As the property owner, I do, naturally. I bought a copy of the work. That copy is now mine. I own it and can do what I wish with it, save for copying it and redistributing it to the public. That'd be why time- and format-shifting are already legal (ignoring the DMCA's workaround for the moment).
I'm shocked you feel this point is even debatable. Again, copyright is just a government granted monopoly, and it only applies to creating and redistributing copies of the work. Once an individual has acquired a legally distributed copy of the work, it's theirs to do with as they please. Period.
Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you?
Because those rights always existed until the media cartels decided to try and take them away? Again, the VCR is a classic example. It embodies both format and time shifting, and was ruled entirely legal by the US legal system. To be specific, the right is called "fair use", and it's pretty well established in law. In fact, format- and time-shifting is *still* legal, and considered fair use, even in the wake of the DMCA. What's *not* legal is the distribution of a device who's purpose is to bypass DRM... and that's the case because the media cartels managed to by the DMCA.
A better question you should be asking is, why *don't* you expect rights like time- and format-shifting? How dare the owners of the copyright to these works attempt to dictate what you can and can't do with the copy you purchased with your hard-earned dollars? Who are they to decide if, for your own personal use, you should take a CD and rip it to an MP3? Or copy a DVD onto your media server so I can watch it without needing to pop in a disc?
I think the nerd community's expectations of digital rights is tainted by the availability of ripped downloads
And I think your expectations are coloured by the fact that you've just come to expect content to be restricted (heck, depending on your age, you've probably become fully indoctrinated in the idea). But, historically, it's a relatively new phenomenon, and it's one we shouldn't simply accept as not only inevitable, but moral, as it's neither.
So if they set the DRM so that the limitations are removed when the copyright runs out, you'd be all for it?
It would help, but unfortunately, they're still trying to take away the "rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you" (yes, it's a little crass to quote yourself, but either you missed that part, or neglected to comprehend it's significance). DRM gives content provides rights *they should never have had in the first place*. Format shifting, time shifting... these are things I can expect to do with the content I've purchased. Hell, if these guys had their way, the VCR would be illegal.
So, while time limitations on DRM would help (and I think should be mandated by the state, lest, decades from now, we run the risk of losing access to large portions of our culture), it doesn't fully address the issue, IMHO.
Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them.
Not at all. I understand that creating content costs money. I happily pay for music (primary from indie bands), DVDs, or movies in the theatre. But I'm not willing to cede my rights simply because the content creators want to find new ways to further soak me.
Piracy. No, seriously. These people are creating new rights for themselves, by locking up their content in a way that was never intended by those who invented copyright. Copyright exists for one single purpose: to create an incentive for the creation of new content, and it was structured as a time-limited monopoly, not a perpetual one. As such, I have absolutely no qualms with breaking the laws they've bought over the past 50 years.
Now, if you do have problems with piracy, might I suggest this alternative: by the Blu-ray disc, thus paying the content creator for their work, and then download a pirated copy. At least then you can still avail yourself of the rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you. Of course, this still rewards the content creators, thus encouraging further attempts to restrict your use of the material you bought with your hard-earned cash...
So does that mean CPU usage will be 100% when I copy files to a hard drive?
USB 3.0 does away with polling (which is what causes the high CPU usage) with an asynchronous event model whereby the device controller sends service requests to the host (unfortunately, I can't find a great reference for this, although they mention it here).
Or, to put it another way, it allows USB to enter the 20th century.:)
Well, the flipside is that the Taliban was horribly totalitarian. Yes, they did us a favour by suppressing poppy production, but at what price?
Besides which, it's clear that they didn't target the underlying issues that encourage poppy production in the first place. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if, under the Taliban, poverty and starvation became worse specifically because farmers didn't have the revenue available from poppy production, while at the same time didn't have the resources or government support to switch to a traditional cash crop.
