> Not a real quote from any person but the whole "I paid $29.95.." line is a crock. "I spent $29.95 on Kazaa and thought I could download thousands of dollars of CDs, movies, software and pr0n." Riiiight.. (Feigning) ignorance is not a defense.
Of course, they aren't actually downloading CDs; they aren't downloading anything tangible at all. They're getting exactly what they get on the radio, except commercial free and a choice of content, but then they're paying more than they're paying to hear the radio as well.
Don't credit Joe Somebody with the same understanding of the situation that we have. Everyone - including us - is completely ignorant about most of what goes on in the world. And outside certain circles, computers, the internet, and intellectual property are some of the most mysterious objects in the universe, so misunderstandings of the type professed here should be completly unsurprising.
> From http://www.kazaa.com/us/terms.htm
2 What You Can't Do Under This Licence
Yeah, everybody reads their software licenses before using the software.
> Makes me wonder what sort of "protection from liability suits" these seals will get exactly. It may just be me, but I don't think antiterrorism products need this sort of freedom.
Yeah, but it's yet another convenient way the Bush Administration can exploit 9/11 as an excuse to hand out some more corporate welfare without raising too much of an outcry.
> I don't think it's being cynical to think it was a trap. What has the RIAA done, either for its customers, or for its artists, that would earn them the benefit of the doubt?
Given us cheap and convenient access to piles and piles of top-quality music in the portable format of our choi-
> The EFF did not have time in this case to do anything. This was brought to wordwide attention and settled in one day. [...] If this case had come up before a judge. There would have been hell to pay.
If it had stayed in the news a few more days there would have been hell to pay anyway, judge or no judge. The RIAA took especial care to make sure they settled it before the EFF, or anyone else, could make an issue of it. (What was it, about a day between the news of the suit and the news of the settlement?)
But their settlement still looks extremely harsh under the circumstances, and can still be milked for much PR benefits if people send the girl donations and the story hits the national news.
The problem remains of how to get the address. I think the best approach would be for someone who lives in the area to contact a reporter or DJ, who might have better luck at digging up the address, since those kind of people really like these "everyone helped a child in distress" stories. (A DJ might feel a conflict of interest, but you never know. Especially if you spin it as "She thought it was legal!" rather than "Help us stuff the RIAA".)
> Okay, it may not be theft, but you're trying to start a semantic argument to divert attention away from the fact that the act of duplicating and distributing music is inherently wrong.
"Inherently"??? I thought it was wrong because some human lawmakers said it was.
Some people think smoking tobacco is inherently right and smoking pot is inherently wrong, but the real distinction is that a group of humans subject to the influence of money and voting pressure groups decided that it was in their best interest to categorize the two substances differently in their laws.
Intellectual Property is a legal creation, and we should demand IP laws on the basis of what's good for society rather than on someone's ideological notion of inherent rights and wrongs, or on what lobbyist donations and voting pressure groups demand.
I'm not saying fileswapping should be legal; I just want to make sure the arguments pro and con are grounded in legal reality rather than preconceived notions of "inherent" right and wrong. If you want to say that file duplication and swapping is illegal, or is not in the best interest of society, go ahead and make those arguments. But condemnation on an appeal to inherent wrongness is factually incorrect, and won't get you any mileage except among people who already agree with you.
> refused to use it for so long you've sufficiently brainwashed yourself into believing you're somehow nobel for stealing other people's works.
FWIW, I don't download the RIAA's music. But I despise them, and I think it is well worth waging this kind of PR war against them for completely different reasons.
It's the RIAA that's stealing other people's work. And money. They're simply robber barons set up in a position where they can artificially regulate supply and artificially create (or destroy) demand, with the result that both artist and consumer gets screwed and the RIAA rakes in huge sums of "monopoly money" far out of proportion to what the contribute to the process. If they didn't have a stranglehold on the distribution system most of that money would stay in the consumers' pockets, and most of the rest would go into the artists' pockets.
That system needs to be broken up, and if I can contribute to that end by sending a stranger $10 that she probably doesn't deserve, I'll be glad to do that.
> Good to see an effort to stop child porn Bad implementation is a little dissapointing So, who's gunna make the next filter for the ISPs to block the sites without hurting others sharing the IP?
If they know the IPs, why don't they just raid the creeps and cut it off at the source?
> What do you suppose that the $2,000 fine neatly offsets a $2,000 "work for hire" payment from the RIAA to Brianna's family for producing such spin-friendly quotes?
And if you download the recording of her saying them, maybe you can get sued into a sweet deal too!
> Later on I think, d'oh could have gotten free cash, perhaps a tank of gas, but the moral responce wins. This isn't a fear of getting caught, it's just doing the cool thing.
