multitudes of limp guys seeking porn. "What's this? I didn't ask for pictures of red oak planks..."
I can only imagine what sort of lewdness a "tongue in groove" search would have gathered.
...at what point do you lot, the intelligensia (presumably) start to do what the lucky few did in Germany between 1933/38 -- emigrate to a civilised country ?
Maybe we'd rather stay here and fight for the resistance!
Fleeing to a more civilized country would mean admitting failure. It's getting bad here, but I don't think it's THAT bad yet. There's still a chance to turn this country around, if we stay and fight the good fight.
And we don't even have to use guns and bullets in this fight (awwwww!). The best weapon is our votes (while we still have them). People actually vote for things like W.A.V.E. Or rather, they vote for politicians who promise more of such things "for our protection", and "for the children". We need to counter that with votes of our own.
Educating the sheep who believe that crap about "protecting the children" is another step in the right direction. As long as people believe that free speech == child endangerment, free speech will lose every time.
"How can one reasonably expect an adolescent (or older) to refuse to acquire expensive clothes she couldn't possibly afford to buy in the manner the garment industry prefers to distribute it?"
Gee, I guess kids just can't help themselves... how can we expect them not to shoplift? Oh, wait, but that's supposedly different... somehow.
Shoplifting isn't excused, but society does allow the purchase of cheap, off-label clothing by those who couldn't possibly afford the genuine designer-label stuff. In fact, the vast majority of people buy off-label clothes. Sure, the designers squawk, but they don't try to have laws passed saying that only the person who "invented" this season's fashions can market them. Maybe that's because it's easier to intimidate the guy who runs an MP3 site than it is to prosecute a multinational clothing company. Or maybe it's because the same multinational owns the designer label AND the cheap knock-off, and it'd be stupid to sue themselves.
Unlimited copying without paying for it is not a good thing. But the industry needs to recognize that some copying is inevitable, and that it can even be profitable to allow some copying and sharing of copyrighted material. Just as lending libraries have been profitable for book publishers, and video tapes have been profitable for moviemakers, MP3s can be profitable for the recording industry.
On the cultural side, pioneer companies are discovering a scary trait in Brazilians: we don't trust the Internet enough to buy there!
I'll not address the issue of whether those fears are founded or not - I'm not informed enough to comment.
What I will say is... It doesn't matter! If customers find what they want on the Internet, and then buy it, it doesn't matter that they did the actual transaction the old-fashioned way, with real rather than virtual cash. It's still profitable!
Offline, the yellow pages and free "advertizer" newspapers work the same way. They're not used like a catalog, to buy directly; rather, they're used to locate providers of products and services. Yet, they are profitable. They make money for the publishers who print the papers and sell the ads. They also make money for the advertizers who buy the ads, because they bring in paying customers they would not otherwise have.
Attack this some other way, or you'll be destroying the freedom of authors to own their own works -- if you could in fact break copyright law for good, which you probably can't.
Well you could, theoretically, break copyright laws for good. Just like Robin Hood (according to legend anyway) broke the laws against robbery for good. But in RH's case, it wasn't the laws that were unjust so much as unjust enforcement of the laws. In the case of the DMCA, it sure looks like the law itself is unjust.
They own the music. They get to charge what they like, and they get to prosecute the people who break it.
That's exactly the problem. "They" own the music. Not the artists who created it, but the media conglomerates who bought and paid for it. Now they're running scared because they see things like Napster and MP3 making it possible for artists to go directly to the public, bypassing the middlemen.
Is anyone really arguing these students aren't primarily getting illegal music via Napster?
If it was primarily musicians protesting Napster, I might be tempted to agree with you. But it's industry bigwigs who are crying foul the loudest. There's a lot more involved here than some teenagers wanting to get their favorite music without paying for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I fail to see why trying to align technology to moral standards should a bad thing...
When you do it, it's not a bad thing.
When I do it, it's not a bad thing.
When you do it, and try to force me to adopt those same moral standards, it's a bad thing.
When the government (or Microsoft) does it, it's a very bad thing, because they're quite capable of forcing people to do their bidding.
...and the fish doesn't even run on Linux!
Yet.
You never know what those talented fish-hackers will come up with next.
...now when I go over to people's houses, they're stupid fucking fish will be saying stupid fucking things to me that only THEY find funny.
You mean instead of saying stupid fucking things that NO ONE finds funny... like they do now?
I gotta admit that hacking those god-awful talking fish trophies is a good idea. Almost as good as hacking the Taco Bell dogs (which are even more annoying than the singing bass IMHO). But buying them pre-made? Where's the fun in that?