So, it's a mixed bag. Personally, I prefer the idea of ousting the Taliban, and then assisting Afghan farmers move to food crops, over supporting the Taliban in order to forcibly suppress poppy production.
Doh, make that other non-previously-Chinese regions... *sigh*:)
My point, which I entirely failed to make, is that while China is always working (rightly or wrongly) to keep what it deems "China" together, it rarely intercedes in other nations' domestic policies beyond that.
Bah, that's a special case and you know it. They've always felt, rightly or wrongly, that Tibet was part of China, and if there's one thing you can say about China, it's that, for a *very* long time now, they've been very zealous about maintaining the unity of their nation.
Aside from that, though, China is extremely hands off regarding other nations.
He never argued otherwise. His comment was to the effect that there are legal barriers to entry into many of these markets
No, he said (or, at the very least, strongly implied) that removing the legal barriers would magically solve the competition problem. Unfortunately, that's a libertarian fantasy.
The reasons for war were not dubious until mid-war when Dems and certain media decided being against the war would win an election.
ROFL, wow... that's... an impressive set of alternate-reality glasses you're wearing. Yup, you're right, no one was wondering where the WMDs were. No one was questioning the motivations for going in. It was all a partisan conspiracy.:rollseyes:
Hint: you can't win an election on an issue if people aren't already on your side.
People have sacrificed so much for this country over our 250 years, and we are so unbelievably detached from that sense of sacrifice.
I disagree. In fact, my entire point is that people are perfectly willing to sacrifice for a valid cause. But if the cause ain't valid (like, say, mythical WMDs that turned out to be an utter fabrication), then of course people will stand in opposition. But, add a valid justification, or reduce the sacrifice necessary, and people will happily go along.
So the US is there with the blessings of the UN (and possibly the Afghan government) this time?
Well, it's very much a multi-lateral force with broad support (my own nation, Canada, has been heavily involved in the region for quite some time now). I don't recall if it's UN sanctioned, though.
If poppies (and with it the opium trade) are the problem, then how many Predators are equipped as crop dusters? Whenever I hear whatever litte I hear about Afghanistan, none of it has to do with poppies or opium.
Well, there's a real problem, there. Destroy the poppies and you destroy people's livelihoods, which means more poor people and more starvation, while at the same time you drive a wedge between yourself and the people you're trying to protect.
Which is why the Afghan government, the one we're trying to stabilize, has been involved in efforts to destroy opium crops while encouraging the growth of cash crops such as wheat (they're predicting a record wheat crop this year, partly due to good growing conditions, but also partly because of farmers moving to wheat instead of opium cultivation). But the nations operating in the area have largely left the poppy fields alone.
But, just to emphasize this, the lesson, here, is that you don't have to go around razing fields in order to stem the flow of opium. A far better solution is to fight the problems (such as poverty) which encourage poppy cultivation in the first place.
Serious question (because I haven't really been paying attention): What are the justifications for the war in Afghanistan?
a) The country is a save haven for terrorists, b) The Taliban and it's supporters effectively enslave the local populace, c) The instability in the region creates conditions which breed terrorism, d) The region itself poses problems of instability in the region as a whole, e) Through the growing of poppies, it helps to fund terrorism worldwide.
Those are just a few off the top of my head. In short: Afghanistan is all but a failed state, and I'm happy to see an international force (including soldiers from my own nation) move in to try and provide peace and stability, much as I would've liked to see intervention in Darfur and other conflict regions.
With robot soldiers, there wouldn't be quite so many "bloody wars" though, would there?
Because US robots wouldn't be killing regular soldiers on the battlefield? Or do you really think that it'll just be robot-on-robot fighting?
Hint: Most of the world, including the places the US is currently deployed, can't even afford the armour being warn by US soldiers, let alone fancy robotic killing machines.
And I see you completely missed my point. So, let me spell it out: I'm not arguing about the merits of the Iraq war. What I am arguing is that public opinion turned because of the deaths in Iraq, combined with the fact that, as time went on, people felt that the war was poorly justified.
