We've got to extend this. Artists won't have an incentive to create new works if royalties from said works don't pay their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren!
(Sadly, if a RIAA exec read this and had Mod points, he'd rate it +1 Insightful.)
The Christians who believe that I'm wrong for not believing in their faith (I'm Jewish) don't really concern me. The ones who worry me are the ones who say "My religion says X and therefore this should be Federal/State Law!" I don't push for a federal ban on bacon simply because it's not Kosher. That would be idiotic of me to force others to observe *MY* religious beliefs. Therefore, I shouldn't be forced to follow another person's religious beliefs simply because their holy books said so.
It is entirely possible for religious folks to be content to live their lives by their religions and not force their religious beliefs on others. Sadly, a very vocal group think that their religious experience won't be complete until they force as many people as possible to follow their sect.
Even if you don't use judges at $117K a year, this would be pricey. The summary says 72 hours of content every minute. That's 37,869,120 hours of content a year. Let's round up to 38,000,000 hours (to account for breaks, needing to watch videos a second time in cases of tough calls, etc). Even at $10 an hour, this would be $3.8 billion. Last year, Google made about $39 billion in revenue. So this system would cost 10% of Google's revenue. And I highly doubt that $10 an hour pre-screeners would be able to make tough copyright calls. Videos would be denied when they should have been approved. Other videos would be approved when they should have been denied. It'd be a billion-dollar mess.
Exactly. If I upload a video, how is YouTube going to know automatically that I own the copyrights to it (and all components of it). Sure, if I used some popular song as a major part of the video, they could identify that. I'd have a hard time proving that I have the right to sing Cee Lo Green's Lady Killer in a YouTube video. However, what if I used a more obscure song? Would YouTube know that No More Stones was by Enter The Haggis and not owned by me?
In addition, what if I actually *got* permission to use a song in the background? Would YouTube automatically deny my video because they know that a song's copyright is owned by someone else (but don't know that I got the appropriate permissions)?
There is no way that they could do this automatically. They would need teams of people researching the legal history of every video. (And thus wouldn't be able to use $1 Indian workers like Facebook.) Even if they did this, and spent billions doing so, they would *still* make mistakes (deny valid videos, approve infringing ones).
Of course, the RIAA/MPAA don't care about this. They'd love to see YouTube/Google go under along with every other Internet company out there. Then, we could go back to the "Good Old Days" where the RIAA/MPAA reigned supreme and people had to come groveling to them for their entertainment.
In Judaism, repentance is an important concept. In the story of Adam and Eve, they clearly sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Then, once they realized what they had done, they hid from God. The Torah says that God asked "Where are you?" Of course, one can't hide from God. His question was an opening for them to repent. Next, God specifically asked them if they ate from the Tree. Again, He knew, but was giving them a chance to repent. Instead, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.
Therefore, while the sin was bad, repenting after committing the sin might have reduced the punishment. (Perhaps they still would have been kicked out of Eden but life outside wouldn't have been as hard.)
Seriously, though. My rule of thumb (whether using Twitter where I don't use my real name or on Slashdot where I do) is: Would I feel comfortable saying this to my parents, boss, wife, kids (for topics that are kid-friendly in general), in-laws, etc.? If the answer is no, then I'm probably not going to say it online. After all, no matter how anonymous you feel behind a screen name, these things have a way of getting out to your family/co-workers/etc.
I had a very knowledgeable rabbi once point out that man is actually created twice in Genesis. Once, God declares that he'll make man in his own image as the pinnacle of creation. Another time, he forms man out of some mud. The rabbi said that this wasn't to be taken as literal, but had a moral message. People should walk around with two concepts in mind: 1) I'm the pinnacle of creation and 2) I'm nothing but mud. If you can keep these thoughts balanced, you'll have the right mix of pride in who you are and humility.