Now that I think of it, the used-books-over-the-net trade would probably has the potential to improve the quality of new books, by introducing the market requirement that new releases be keepers, lest they be destined for perpetual net-facilitated swapping.
It could certainly improve the quality of new books, but not for that reason exactly. New books that are keepers would make more money (indeed they already do, because of public libraries and bricks-and-mortar used book stores) but crappy new books would not be bought and sold endlessly. Sooner or later word gets out that a particular work is crap. Crap typically ends up in the trash heap. Why keep trying to sell something that no one will buy?
Why Amazon instead of the myriad small used book dealers who do the same thing? Probably because small book sellers - especially of the bricks and mortar variety - are often fixtures of their communities, and any attack on them would be seen as unAmerican. Ditto for public libraries. But Amazon is seen by many as a big threatening behemoth of commerce. And it exists on that den of degradation and filth - the internet (shudder).
Or it could be just because Amazon has a lot of money.
may be a bit premature. Sure there's a down-turn. It can happen in any industry. It's happened in the defense industry too. But there were few predictions of the demise of the defense industry. Dot-commerce is relatively new, and there's bound to be a shakeout as the shine wears off and it becomes just another way of doing business. But it's not dead and buried.
If the defense industry needs more computer-savvy employees, it had better push for better educations programs to train them. Relying on dot-com layoffs won't cut it.
Thank you for providing a concrete example of the high costs of research. However I don't see that it supports your argument. Oil exploration is expensive too, but you don't see oil companies patenting the use of oil as fuel. (Maybe they just wish they'd thought of it sooner)
Research is damned expensive and without assurance of return, it's not entirely feasible to invest the resources.
Assurance? What assurance? There aren't any assurances of a return on investments (for projects like the sequencing of Arabidopsis). There's the off-chance of a return, and big payoffs get more probable when patents are awarded, but it's still not much of an assurance.
Patents are a means of holding information hostage. I understand the need for them but I don't have to like them. I particularly don't like them when what is being patented is a process that a living organism has been doing for free since time immemorial.
If I invent a new widget, I have the right to hold the schematics hostage, releasing them only to those who pay. But who invented the gene that codes for usefulase? I don't claim to know, but I'd bet money it's not the one applying for the patent!
IANAL.
...grow your own Drosophilia!"
I've done that, and you can too. Just leave a banana sitting on a countertop for a couple weeks.
Yeah, I know, spontaneous generation was debunked over a century ago, and baby Drosophila (Drosophilae?)come from mommy and daddy Drosophila(e). So please no "what are you, stupid?" rants.
The only argument against cloning is that "humans will live unnaturally longer".
1) Is this a bad thing?
No. It is a thing. Sanitation, proper nutrition, and even earlier, tool use and fire all led to longer human life spans. That's good. But humans still breed like rabbits, even though they don't suffer die-offs like rabbits. This has led to severe overpopulation, and a great deal of suffering has resulted. Too many people on this rock. That's bad.
2) According to this argument, we should outlaw medecine and nutrition.
Okay, assume that we accept that medicine and nutrition cause people to live unnaturally longer (as opposed to *naturally* longer). Even then, it does not follow that they should be outlawed. Nor should genetic engineering or cloning BTW. But humans may need to change their ways so that they can enjoy the benefits of their technology without the detriments that can follow. F'rinstance if medicine or nutrition or biotech allows all your children to survive where in earlier times many of them would have died, you compensate by having fewer children. Technology has even allowed humans to keep screwing like rabbits, while reproducing more like pandas. It's called contraception. Ain't technology wonderful? Now all we have to do is use it.
(Katz wrote)Unfortunately, the off-screen world already has plenty of heedless bio-tech companies, hard at work on profiting from gene mapping, promising to eliminate cancer, aging, heart disease -- perhaps one day, even death itself.
Cure diseases and extend human lifepsans? Those bastards! How dare they!
I can't speak for Katz, but it looks to me like the "unfortunate" part of the whole bit is not that "heedless bio-tech companies" are working on cures for diseases, but that they're working on profits first and foremost. So if it's more profitable to invent a new artificial flavoring than it is to cure dengue, that's what they'll do.
If it's more profitable to do it without telling people what's in those flavorings, they'll do that too.
I certainly don't mind genetic engineering when it's being used to cure diseases. But I don't see the need for it as a means to create a fluffier snack cake. And if there are going to be gene-altered snack cakes on the store shelves (there already are), I'd at least appreciate being told that that's what they are so that I can make an informed decision whether or not to consume them.
It's also unfortunate if the tech firms are heedless, which Katz seems to take as a given. Actually I do too, IF it's the CEOs who are calling all the shots. The gene-tweakers in the trenches probably understand more about the consequences of their actions than the shareholders or the general public ever will. But they're not the ones making the decisions.