My subsequent response was that relative number of deaths makes no difference. A few thousand, a few hundred thousand, they're still deaths. Just because more people died in past wars doesn't change the fundamental rules: you gotta justify the war, or you gotta keep casualties down.
Therefore, if you are in the game of trying to sway public opinion, and you want to ensure support for war, you have to do one of two things: provide justification, or reduce the body count. And since drones make it easier to do the latter, it makes it less necessary to provide the former. And that's the danger, in my mind.
Would 1 death be acceptable to you in a war started for dubious reasons?
In a war started for dubious reasons, of course not. In a war started for justifiable reasons (say, operations in Afghanistan), then yes, most certainly.
If not, then you are part of the "without regard for body count" to which the poster was referring.
Wrong. The GP said, and I quote:
The only people who think the body count is too high are: people who lost someone close to them and therefore to whom one is too high a count; and people opposed to war without regard for body count.
He explicitly says "opposed to war". Not "opposed to dubious wars". The former are people who don't understand reality. The latter expect proper justification before the government goes to war, as war currently requires sacrifice. Take away the sacrifice and suddenly it's a lot easier to go to war.
Considering that US Highway deaths since 2003 are roughly 200,000 and the casualties in Iraq for US troops are 4311 It would seem that many Americans accept that as okay.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Most people accept road fatalities as an unavoidable fact of life (whether that's true or not is entirely beside the point). Deaths as a result of war, on the other hand, are easily avoided by simply not waging war in the first place.
Put another way, deaths due to war require an active decision by the government to wage war in the first place, and therefore it's necessary to justify the war to the people. Take away the deaths and you take away the need for justification.
Additionally, you were being pedantic by building a straw man of his position, instead of addressing his point of comparative body counts from previous wars showing that the US Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are faring much better in this war then any previous one.
No, I wasn't. His counter-argument to the idea that the body count in Iraq turned public opinion against the war was that more people died in previous wars. My point, since you obviously missed it, was that the number of deaths relative to previous wars isn't what matters when you're trying to sway public opinion. Rather, it's the body count combined with the relative merits of the war.
Which gets back to the point I made originally. If you have a) a poorly justified war, and b) some number of dead soldiers, the tide will turn against you. If, however, you can either justify the war, or reduce the number of dead on your side, then the public will back you. Drones and so forth make it possible to reduce b to a very low value, possibly even zero, which makes it all too easy for a government to wage poorly justified wars, and I would contend that's a bad thing.
The only people who think the body count is too high are: people who lost someone close to them and therefore to whom one is too high a count; and people opposed to war without regard for body count. We lost more than 60,000 in Vietnam; 40,000 in Korea; more than a quarter million in WWII; more than 500,000 in the civil war.
So that makes the thousands lost in Iraq, a war started for dubious reasons, okay?
Something tells me your opinions don't represent those of a typical American.
The solution is not to regulate the ISPs further, but to get rid of the regulation preventing competition from existing.
Yes... because regulations are the only barrier to entry. After all, it's dead easy to get the rights to lay your own copper, right? And I'm sure it doesn't cost very much to do that kind of infrastructure rollout...
As an Air Force veteran with two draftable daughters, I'd say relying on robots rather than having our troops shot at and bombed is a GOOD thing.
I'm not sure I agree. While it would take soldiers out of the line of fire and reduce casualties, it would also make pointless, bloody wars a lot more palatable to the populace, and far easier to justify... after all, the populist tide didn't turn against the Iraq war until the US body count really started going up.
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Who has the paramount right here?
As the property owner, I do, naturally. I bought a copy of the work. That copy is now mine. I own it and can do what I wish with it, save for copying it and redistributing it to the public. That'd be why time- and format-shifting are already legal (ignoring the DMCA's workaround for the moment).