I've been on "the inside" - part of a temple where the rabbi actively mocked scientists and believed in literal creationism as told in the Torah. (Bible for you non-Jews out there.;-) )
His argument was that science is always changing its mind while the Torah remains consistent in its message. Therefore, scientists don't know what they are talking about (changing your mind = admitting you were wrong = you likely are still wrong) and Torah scholars are right (not changing what you're saying is seen as good because you had the "truth" from the get-go). They literally view science's greatest strength as a weakness and their greatest weakness as a strength.
Just to be fair: In the Hebrew version, the sin that got Adam and Eve expelled from Eden wasn't really eating from the Tree of Knowledge. God gave them a chance to come clean and repent. Instead, they decided to blame each other and declare themselves completely taken advantage of. God didn't like this passing of the buck and so kicked them out. (In Judaism, there's also no Original Sin so this sin is only applicable to Adam and Eve, not to everyone who was born since. That's not relevant right now, though.)
In addition, in Judaism, there is a concept of Satan, but he's not some devil/ruler of Hell who is on par (or almost on par) with God. He's literally "the accuser." Think of him as the prosecuting attorney at your trial. His responsibility is to declare that you've been guilty of X, Y, and Z. Not to actually lead you to commit those sins yourself.
Judaism (except, perhaps, for a few fringe groups that have gone all literal/Must-Preserve-The-Past) actually values knowledge and encourages people to study and learn.
I prefer to believe that Asmov got it right in "How It Happened." Imagine how long the Bible would have been if it had been a scientifically accurate accounting of creation. Imagine how boring Sunday school classes would have been then! "Ok, class. Today we're going to read chapter 12,542, verse 73,943 which describes the sixth stage of gases slowly coming together into what would one day be an accretion disc around the Sun. Johnny, please start reading at 'The hydrogen gas pulled together more via the force of gravity, increasing in density by 1.74%...'"
This account would glaze over the eyes of most people today. Obviously, if God was to give people thousands of years ago an accounting of how the Universe formed, it would have needed to be greatly simplified, not the literal truth.
Actually, protests are a good example. A person participating in a protest is, for the most part, anonymous. Yes, the police could track down Protester X if need be, but John Average on the street wouldn't know that Protester X is really Billy Williamson.
If this bill is allowed to go through, how long will it be before you need to register your real name and address before you are allowed to participate in a protest (even a peaceful one)? I can see the spin now: "We're not restricting the right to peacefully assemble. Anyone can if they give their name and address first. They don't have anything to hide, do they?"
I agree. There are plenty of laws on the books for physical assaults. Even verbal assaults (which can be just as damaging if not moreso) could be prosecuted as harassment. Maybe a couple of laws need minor updates to be able to handle the cases where the bully and victim aren't face-to-face, but we don't need a "No Anonymous Speech" law to fight bullying.
1) Bully321 posts horrid thing about Billy in an attempt to shame him, isolate him, and make him a laughingstock. 2) Billy gets a lawyer and files a lawsuit against Bully321 (really against "John Doe" since Billy doesn't know who Bully321 is right now) demanding his identity. 3) A judge listens to the arguments and weighs the evidence. 3a) The judge rules that the evidence doesn't mean some preset standards and the case ends. 3b) The judge rules that it does and the case proceeds with court orders helping to reveal who Bully321 is.
The difference between this and the NY legislator-proposed "Someone said something mean about me, tell me who they are now Mr. Site Operator" is the judicial system is involved. A simple comment that someone finds offensive isn't likely to result in a lawyer being hired and definitely won't result in a judge approving court orders to reveal the poster's identity. However, real instances of cyberbullying would be able to be addressed. The bill as proposed is simply a chill on free speech.
If I read it right, it applies to where the site operator resides. I'm a New York resident so even if my site is hosted in California, I'd fall under this rule and would need to verify any anonymous commenter that was reported to me.
It might not get anywhere, but pieces of legislation like this give us a glimpse of what certain legislators would pass if they got the chance. Reason enough to vote them out so they never get the chance.