Unless you're hungry or have a self-image problem, you're not likely to find a wallet with more money in it than your pride is worth to you.
> Read the quotes in the article and determine if that is what the mom or kid said based on the news reports. What? They all of the sudden started speaking in polished engligh? They suddenly saw the light after vowing to fight?
> What I think happened here is that the RIAA swooped in and offered them a deal. More than likely they pushed the money to her somehow and it came back. Nice and neat. That's only my opinion without any facts.
All the more reason to send her money. Think of the karma obtainable by embarrassing them over a non-existent situation!
I don't care if I send her ten bucks she doesn't deserve, if the media picks up on it and runs a heart-warming story about how a bunch of geeks came to the aid of a poor kid being abused by a big bully trade organization. If anyone pipes up and blows the true story, all the better.
> Leaving the analyses to others, I would like to say concisely that in retribution for this behavior, I from this day forward will never again purchase another compact disc. Ever.
Guess I need to run out and buy a few so I can quit too...
> Even incidents like this are to the RIAA's benefit, because it keeps the issue in the public consciousness. The longer it stays there, the stronger the public presumption that they're fundamentally in their rights, that it's OK for the RIAA to take drastic measures.
Several people have suggested setting up a donation fund for her. If we could get her name and do that, and convince non-Slashdotting music downloaders to do the same, even very modest sums of money would quickly add up to a very large sum, attracting the media's attention: "Geeks Help Poor 12yo Pay RIAA Fine".
Keep it in the news that the RIAA squeezed $2,000 dollars out of a poor pre-teen who thought she had paid for the service to begin with. If they're going to play PR games, there's no reason people who despise them can't do the same thing.
> Let's not miss the point. I don't think the RIAA knew she (or even that it was a 'she') was 12; it was sent to the household where the ISP account is registered. Next stage is that the parents say "shit", we're in trouble, let's contact the papers and try to get out of this mess by way of our 12-year old daughter. It may or may not have been this girl who downloaded the music, this point is moot. The parents are responsible as they most likely set up the account.
Thing is, as someone else has pointe out, the whole thing is a social engineering battle. But that's true on both sides. So now one side has exposed a gap in its armor and the other side took a stab at it.
While I don't espouse copyright violations, I think the above is the level we need to view this whole thing on until society works it out. Zooming in on the fine-grained legal level will make you miss the history being made. The legal details now may or may not be the same in five years, and it's the social engineering battle that will determine that. Don't let the footnotes keep you from noticing the plot.
> Take for instance a relatively simple GUI application. Say that it takes two weeks to develop the application under a free toolkit like GTK. Now say that it takes only one week to develop that same application under VB. If we use a $60k developer salary (which is only about half of what it actually costs to employ a developer), then we see that one week of time is worth ~$1154. After one month, the license for VB and Windows has quickly paid for itself.
In my experience, companies that want more bang for their buck should concentrate on optimizing their hiring practices rather than their tool purchases. A second-rate developer may only make 90% of what a first-rate developer does, but produces about half the results and lots more bugs. A third-rate developer might make 80% as much, and produce 1/5 the amount of code and vastly more bugs for the others to fix. A fourth-rate developer might actually drag the project backwards. And yet you still see these people on important projects.
If companies want to optimize their IT performance, there's something a heck of a lot more important than tools and platforms that they should concentrate on as the first-order fix. IMO.
> Although I'm not a Windows fan, I actually could believe this, until I read this part:
"Last December, Microsoft released a study that showed that Windows-based servers were cheaper to run than those on Linux in four out of five common server tasks."
You just got to love studies funded by non-biased companies!
Yep. You basically run a few hundred, thousand, or million tests until you find a few where your platform wins, publish those, and never mention the rest. It's kind of like people who investigate the paranormal and report only the experiments that beat the statistical expectations, dismissing the rest with "the force wasn't with me today".
You can easily turn random noise into a strong signal, if you apply the right filter.
> When analysing the cost differences of Windows and Linux, the main advantage to windows always seems to be that little to no training is required...until the next version comes out, at which point you pack your entire stff off to week-long training seminars.
> while on the other hand, Linux requires lots of training, with Expensive Admins.
Do you include the price of cleaning up SoBig.[FGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ] in that expense?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, everybody reads their software licenses before using the software.> Not a real quote from any person but the whole "I paid $29.95.." line is a crock. "I spent $29.95 on Kazaa and thought I could download thousands of dollars of CDs, movies, software and pr0n." Riiiight.. (Feigning) ignorance is not a defense.
Of course, they aren't actually downloading CDs; they aren't downloading anything tangible at all. They're getting exactly what they get on the radio, except commercial free and a choice of content, but then they're paying more than they're paying to hear the radio as well.