I'm shocked you feel this point is even debatable. Again, copyright is just a government granted monopoly, and it only applies to creating and redistributing copies of the work. Once an individual has acquired a legally distributed copy of the work, it's theirs to do with as they please. Period.
Or copy a DVD onto your media server so I can watch it without needing to pop in a disc?
ROFL, obviously I meant so *you* can watch it without needing to pop in a disc. :)
Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you?
Because those rights always existed until the media cartels decided to try and take them away? Again, the VCR is a classic example. It embodies both format and time shifting, and was ruled entirely legal by the US legal system. To be specific, the right is called "fair use", and it's pretty well established in law. In fact, format- and time-shifting is *still* legal, and considered fair use, even in the wake of the DMCA. What's *not* legal is the distribution of a device who's purpose is to bypass DRM... and that's the case because the media cartels managed to by the DMCA.
A better question you should be asking is, why *don't* you expect rights like time- and format-shifting? How dare the owners of the copyright to these works attempt to dictate what you can and can't do with the copy you purchased with your hard-earned dollars? Who are they to decide if, for your own personal use, you should take a CD and rip it to an MP3? Or copy a DVD onto your media server so I can watch it without needing to pop in a disc?
I think the nerd community's expectations of digital rights is tainted by the availability of ripped downloads
And I think your expectations are coloured by the fact that you've just come to expect content to be restricted (heck, depending on your age, you've probably become fully indoctrinated in the idea). But, historically, it's a relatively new phenomenon, and it's one we shouldn't simply accept as not only inevitable, but moral, as it's neither.
So if they set the DRM so that the limitations are removed when the copyright runs out, you'd be all for it?
It would help, but unfortunately, they're still trying to take away the "rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you" (yes, it's a little crass to quote yourself, but either you missed that part, or neglected to comprehend it's significance). DRM gives content provides rights *they should never have had in the first place*. Format shifting, time shifting... these are things I can expect to do with the content I've purchased. Hell, if these guys had their way, the VCR would be illegal.
So, while time limitations on DRM would help (and I think should be mandated by the state, lest, decades from now, we run the risk of losing access to large portions of our culture), it doesn't fully address the issue, IMHO.
Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them.
Not at all. I understand that creating content costs money. I happily pay for music (primary from indie bands), DVDs, or movies in the theatre. But I'm not willing to cede my rights simply because the content creators want to find new ways to further soak me.
Jebus, at least *someone* got the (admittedly lame) joke... :)
Piracy. No, seriously. These people are creating new rights for themselves, by locking up their content in a way that was never intended by those who invented copyright. Copyright exists for one single purpose: to create an incentive for the creation of new content, and it was structured as a time-limited monopoly, not a perpetual one. As such, I have absolutely no qualms with breaking the laws they've bought over the past 50 years.
Now, if you do have problems with piracy, might I suggest this alternative: by the Blu-ray disc, thus paying the content creator for their work, and then download a pirated copy. At least then you can still avail yourself of the rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you. Of course, this still rewards the content creators, thus encouraging further attempts to restrict your use of the material you bought with your hard-earned cash...
So does that mean CPU usage will be 100% when I copy files to a hard drive?
USB 3.0 does away with polling (which is what causes the high CPU usage) with an asynchronous event model whereby the device controller sends service requests to the host (unfortunately, I can't find a great reference for this, although they mention it here).
Or, to put it another way, it allows USB to enter the 20th century. :)
Well, the flipside is that the Taliban was horribly totalitarian. Yes, they did us a favour by suppressing poppy production, but at what price?
Besides which, it's clear that they didn't target the underlying issues that encourage poppy production in the first place. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if, under the Taliban, poverty and starvation became worse specifically because farmers didn't have the revenue available from poppy production, while at the same time didn't have the resources or government support to switch to a traditional cash crop.
So, it's a mixed bag. Personally, I prefer the idea of ousting the Taliban, and then assisting Afghan farmers move to food crops, over supporting the Taliban in order to forcibly suppress poppy production.