Actually, I think that the "protect the children" was tacked on so it didn't seem so much like a "We don't like that people are saying bad things about us politicians so we'll make it illegal" bill. Plus, cyberbullying is a hot topic nowadays so they can always count on some people to blindly support legislation to "fight cyberbullying" even if it really doesn't do anything to help and hurts free speech in the process.
I'm actually a supporter of campaigns against cyberbullying. I might even support some form of anti-cyberbullying legislation, but that would have to be crafted in such a manner as to protect free speech. A tricky thing to do at best.
I live in New York. I also blog under a pseudonym and don't reveal my real name on there. Would my blog postings run afoul of this law? What about my commenters that use pseudonyms? If "BloggerGuy" leaves a comment on one of my posts, has this broken the law? Or is it only if he leaves the comment as "Anonymous"?
Given that I know a bunch of bloggers in New York, I think I'll rally the troops (so to speak) and work against this law. I'm a big fan of preventing bullying, but not at the expense of everyone else's right to free speech.
My question would be: Is the BSA counting freeware (either open source or closed source freeware) as "pirating" since it could be considered a "lost sale" when someone uses freeware instead of paid software. (Where "could be considered" means "would only be considered such by the BSA, MPAA, and RIAA.")
I could have sworn hearing at one point that freeware inflated the BSA piracy figures and sure enough I found this Slashdot article from 10 years ago: http://slashdot.org/story/02/07/24/051207/free-software-inflates-bsas-piracy-claims
Actually, I was trying to go to Barnes And Noble's website, but mistakenly typed barnesNnoble.com. The URL has since been acquired by Barnes and Noble so you won't see anything but books if you go there now.
Slashdot Mirror
We've got to extend this. Artists won't have an incentive to create new works if royalties from said works don't pay their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren!
(Sadly, if a RIAA exec read this and had Mod points, he'd rate it +1 Insightful.)
The Christians who believe that I'm wrong for not believing in their faith (I'm Jewish) don't really concern me. The ones who worry me are the ones who say "My religion says X and therefore this should be Federal/State Law!" I don't push for a federal ban on bacon simply because it's not Kosher. That would be idiotic of me to force others to observe *MY* religious beliefs. Therefore, I shouldn't be forced to follow another person's religious beliefs simply because their holy books said so.
It is entirely possible for religious folks to be content to live their lives by their religions and not force their religious beliefs on others. Sadly, a very vocal group think that their religious experience won't be complete until they force as many people as possible to follow their sect.
Even if you don't use judges at $117K a year, this would be pricey. The summary says 72 hours of content every minute. That's 37,869,120 hours of content a year. Let's round up to 38,000,000 hours (to account for breaks, needing to watch videos a second time in cases of tough calls, etc). Even at $10 an hour, this would be $3.8 billion. Last year, Google made about $39 billion in revenue. So this system would cost 10% of Google's revenue. And I highly doubt that $10 an hour pre-screeners would be able to make tough copyright calls. Videos would be denied when they should have been approved. Other videos would be approved when they should have been denied. It'd be a billion-dollar mess.
Exactly. If I upload a video, how is YouTube going to know automatically that I own the copyrights to it (and all components of it). Sure, if I used some popular song as a major part of the video, they could identify that. I'd have a hard time proving that I have the right to sing Cee Lo Green's Lady Killer in a YouTube video. However, what if I used a more obscure song? Would YouTube know that No More Stones was by Enter The Haggis and not owned by me?
In addition, what if I actually *got* permission to use a song in the background? Would YouTube automatically deny my video because they know that a song's copyright is owned by someone else (but don't know that I got the appropriate permissions)?
There is no way that they could do this automatically. They would need teams of people researching the legal history of every video. (And thus wouldn't be able to use $1 Indian workers like Facebook.) Even if they did this, and spent billions doing so, they would *still* make mistakes (deny valid videos, approve infringing ones).
Of course, the RIAA/MPAA don't care about this. They'd love to see YouTube/Google go under along with every other Internet company out there. Then, we could go back to the "Good Old Days" where the RIAA/MPAA reigned supreme and people had to come groveling to them for their entertainment.
