As for "rights owners" we need to say who this phrase really means: The American monopoly music companies.
Correct. It's a very weasly way of equating corporations with the "people who hold copyrights". The fact of the matter is though, I'm a "rights owner" too and I say, let the song fall into the public domain. Why don't they listen to me? Not only do I say this as a member of the public (for who, supposedly, modern copyright was created to benefit) I'm also saying this as a copyright holder. The sad fact is however, even though we've been granted the same rights as the corporations (I'm an "artifical corporation" as it were) we'll never really be considered equal in the eyes of the law because we're incapable of attracting gobs of money with quite the same ferocity and consequently politicians tend to ignore us. There are advantages to this of course; I don't like flys and I certainly don't want to smell of shit.
It's unfortunate state of affairs, but I'm sure I'll cope.
The people who first discovered how to multiply large primes, etc were the scientists at Bletchley Park during World War Two.
That's not true. You're right about the British Government getting there first but it wasn't Bletchley Park but GCHQ and it wasn't WWII but the 1970s. Clifford Cocks was the first person to realise that the public key scheme later discovered independently by RSA, would be useful for cryptography and it was perfected by Cocks along with James Ellis and Malcolm Williamson.
I do not believe that the picture is of Marvin. Since it is white, could it be a krikkit droid?
No, it's Marvin. The cast list said that Marvin is played by Warwick Davies and the actor in the costume is Warwick Davies. I could be wrong, but it seems a like a reasonable deduction.
Well, I find it a pain, because if I miss (or roll a little), I get into that stupid Microsoft free form scroll thingy. It's totally worthless and I have no clue how to turn it off. I know, that's not really Firefox's fault, but you asked.
Goto Options and to the "advanced" page. Expand the "browsing" menu and deselect "use autoscroll"
In literal terms you may be correct, but his comparison with free beer software leads me to believe he was alluding to the Free Software Foundation's meaning of
"free as in speech" software. Regardless of whether he was or not, freedom as he defines isn't particularly useful.
I've nothing against Minix incidentally, I quite like it in fact, and I understand his wish to keep Minix simple for the purposes of education; but his objection to people deriving works from Minix
and distributing them, whether in prepatched source form or as a binary, is/was a mistake IMO.
While [Minix is] not free software in the sense of "free beer" it was free software in the sense of "free speech" since all the source code was available for only slightly more than the manufacturing cost.
That's not "free as in speech". IIRC, the licence prevented us from distributing changes to the OS in any form other than patch files. This was a major reason why people became interested in Linux -- no such restriction exists and it is therefore, truly "free as in speech".
Are you talking about Chinese or Japanese chopsticks?
The Japanese variety traditionally taper to a point, which wouldn't be very hepful for picking up screws I would imagine.
My pet peeve with Disney is that they take stuff in the Public Domain (Cinderella etc) then start sending legal threats to anybody who does the same, claiming that they are cashing on the Disney investment.
That's not strictly true. Disney have a reputation of legally threatening people over this sort of thing but it has nothing to do with protecting its investment. So long as you avoid using Disney inventions that were used in conjunction with the public domain story then Disney can't do a thing.
For example, it's perfectly legitimate for someone to stage a play based on Snow White but Disney would come down hard if you used the names and/or appearance of the Seven Dwarves as seen in the movie (the seven dwarves appear in the original public domain Snow White but the characters of Grumpy, Sleepy, et al, are Disney inventions and not in the public domain).
Is this right? Well, it's a strict and traditional application of copyright so it's difficult to complain about, unless you want to argue against copyright in general. What isn't right, and this relates to your original pet-peeve, is the retroactive extension of copyright so that the Disney inventions never fall into the public domain.
out coastgaurd (for you non-UK is actually called the RNLI which stands for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution)
That's not true. The coastguard is an executive agency of the Department for Transport (DfT), whereas the RNLI is a charitable organisation. It is true that a lot of the sea based rescues are performed by RNLI volunteers but a lot of the coastal emergencies are tended by the coastguard itself. Helicopter rescues for example, don't involve the RNLI.
In other words, it is the Government's responsibility to hire competent administrators.
The parent is referring to the lottery, crappy, machine-made songs, magazines and pornography created by the some sector of the government. The Newspeak word for it was "prolefeed". I just finished the book yesterday.
You're right, I remember now. Although I would say that these ideas are more prominant in Brave New World than in 1984.
Lets not forget the mindless entertainment provided to the prol's to keep them happy and ignorant.
Perhaps you're thinking of Huxley's Brave New World. There was no Government provided entertainment to speak of in 1984. Unless you count the 3-minute hate as entertainment.