Doh, make that other non-previously-Chinese regions... *sigh* :)
My point, which I entirely failed to make, is that while China is always working (rightly or wrongly) to keep what it deems "China" together, it rarely intercedes in other nations' domestic policies beyond that.
Yeah. It is. Or have you noticed China trying to anex other previously Chinese regions as of late?
Bah, that's a special case and you know it. They've always felt, rightly or wrongly, that Tibet was part of China, and if there's one thing you can say about China, it's that, for a *very* long time now, they've been very zealous about maintaining the unity of their nation.
Aside from that, though, China is extremely hands off regarding other nations.
He never argued otherwise. His comment was to the effect that there are legal barriers to entry into many of these markets
No, he said (or, at the very least, strongly implied) that removing the legal barriers would magically solve the competition problem. Unfortunately, that's a libertarian fantasy.
The reasons for war were not dubious until mid-war when Dems and certain media decided being against the war would win an election.
ROFL, wow... that's... an impressive set of alternate-reality glasses you're wearing. Yup, you're right, no one was wondering where the WMDs were. No one was questioning the motivations for going in. It was all a partisan conspiracy. :rollseyes:
Hint: you can't win an election on an issue if people aren't already on your side.
People have sacrificed so much for this country over our 250 years, and we are so unbelievably detached from that sense of sacrifice.
I disagree. In fact, my entire point is that people are perfectly willing to sacrifice for a valid cause. But if the cause ain't valid (like, say, mythical WMDs that turned out to be an utter fabrication), then of course people will stand in opposition. But, add a valid justification, or reduce the sacrifice necessary, and people will happily go along.
So the US is there with the blessings of the UN (and possibly the Afghan government) this time?
Well, it's very much a multi-lateral force with broad support (my own nation, Canada, has been heavily involved in the region for quite some time now). I don't recall if it's UN sanctioned, though.
If poppies (and with it the opium trade) are the problem, then how many Predators are equipped as crop dusters? Whenever I hear whatever litte I hear about Afghanistan, none of it has to do with poppies or opium.
Well, there's a real problem, there. Destroy the poppies and you destroy people's livelihoods, which means more poor people and more starvation, while at the same time you drive a wedge between yourself and the people you're trying to protect.
Which is why the Afghan government, the one we're trying to stabilize, has been involved in efforts to destroy opium crops while encouraging the growth of cash crops such as wheat (they're predicting a record wheat crop this year, partly due to good growing conditions, but also partly because of farmers moving to wheat instead of opium cultivation). But the nations operating in the area have largely left the poppy fields alone.
But, just to emphasize this, the lesson, here, is that you don't have to go around razing fields in order to stem the flow of opium. A far better solution is to fight the problems (such as poverty) which encourage poppy cultivation in the first place.
It's the only force-backed barrier to entry, yes.
Uh, those aren't the only kind that lead to natural monopolies. Just FYI.
Honestly, you really need to take a basic course in economics... it'd do you some good.
Well, to be fair, you do have one thing in common: an over-inflated sense of your own self-worth.
Serious question (because I haven't really been paying attention): What are the justifications for the war in Afghanistan?
a) The country is a save haven for terrorists,
b) The Taliban and it's supporters effectively enslave the local populace,
c) The instability in the region creates conditions which breed terrorism,
d) The region itself poses problems of instability in the region as a whole,
e) Through the growing of poppies, it helps to fund terrorism worldwide.
Those are just a few off the top of my head. In short: Afghanistan is all but a failed state, and I'm happy to see an international force (including soldiers from my own nation) move in to try and provide peace and stability, much as I would've liked to see intervention in Darfur and other conflict regions.
With robot soldiers, there wouldn't be quite so many "bloody wars" though, would there?
Because US robots wouldn't be killing regular soldiers on the battlefield? Or do you really think that it'll just be robot-on-robot fighting?