In Judaism, repentance is an important concept. In the story of Adam and Eve, they clearly sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Then, once they realized what they had done, they hid from God. The Torah says that God asked "Where are you?" Of course, one can't hide from God. His question was an opening for them to repent. Next, God specifically asked them if they ate from the Tree. Again, He knew, but was giving them a chance to repent. Instead, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.
Therefore, while the sin was bad, repenting after committing the sin might have reduced the punishment. (Perhaps they still would have been kicked out of Eden but life outside wouldn't have been as hard.)
Who uses their real information anywhere online.
Oh... wait...
Seriously, though. My rule of thumb (whether using Twitter where I don't use my real name or on Slashdot where I do) is: Would I feel comfortable saying this to my parents, boss, wife, kids (for topics that are kid-friendly in general), in-laws, etc.? If the answer is no, then I'm probably not going to say it online. After all, no matter how anonymous you feel behind a screen name, these things have a way of getting out to your family/co-workers/etc.
I had a very knowledgeable rabbi once point out that man is actually created twice in Genesis. Once, God declares that he'll make man in his own image as the pinnacle of creation. Another time, he forms man out of some mud. The rabbi said that this wasn't to be taken as literal, but had a moral message. People should walk around with two concepts in mind: 1) I'm the pinnacle of creation and 2) I'm nothing but mud. If you can keep these thoughts balanced, you'll have the right mix of pride in who you are and humility.
I've been on "the inside" - part of a temple where the rabbi actively mocked scientists and believed in literal creationism as told in the Torah. (Bible for you non-Jews out there. ;-) )
His argument was that science is always changing its mind while the Torah remains consistent in its message. Therefore, scientists don't know what they are talking about (changing your mind = admitting you were wrong = you likely are still wrong) and Torah scholars are right (not changing what you're saying is seen as good because you had the "truth" from the get-go). They literally view science's greatest strength as a weakness and their greatest weakness as a strength.
Just to be fair: In the Hebrew version, the sin that got Adam and Eve expelled from Eden wasn't really eating from the Tree of Knowledge. God gave them a chance to come clean and repent. Instead, they decided to blame each other and declare themselves completely taken advantage of. God didn't like this passing of the buck and so kicked them out. (In Judaism, there's also no Original Sin so this sin is only applicable to Adam and Eve, not to everyone who was born since. That's not relevant right now, though.)
In addition, in Judaism, there is a concept of Satan, but he's not some devil/ruler of Hell who is on par (or almost on par) with God. He's literally "the accuser." Think of him as the prosecuting attorney at your trial. His responsibility is to declare that you've been guilty of X, Y, and Z. Not to actually lead you to commit those sins yourself.
Judaism (except, perhaps, for a few fringe groups that have gone all literal/Must-Preserve-The-Past) actually values knowledge and encourages people to study and learn.
Maybe He just likes explosions and set up the big bang to test something. In other words: "God want Big Boom!"
God's a Mythbuster!!!
I prefer to believe that Asmov got it right in "How It Happened." Imagine how long the Bible would have been if it had been a scientifically accurate accounting of creation. Imagine how boring Sunday school classes would have been then! "Ok, class. Today we're going to read chapter 12,542, verse 73,943 which describes the sixth stage of gases slowly coming together into what would one day be an accretion disc around the Sun. Johnny, please start reading at 'The hydrogen gas pulled together more via the force of gravity, increasing in density by 1.74%...'"
This account would glaze over the eyes of most people today. Obviously, if God was to give people thousands of years ago an accounting of how the Universe formed, it would have needed to be greatly simplified, not the literal truth.
Actually, protests are a good example. A person participating in a protest is, for the most part, anonymous. Yes, the police could track down Protester X if need be, but John Average on the street wouldn't know that Protester X is really Billy Williamson.