The only way people really get around this is to use trademarks (you can't resell RedHat as Redhat - it's theirs) or include some proprietary value add with it.
...therefore the GNU GPL doesn't prevent people from making a profit.
It's true that the GPL doesn't automatically guarantee that people can make a profit but it doesn't prevent it.
They weren't campaiging against publicity but against the need to acknowledge every contributer to derivatives of the software in question. They felt it was too "onerous" because it would make advertisments too unwieldy. If anything, GNU were promoting publicity by encouraging copyright declarations to be succinct and to the point.
No, I guess you're right. Because SOMEBODY might use it for profit, you'd best make sure NOBODY can use it for profit. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Oh for god's sake. The GNU GPL doesn't prevent people from making a profit. Where in the "rules of capitalism" does it say that only proprietary software can result in profit? Do you think IBM would have anything to do with the GPL if there was no profit incentive.
For the record, I have nothing against the modified BSD licence and even advocate its application in certain instances, but to compare it to the GNU GPL and claim that it is somehow more sympathetic to capitalism because it permits proprietary derivatives is pure FUD.
If you can look at the source, and contribute back changes, it is "Open". What it is not is "Free".
Absolutely. And this is the reason why Stallman is so vocal about Free software and why he doesn't actively support the Open Source movement. I have nothing against Open Source but it's rejection of political activism is unfortunate in my opinion. Yes, it has had many victories, convincing companies into the fold who might have rejected Free software otherwise (Netscape or IBM being notable examples) but the current Sun debacle demonstrates how the weakening of core beliefs
can damage the goals of the movement.
As it stands I don't know if the Open Source split was a good thing or a bad thing. I like to think it is but I'm really not sure.
Furthermore, it would probably pass without too much problem because there is generally good public support.
Is there? Personal anecdote aside, I honestly don't know anyone who likes the idea at all.
Apart from anything else, the rationale behind the scheme just doesn't make any sense. According to Blunkett, it will help "combat terrorism". I want to know how it will do this exactly.
An often ignored factoid in the this debate is that Spain has compulsory ID scheme and it's just endured a major terrorist atrocity. I honestly can't see how ID cards help anybody but the Government and the health of its coffers.
Does anyone know if this has passed through Parliament? Everything I've heard on this subject makes it sound as if Blunkett has just decided unilaterally.
I'd guess it would be have to be handled like receiving physical stolen goods; you'd have to prove that the recipient knew it was stolen and then accepted it anyway. I don't think the RIAA's lawyers would find this too difficult given all the press about P2P, so the only reason I can imagine they haven't tried using this law is because there isn't one (yet).
You're assuming that P2P doesn't have non-copyright infringing uses too. In fact, the RIAA would have a mighty difficult time proving that the downloader knew it was copyrighted for this very reason. How is the downloader supposed to know that a particular file is copyrighted (or that the uploader doesn't have a distribution licence) unless it is advertised accordingly? Copyright is a way to control distribution and nothing more.
Why look into it? They didn't use guns in the hi-jackings... There is no legitimate reason for law enforcement to be looking into those records.
Actually, I agree with you. However my purpose wasn't to criticise him for upholding the law but to draw attention to the disparity of his actions. On the one hand he's keen to limit free speech and association in the interests of "homeland security" and on the other he jumps at the chance to protect a suspected terrorists rights to possess firearms. I find his attitude to the situation utterly astonishing and not a little bizarre.
Ashcroft hasn't done anything that could even remotely be considered to to infringe upon the 3rd, 7th, or 9th amendments either.
Heh. You're right, that's 40% of the Bill of Rights that are completely intact!
At least this way, you could see their @gmail.com or whatever address and not send it if you didn't like it.
What about forwarding addresses. GMail is generally useful for people who travel about so it's not unreasonable to imagine sending a mail to someone using a regular address and for his MTA or client to forward it to a gmail address in his absence.
Slashdot Mirror
It's unfortunate state of affairs, but I'm sure I'll cope.
Goto Options and to the "advanced" page. Expand the "browsing" menu and deselect "use autoscroll"
In literal terms you may be correct, but his comparison with free beer software leads me to believe he was alluding to the Free Software Foundation's meaning of "free as in speech" software. Regardless of whether he was or not, freedom as he defines isn't particularly useful.
I've nothing against Minix incidentally, I quite like it in fact, and I understand his wish to keep Minix simple for the purposes of education; but his objection to people deriving works from Minix and distributing them, whether in prepatched source form or as a binary, is/was a mistake IMO.
Are you talking about Chinese or Japanese chopsticks? The Japanese variety traditionally taper to a point, which wouldn't be very hepful for picking up screws I would imagine.