Don't credit Joe Somebody with the same understanding of the situation that we have. Everyone - including us - is completely ignorant about most of what goes on in the world. And outside certain circles, computers, the internet, and intellectual property are some of the most mysterious objects in the universe, so misunderstandings of the type professed here should be completly unsurprising.
> From http://www.kazaa.com/us/terms.htm
> Looks like Ultra-liberalism 101.
Surely you didn't expect the Bush Administration to commit excesses on the liberal side of the fence?
The bias is a result of who's driving, not of who's observing.
> What would be the standards used for this certification?
Campaign donations by the applicant?
> Makes me wonder what sort of "protection from liability suits" these seals will get exactly. It may just be me, but I don't think antiterrorism products need this sort of freedom.
Yeah, but it's yet another convenient way the Bush Administration can exploit 9/11 as an excuse to hand out some more corporate welfare without raising too much of an outcry.
> I don't think it's being cynical to think it was a trap. What has the RIAA done, either for its customers, or for its artists, that would earn them the benefit of the doubt?
Given us cheap and convenient access to piles and piles of top-quality music in the portable format of our choi-
Uhm, nevermind.
> The EFF did not have time in this case to do anything. This was brought to wordwide attention and settled in one day. [...] If this case had come up before a judge. There would have been hell to pay.
If it had stayed in the news a few more days there would have been hell to pay anyway, judge or no judge. The RIAA took especial care to make sure they settled it before the EFF, or anyone else, could make an issue of it. (What was it, about a day between the news of the suit and the news of the settlement?)
But their settlement still looks extremely harsh under the circumstances, and can still be milked for much PR benefits if people send the girl donations and the story hits the national news.
The problem remains of how to get the address. I think the best approach would be for someone who lives in the area to contact a reporter or DJ, who might have better luck at digging up the address, since those kind of people really like these "everyone helped a child in distress" stories. (A DJ might feel a conflict of interest, but you never know. Especially if you spin it as "She thought it was legal!" rather than "Help us stuff the RIAA".)
> Okay, it may not be theft, but you're trying to start a semantic argument to divert attention away from the fact that the act of duplicating and distributing music is inherently wrong.
"Inherently"??? I thought it was wrong because some human lawmakers said it was.
Some people think smoking tobacco is inherently right and smoking pot is inherently wrong, but the real distinction is that a group of humans subject to the influence of money and voting pressure groups decided that it was in their best interest to categorize the two substances differently in their laws.
Intellectual Property is a legal creation, and we should demand IP laws on the basis of what's good for society rather than on someone's ideological notion of inherent rights and wrongs, or on what lobbyist donations and voting pressure groups demand.
I'm not saying fileswapping should be legal; I just want to make sure the arguments pro and con are grounded in legal reality rather than preconceived notions of "inherent" right and wrong. If you want to say that file duplication and swapping is illegal, or is not in the best interest of society, go ahead and make those arguments. But condemnation on an appeal to inherent wrongness is factually incorrect, and won't get you any mileage except among people who already agree with you.
> refused to use it for so long you've sufficiently brainwashed yourself into believing you're somehow nobel for stealing other people's works.
FWIW, I don't download the RIAA's music. But I despise them, and I think it is well worth waging this kind of PR war against them for completely different reasons.
It's the RIAA that's stealing other people's work. And money. They're simply robber barons set up in a position where they can artificially regulate supply and artificially create (or destroy) demand, with the result that both artist and consumer gets screwed and the RIAA rakes in huge sums of "monopoly money" far out of proportion to what the contribute to the process. If they didn't have a stranglehold on the distribution system most of that money would stay in the consumers' pockets, and most of the rest would go into the artists' pockets.
That system needs to be broken up, and if I can contribute to that end by sending a stranger $10 that she probably doesn't deserve, I'll be glad to do that.
> Good to see an effort to stop child porn
Bad implementation is a little dissapointing
So, who's gunna make the next filter for the ISPs to block the sites without hurting others sharing the IP?
If they know the IPs, why don't they just raid the creeps and cut it off at the source?
> The mods are truly, truly crack addled.
I thought addling happened to the other end.
> What do you suppose that the $2,000 fine neatly offsets a $2,000 "work for hire" payment from the RIAA to Brianna's family for producing such spin-friendly quotes?
And if you download the recording of her saying them, maybe you can get sued into a sweet deal too!
> When everyone is a criminal, crime is everything.
RIAA, SCO,
Maybe even more profitable than selling a product...
> Later on I think, d'oh could have gotten free cash, perhaps a tank of gas, but the moral responce wins. This isn't a fear of getting caught, it's just doing the cool thing.