If this bill is allowed to go through, how long will it be before you need to register your real name and address before you are allowed to participate in a protest (even a peaceful one)? I can see the spin now: "We're not restricting the right to peacefully assemble. Anyone can if they give their name and address first. They don't have anything to hide, do they?"
I agree. There are plenty of laws on the books for physical assaults. Even verbal assaults (which can be just as damaging if not moreso) could be prosecuted as harassment. Maybe a couple of laws need minor updates to be able to handle the cases where the bully and victim aren't face-to-face, but we don't need a "No Anonymous Speech" law to fight bullying.
Many Slashdotters might not read or reply to Anonymous Cowards as a general rule, but they'll defend their right to comment!
No, you see corporations are people but some people (aka corporations) are more equal than others (aka actual people).
Perhaps if the process is something like this:
1) Bully321 posts horrid thing about Billy in an attempt to shame him, isolate him, and make him a laughingstock.
2) Billy gets a lawyer and files a lawsuit against Bully321 (really against "John Doe" since Billy doesn't know who Bully321 is right now) demanding his identity.
3) A judge listens to the arguments and weighs the evidence.
3a) The judge rules that the evidence doesn't mean some preset standards and the case ends.
3b) The judge rules that it does and the case proceeds with court orders helping to reveal who Bully321 is.
The difference between this and the NY legislator-proposed "Someone said something mean about me, tell me who they are now Mr. Site Operator" is the judicial system is involved. A simple comment that someone finds offensive isn't likely to result in a lawyer being hired and definitely won't result in a judge approving court orders to reveal the poster's identity. However, real instances of cyberbullying would be able to be addressed. The bill as proposed is simply a chill on free speech.
If I read it right, it applies to where the site operator resides. I'm a New York resident so even if my site is hosted in California, I'd fall under this rule and would need to verify any anonymous commenter that was reported to me.
It might not get anywhere, but pieces of legislation like this give us a glimpse of what certain legislators would pass if they got the chance. Reason enough to vote them out so they never get the chance.
If so, it was a very mean thing to say... Fungi have feelings too, you know!
Actually, I think that the "protect the children" was tacked on so it didn't seem so much like a "We don't like that people are saying bad things about us politicians so we'll make it illegal" bill. Plus, cyberbullying is a hot topic nowadays so they can always count on some people to blindly support legislation to "fight cyberbullying" even if it really doesn't do anything to help and hurts free speech in the process.
I'm actually a supporter of campaigns against cyberbullying. I might even support some form of anti-cyberbullying legislation, but that would have to be crafted in such a manner as to protect free speech. A tricky thing to do at best.
I live in New York. I also blog under a pseudonym and don't reveal my real name on there. Would my blog postings run afoul of this law? What about my commenters that use pseudonyms? If "BloggerGuy" leaves a comment on one of my posts, has this broken the law? Or is it only if he leaves the comment as "Anonymous"?
Given that I know a bunch of bloggers in New York, I think I'll rally the troops (so to speak) and work against this law. I'm a big fan of preventing bullying, but not at the expense of everyone else's right to free speech.
My guess is that the wording went something like this:
BSA: "Have you paid for all of the software you have installed?"
Company: *looks at Linux boxes and/or Windows boxes with freeware* "No"
BSA: *gasping on horror while pointing* "PIRATE!!!!!"
Ah, but open source/freeware users are the worst pirates* of them all.
* Using the BSA definition of "pirate."
My question would be: Is the BSA counting freeware (either open source or closed source freeware) as "pirating" since it could be considered a "lost sale" when someone uses freeware instead of paid software. (Where "could be considered" means "would only be considered such by the BSA, MPAA, and RIAA.")
I could have sworn hearing at one point that freeware inflated the BSA piracy figures and sure enough I found this Slashdot article from 10 years ago: http://slashdot.org/story/02/07/24/051207/free-software-inflates-bsas-piracy-claims
Actually, I was trying to go to Barnes And Noble's website, but mistakenly typed barnesNnoble.com. The URL has since been acquired by Barnes and Noble so you won't see anything but books if you go there now.