That's not strictly true. Disney have a reputation of legally threatening people over this sort of thing but it has nothing to do with protecting its investment. So long as you avoid using Disney inventions that were used in conjunction with the public domain story then Disney can't do a thing.
For example, it's perfectly legitimate for someone to stage a play based on Snow White but Disney would come down hard if you used the names and/or appearance of the Seven Dwarves as seen in the movie (the seven dwarves appear in the original public domain Snow White but the characters of Grumpy, Sleepy, et al, are Disney inventions and not in the public domain).
Is this right? Well, it's a strict and traditional application of copyright so it's difficult to complain about, unless you want to argue against copyright in general. What isn't right, and this relates to your original pet-peeve, is the retroactive extension of copyright so that the Disney inventions never fall into the public domain.
That's not true. The coastguard is an executive agency of the Department for Transport (DfT), whereas the RNLI is a charitable organisation. It is true that a lot of the sea based rescues are performed by RNLI volunteers but a lot of the coastal emergencies are tended by the coastguard itself. Helicopter rescues for example, don't involve the RNLI.
In other words, it is the Government's responsibility to hire competent administrators.
Neither do people who don't own a TV.
Perhaps I should, it's been a couple of years.
You're right, I remember now. Although I would say that these ideas are more prominant in Brave New World than in 1984.
Perhaps you're thinking of Huxley's Brave New World. There was no Government provided entertainment to speak of in 1984. Unless you count the 3-minute hate as entertainment.
Perhaps. But that's a matter of comparison and I can't comment on it because I've never made a profit from anything.
It's true that the GPL doesn't automatically guarantee that people can make a profit but it doesn't prevent it.
They weren't campaiging against publicity but against the need to acknowledge every contributer to derivatives of the software in question. They felt it was too "onerous" because it would make advertisments too unwieldy. If anything, GNU were promoting publicity by encouraging copyright declarations to be succinct and to the point.
This essay clarifies GNU's position.
Oh for god's sake. The GNU GPL doesn't prevent people from making a profit. Where in the "rules of capitalism" does it say that only proprietary software can result in profit? Do you think IBM would have anything to do with the GPL if there was no profit incentive.
For the record, I have nothing against the modified BSD licence and even advocate its application in certain instances, but to compare it to the GNU GPL and claim that it is somehow more sympathetic to capitalism because it permits proprietary derivatives is pure FUD.
Absolutely. And this is the reason why Stallman is so vocal about Free software and why he doesn't actively support the Open Source movement. I have nothing against Open Source but it's rejection of political activism is unfortunate in my opinion. Yes, it has had many victories, convincing companies into the fold who might have rejected Free software otherwise (Netscape or IBM being notable examples) but the current Sun debacle demonstrates how the weakening of core beliefs can damage the goals of the movement.
As it stands I don't know if the Open Source split was a good thing or a bad thing. I like to think it is but I'm really not sure.
Is there? Personal anecdote aside, I honestly don't know anyone who likes the idea at all.
Apart from anything else, the rationale behind the scheme just doesn't make any sense. According to Blunkett, it will help "combat terrorism". I want to know how it will do this exactly.
An often ignored factoid in the this debate is that Spain has compulsory ID scheme and it's just endured a major terrorist atrocity. I honestly can't see how ID cards help anybody but the Government and the health of its coffers.
Does anyone know if this has passed through Parliament? Everything I've heard on this subject makes it sound as if Blunkett has just decided unilaterally.
Venus is the Roman equivalent to the Greek Aphrodite.
Can you now point out where these groups are profiting from their distribution. The definition you cite seems to require this.
You're assuming that P2P doesn't have non-copyright infringing uses too. In fact, the RIAA would have a mighty difficult time proving that the downloader knew it was copyrighted for this very reason. How is the downloader supposed to know that a particular file is copyrighted (or that the uploader doesn't have a distribution licence) unless it is advertised accordingly? Copyright is a way to control distribution and nothing more.
Actually, I agree with you. However my purpose wasn't to criticise him for upholding the law but to draw attention to the disparity of his actions. On the one hand he's keen to limit free speech and association in the interests of "homeland security" and on the other he jumps at the chance to protect a suspected terrorists rights to possess firearms. I find his attitude to the situation utterly astonishing and not a little bizarre.
Heh. You're right, that's 40% of the Bill of Rights that are completely intact!
What about forwarding addresses. GMail is generally useful for people who travel about so it's not unreasonable to imagine sending a mail to someone using a regular address and for his MTA or client to forward it to a gmail address in his absence.