...video games are *not* the world changer you are trying to make them be!
Exactly right. The fear-mongers need to be reminded of that.
Sort of like open source programming,where people compete for the biggest share of current knowledge. Those that work most out get most credit.
But don't the robots still win then? They're gonna be smarter than us, right? For things like crunching code it stands to reason that they'll get more work done faster.
Machines can dig ditches better and faster than we can; someday they'll pound out programs better and faster too. Guess humans will be relegated to scut-work like composing symphonies and painting masterpieces.
Will that pay the rent? I suppose that depends on whether the landlord is a robot. Will robots even want or need money? Will they want or need symphonies?
Even the respected peer-reviewed Weekly World News reports that robots will WIPE OUT MANKIND.
Now, if they would have included the deaths by Furby attacks then the numbers would have been more impressive.
Especially if they took into account the suicides of people driven over the edge by the obnoxious little furry chattering demons....
But if a corporation could use a gene to cure cancer, or a gene for acne medicine, which do you think will make them more money?
If a corporation could [use a gene to] cure malaria, or [use a gene to] cure male pattern baldness, which do you think would make them more money? Malaria kills, but it mostly kills poor people. Male pattern baldness has never, to my knowledge, killed anyone, but some people who get it are willing and able to pay major coin to treat or eliminate it. Sad but true.
Unfortunately there seems to be no cure for this side effect of greed. Governments and charities have tried offering bribes (they call them incentives) to pharmaceutical and biotech firms to get them to work on cures for poor-people diseases, but often all it does is allow more of the corporation's own funds to be funnelled into the rich-people disease divisions. After all, why should they fund any malaria research themselves if they can get someone else to do that?
What you should do is save valuable processor cycles by forgoing any clothes at all on female characters.
Ah, but games usally have male characters too. Do you want them all to be nekkid or clothed in spandex? I guess one could save processor cycles by putting them all in rigid body armor, but while that may be suitable for warrior characters and the like, it seems a bit odd on galactic emperors and high priests.
Realistic clothing may be neat eye candy in games - and that's a Good Thing - but it can't make up for poorly designed rules or a boring concept.
Like the late Romans, says author Margaret Wertheim, our civics are no longer sustained by a firm belief in our society; we are no longer sure of its purpose.
We? Does this Margaret Wertheim claim to speak for all of us? Or all the Romans? News flash: "we" never were "sustained by a firm belief in our society". Neither, I'd hazard a guess, were the vast majority of the late Romans. Most are too caught up in the strugle for the almighty shekel to be concerned about such lofty ideals as society's purpose and whether they/we are sure of it.
Cyberspace, she writes, will fill the void.
The Romans didn't have cyberspace. For them, gladiatorial battles filled the void. And kept the masses amused and distracted. This is not a good thing. I like to think that the internet - or cyberspace, if you must - is a good thing.
The Net, she says, is the New Jerusalem, our new common and profoundly spiritual space.
This must be some kind of figurative Jerusalem. The people living in the REAL Jerusalem seem dead set against it being a common space. The profoundly spiritual nature of it convinces them that they dare not share it with anyone whose spiritual view of it might be different.
I hope the net doesn't become like the real Jerusalem, fragmented into warring factions intent on driving out or exterminating all who disagree .
I find that the very thing that makes the net a good place to spend my time (I hesitate to call it profoundly spiritual) is the disagreements. It would become a very dull place if everyone agreed.
Al Gore and George W Bush both support turning the entire third world into a resource pool, and a market, for US goods, and support any military dictator who will uphold this.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Time was when U.S. leaders would support any third world dictator who claimed to oppose Communism. Now they'll support any third world dictator who will allow multinationals access to cheap labor and raw materials.
I guess some things change - under the old system, they at least had to pretend to be acting in the best interests of democracy. Now it's all about the Almighty Dollar. Upholding dictators in order to keep the world safe for democracy sounds more noble than upholding dictators so we can keep buying athletic shoes for cheap.
Aren't there existing laws that deal with these crimes already in existence? We already have copyright law.
Politicians seem to think that if one law is good (i.e. popular) then more will be better. In the States, there is a big push for "hate crime" laws, which would penalize people for, say f'instance, beating up minorities. While these laws may be well-intentioned (like the cybercrime treaty) they in effect require the criminal justice system to read people's minds.
Assault is already a crime. Why should there be an additional penalty added if the victim is in a protected class? Doesn't that make the rest of us less protected?
Hate crime? Isn't that redundant? People don't assault, kill, or vandalize (or, for that matter, break into computer systems and wreak havoc) out of love.
The real point of laws like this is to allow politicans to look good ("See, I'm OPPOSED to assaulting minorities", or "Look how OPPOSED I am to computer crime") without actually doing anything.