Unless you're hungry or have a self-image problem, you're not likely to find a wallet with more money in it than your pride is worth to you.
> $2,000? Come on. She didn't pay one cent.
> Read the quotes in the article and determine if that is what the mom or kid said based on the news reports. What? They all of the sudden started speaking in polished engligh? They suddenly saw the light after vowing to fight?
> What I think happened here is that the RIAA swooped in and offered them a deal. More than likely they pushed the money to her somehow and it came back. Nice and neat. That's only my opinion without any facts.
All the more reason to send her money. Think of the karma obtainable by embarrassing them over a non-existent situation!
I don't care if I send her ten bucks she doesn't deserve, if the media picks up on it and runs a heart-warming story about how a bunch of geeks came to the aid of a poor kid being abused by a big bully trade organization. If anyone pipes up and blows the true story, all the better.
> Leaving the analyses to others, I would like to say concisely that in retribution for this behavior, I from this day forward will never again purchase another compact disc. Ever.
Guess I need to run out and buy a few so I can quit too...
> Even incidents like this are to the RIAA's benefit, because it keeps the issue in the public consciousness. The longer it stays there, the stronger the public presumption that they're fundamentally in their rights, that it's OK for the RIAA to take drastic measures.
Several people have suggested setting up a donation fund for her. If we could get her name and do that, and convince non-Slashdotting music downloaders to do the same, even very modest sums of money would quickly add up to a very large sum, attracting the media's attention: "Geeks Help Poor 12yo Pay RIAA Fine".
Keep it in the news that the RIAA squeezed $2,000 dollars out of a poor pre-teen who thought she had paid for the service to begin with. If they're going to play PR games, there's no reason people who despise them can't do the same thing.
> This would be laugh out loud hilarious if it weren't so horribly tragic...
Oh, the hilarity!
Somebody set us up the blooper!
> Let's not miss the point. I don't think the RIAA knew she (or even that it was a 'she') was 12; it was sent to the household where the ISP account is registered. Next stage is that the parents say "shit", we're in trouble, let's contact the papers and try to get out of this mess by way of our 12-year old daughter. It may or may not have been this girl who downloaded the music, this point is moot. The parents are responsible as they most likely set up the account.
Thing is, as someone else has pointe out, the whole thing is a social engineering battle. But that's true on both sides. So now one side has exposed a gap in its armor and the other side took a stab at it.
While I don't espouse copyright violations, I think the above is the level we need to view this whole thing on until society works it out. Zooming in on the fine-grained legal level will make you miss the history being made. The legal details now may or may not be the same in five years, and it's the social engineering battle that will determine that. Don't let the footnotes keep you from noticing the plot.
> Damn! and I'd nearly completed the whole Barney catalogue in mp3. Anyone got a copy of barney_and_the_squirrel.mp3?
Yes, but you'll have to round out my Teletubbie Soundtrack Collection if you want it.
> It's almost as though it was a setup. The only thing that was missing was the fact that she wasn't in a wheelchair.
The only thing missing is that it was on FOX instead of The Onion.
> Take for instance a relatively simple GUI application. Say that it takes two weeks to develop the application under a free toolkit like GTK. Now say that it takes only one week to develop that same application under VB. If we use a $60k developer salary (which is only about half of what it actually costs to employ a developer), then we see that one week of time is worth ~$1154. After one month, the license for VB and Windows has quickly paid for itself.
In my experience, companies that want more bang for their buck should concentrate on optimizing their hiring practices rather than their tool purchases. A second-rate developer may only make 90% of what a first-rate developer does, but produces about half the results and lots more bugs. A third-rate developer might make 80% as much, and produce 1/5 the amount of code and vastly more bugs for the others to fix. A fourth-rate developer might actually drag the project backwards. And yet you still see these people on important projects.
If companies want to optimize their IT performance, there's something a heck of a lot more important than tools and platforms that they should concentrate on as the first-order fix. IMO.
> maybe it is cheaper to develop M$ apps
"In a recent survey, 99 virus writers out of 100 said they found it easier to develop for MS applications."
You just got to love studies funded by non-biased companies!> Although I'm not a Windows fan, I actually could believe this, until I read this part:
Yep. You basically run a few hundred, thousand, or million tests until you find a few where your platform wins, publish those, and never mention the rest. It's kind of like people who investigate the paranormal and report only the experiments that beat the statistical expectations, dismissing the rest with "the force wasn't with me today".
You can easily turn random noise into a strong signal, if you apply the right filter.
> When analysing the cost differences of Windows and Linux, the main advantage to windows always seems to be that little to no training is required
> while on the other hand, Linux requires lots of training, with Expensive Admins.
Do you include the price of cleaning up SoBig.[FGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ] in that expense?