Hint: Most of the world, including the places the US is currently deployed, can't even afford the armour being warn by US soldiers, let alone fancy robotic killing machines.
Judging history via hindsight is dubious.
And I see you completely missed my point. So, let me spell it out: I'm not arguing about the merits of the Iraq war. What I am arguing is that public opinion turned because of the deaths in Iraq, combined with the fact that, as time went on, people felt that the war was poorly justified.
My subsequent response was that relative number of deaths makes no difference. A few thousand, a few hundred thousand, they're still deaths. Just because more people died in past wars doesn't change the fundamental rules: you gotta justify the war, or you gotta keep casualties down.
Therefore, if you are in the game of trying to sway public opinion, and you want to ensure support for war, you have to do one of two things: provide justification, or reduce the body count. And since drones make it easier to do the latter, it makes it less necessary to provide the former. And that's the danger, in my mind.
Would 1 death be acceptable to you in a war started for dubious reasons?
In a war started for dubious reasons, of course not. In a war started for justifiable reasons (say, operations in Afghanistan), then yes, most certainly.
If not, then you are part of the "without regard for body count" to which the poster was referring.
Wrong. The GP said, and I quote:
He explicitly says "opposed to war". Not "opposed to dubious wars". The former are people who don't understand reality. The latter expect proper justification before the government goes to war, as war currently requires sacrifice. Take away the sacrifice and suddenly it's a lot easier to go to war.
Considering that US Highway deaths since 2003 are roughly 200,000 and the casualties in Iraq for US troops are 4311 It would seem that many Americans accept that as okay.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Most people accept road fatalities as an unavoidable fact of life (whether that's true or not is entirely beside the point). Deaths as a result of war, on the other hand, are easily avoided by simply not waging war in the first place.
Put another way, deaths due to war require an active decision by the government to wage war in the first place, and therefore it's necessary to justify the war to the people. Take away the deaths and you take away the need for justification.
Additionally, you were being pedantic by building a straw man of his position, instead of addressing his point of comparative body counts from previous wars showing that the US Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are faring much better in this war then any previous one.
No, I wasn't. His counter-argument to the idea that the body count in Iraq turned public opinion against the war was that more people died in previous wars. My point, since you obviously missed it, was that the number of deaths relative to previous wars isn't what matters when you're trying to sway public opinion. Rather, it's the body count combined with the relative merits of the war.
Which gets back to the point I made originally. If you have a) a poorly justified war, and b) some number of dead soldiers, the tide will turn against you. If, however, you can either justify the war, or reduce the number of dead on your side, then the public will back you. Drones and so forth make it possible to reduce b to a very low value, possibly even zero, which makes it all too easy for a government to wage poorly justified wars, and I would contend that's a bad thing.
The only people who think the body count is too high are: people who lost someone close to them and therefore to whom one is too high a count; and people opposed to war without regard for body count. We lost more than 60,000 in Vietnam; 40,000 in Korea; more than a quarter million in WWII; more than 500,000 in the civil war.
So that makes the thousands lost in Iraq, a war started for dubious reasons, okay?
Something tells me your opinions don't represent those of a typical American.
The solution is not to regulate the ISPs further, but to get rid of the regulation preventing competition from existing.
Yes... because regulations are the only barrier to entry. After all, it's dead easy to get the rights to lay your own copper, right? And I'm sure it doesn't cost very much to do that kind of infrastructure rollout...
As an Air Force veteran with two draftable daughters, I'd say relying on robots rather than having our troops shot at and bombed is a GOOD thing.
I'm not sure I agree. While it would take soldiers out of the line of fire and reduce casualties, it would also make pointless, bloody wars a lot more palatable to the populace, and far easier to justify... after all, the populist tide didn't turn against the Iraq war until the US body count really started going up.
So, now that the new car gets better mileage, they drive more miles...so many more miles that the net result is they use more gasoline.
Funny, then, that total miles driven declined last year. But, hey, why look at the facts when you can just make stuff up, right?