...they fail to realize that in order to get the "youth vote" they have to have some emotional investment in the youth they're attempting to persuade.
That might be true if there was such a thing as the youth vote. But youth don't vote. Or rather, they vote in insignificant numbers. The politicians know this. And since most of them lack any conscience whatsoever, they'll hammer home the issues that they think will get the best press (Slashdot not included), the most buzz, and ultimately the most votes. Regardless of whether they really believe their own spiel.
Sad to say "youth vote" continues to be an oxymoron.
An AI that can recognize the different meanings of things _In_Context_. That way I don't get "HOT PORN SEX!!" when I'm searching for "Heat sinks".
Since I'm soon going to be installing hardwood floors in my computer cave, I can relate. Seems any search with "hard" or "wood" in it turns up mostly Viagra vendors and porn.
But I doubt that any AI widget could fix that. Not without angering multitudes of limp guys seeking porn. "What's this? I didn't ask for pictures of red oak planks..."
I can only imagine what sort of lewdness a "tongue in groove" search would have gathered.
...at what point do you lot, the intelligensia (presumably) start to do what the lucky few did in Germany between 1933/38 -- emigrate to a civilised country ?
Maybe we'd rather stay here and fight for the resistance!
Fleeing to a more civilized country would mean admitting failure. It's getting bad here, but I don't think it's THAT bad yet. There's still a chance to turn this country around, if we stay and fight the good fight.
And we don't even have to use guns and bullets in this fight (awwwww!). The best weapon is our votes (while we still have them). People actually vote for things like W.A.V.E. Or rather, they vote for politicians who promise more of such things "for our protection", and "for the children". We need to counter that with votes of our own.
Educating the sheep who believe that crap about "protecting the children" is another step in the right direction. As long as people believe that free speech == child endangerment, free speech will lose every time.
"How can one reasonably expect an adolescent (or older) to refuse to acquire expensive clothes she couldn't possibly afford to buy in the manner the garment industry prefers to distribute it?"
Gee, I guess kids just can't help themselves... how can we expect them not to shoplift? Oh, wait, but that's supposedly different... somehow.
Shoplifting isn't excused, but society does allow the purchase of cheap, off-label clothing by those who couldn't possibly afford the genuine designer-label stuff. In fact, the vast majority of people buy off-label clothes. Sure, the designers squawk, but they don't try to have laws passed saying that only the person who "invented" this season's fashions can market them. Maybe that's because it's easier to intimidate the guy who runs an MP3 site than it is to prosecute a multinational clothing company. Or maybe it's because the same multinational owns the designer label AND the cheap knock-off, and it'd be stupid to sue themselves.
Unlimited copying without paying for it is not a good thing. But the industry needs to recognize that some copying is inevitable, and that it can even be profitable to allow some copying and sharing of copyrighted material. Just as lending libraries have been profitable for book publishers, and video tapes have been profitable for moviemakers, MP3s can be profitable for the recording industry.
On the cultural side, pioneer companies are discovering a scary trait in Brazilians: we don't trust the Internet enough to buy there!
I'll not address the issue of whether those fears are founded or not - I'm not informed enough to comment.
What I will say is... It doesn't matter! If customers find what they want on the Internet, and then buy it, it doesn't matter that they did the actual transaction the old-fashioned way, with real rather than virtual cash. It's still profitable!
Offline, the yellow pages and free "advertizer" newspapers work the same way. They're not used like a catalog, to buy directly; rather, they're used to locate providers of products and services. Yet, they are profitable. They make money for the publishers who print the papers and sell the ads. They also make money for the advertizers who buy the ads, because they bring in paying customers they would not otherwise have.
Attack this some other way, or you'll be destroying the freedom of authors to own their own works -- if you could in fact break copyright law for good, which you probably can't.
Well you could, theoretically, break copyright laws for good. Just like Robin Hood (according to legend anyway) broke the laws against robbery for good. But in RH's case, it wasn't the laws that were unjust so much as unjust enforcement of the laws. In the case of the DMCA, it sure looks like the law itself is unjust.
They own the music. They get to charge what they like, and they get to prosecute the people who break it.
That's exactly the problem. "They" own the music. Not the artists who created it, but the media conglomerates who bought and paid for it. Now they're running scared because they see things like Napster and MP3 making it possible for artists to go directly to the public, bypassing the middlemen.
Is anyone really arguing these students aren't primarily getting illegal music via Napster?
If it was primarily musicians protesting Napster, I might be tempted to agree with you. But it's industry bigwigs who are crying foul the loudest. There's a lot more involved here than some teenagers wanting to get their favorite music without paying for it.