A faithful reproduction of an original work (in this case, a piece of classical music) does not get a copyright. Why? Because nothing has been added. The idea that faithful performances of classical music can be copyrighted undermines the whole point of classical works being in the public domain.
The law is wrong, therefore it is right (or at least not wrong) to break it. Rather simple. Sort of like how fugitive slave laws were wrong, and were secretly broken.
The solutions you speak of to shutting down P2P would not fly because they'd be unconstitutional, for a variety of reasons. Even if they were done, they'd only be applicable in the US.
I feel no need to justify or rationalize my actions. I will do what's in my best interest no matter what. However, in this case, that is both just (or at least not injust) and rational. (1) I probably download about a thousand songs a year; there's no way I was going to buy that many CD's per year; I still buy the same # of CD's now that I did before; thus, the music industry is losing nothing, nor am I stealing anything. (2) Copyright laws are overly broad in both duration and scope, thus it is no injustice disobeying them.
In short, I'm going to do whatever the fuck I think is in my best interest. If the RIAA/MPAA/SIAA doesn't like that, they can go fuck themselves.
Wow, what an idiot. Laws do not need to be openly challenged by non-anonymous individuals to be challenged. It is obvious that many people are disobeying copyright laws and the DMCA, as currently written. Just look at download statistics from Gnutella and Kazaa. You do not need to openly disobey the law to be counted as a voice of dissent.
I support organizations (like the EFF) and movements against the current wave of copyright law: both by signing petitions and donating occasionally, as well as writing congressmen. That does not mean I need to openly disobey those laws and unnecessarily subject myself to wrongful punishment for something which is not wrong.
Ghandi and Dr. King did wonderful things using civil disobediance. However, civil disobediance does not always work. Civil disobediance only works against a civilized and non-extreme opponent. Civil disobediance would not have worked against Hitler or Stalin. I can assure you that it won't work against Sadam Hussein. It also won't work against the DMCA or copyright laws, because it requires public awareness, which is lacking regarding copyright/DMCA. Also, civil disobediance simply can not overcome the corporate backing of copyright extension acts and the DMCA: it can't overcome the fact that every government politician was bribed into voting for the DMCA.
In short, there are situations where civil disobediance just doesn't work. This is one of them. Metaphorically speaking, what you are asking us to do is step into the boxing ring against a 240-pound heavyweight (the government) and trade punches. That doesn't work. In some cases, a sniper-attack is best. In this particular case, the best thing to do is use technological solutions to side-step the law, until the government eventually realizes how futile its efforts are and gives up. This is what programs like Gnutella and Kazaa do. Gnutella, in particular, can not be stopped for a few reasons: (1) Its development is distributed (there is no stand-still target); (2) It has many other significant uses aside from copyright infringement, thus cannot be shut down.
Sorry, laws which are wrong have no authority in the first place, and should not be obeyed. Why should people openly accept punishment for laws which are wrong? For example, laws against sodomy between consenting adults. If what you are doing is not wrong, and someone wants to punish you for doing it, you have the high ground whether you do it openly or in privacy. Period.
Please, what bullshit. If a law is commonly disobeyed, it's likely to be struck down. Ref. prohibition.
Compilation CD's aren't magic bullets, and don't contain what people want. What is needed is for them to sell individual songs and put them on a custom-made CD.
Classical music is public domain. Any standard performance of it is also public domain: the idea of such is to replicate the intent of the original composer faithfully. Thus, there is nothing that is copyrightable: its not a new twist/innovation, just a faithful reproduction of the original. Saying that these people should get copyrights on the performances is like saying that I should get a copyright on a public-domain book like 1984 if I republish it in a slightly different format from the original. That's absurd.
By your logic of the public domain, the public domain has no meaning with respect to (for example) classical composers, because people still wouldn't able to listen to it for free. This undermines the entire purpose.
Blah blah blah. If a law's bad, and we don't agree with it, why should be obey it? And why, according to you, if we disobey it, should we do so in such a manner as to be punished for doing so? If a law is wrong, then surely being punished for violating that law is wrong. The simple fact is, the massive number of people violating copyright/DMCA undermines those laws, which is a good thing.
Btw, its possible to do something for multiple reasons. I think that copyrights (as they currently exist) are wrong [excessive and unconstitutional scope and duration]. I also don't want to spend tons of money on CD's where most of the CD is crap, nor is $18 for the latest pop-release a "fair deal". I buy the CD's of a few modern pop artists when they come out, such as C. Aguilera and B. Spears: that's because I like most of the songs on those CD's, thus its a good value for me. But I'm not going to buy more than a few CD's per year. Thus, the music industry loses nothing when I download Eminem's latest song, because there's no way I would have bought an entire CD filled with crap for one good song (nor would I have bought an $5 single). So, in short, the music industry loses nothing on me, since I wasn't going to buy the vast majority of modern music I downloaded anyways. The artists -- who perhaps make a few cents off of each CD -- lose even less.
Btw, the vast majority of music I download is classical, all of which is public-domain.
But file sharing is no big benefit to society, its a convenience pure and simple for those who fit in one of the categories I described above.
Wrong. File-sharing has dramatically increased the average societal interest in music. It has increased interest in modern music, old-time hits, and classical music. This is a good thing.
Thus, file sharing has been a big benefit to society.
No, that's what your narrow definition of civil disobedience is.
Civil disobedience simply means peacefully disobeying the laws. That's what people of Kazaa are doing. Why shouldn't they be anonymous? Anonymosity is a good thing: it protects our privacy. Getting a law to be changed due to massive non-compliance with that law does not require publicly disclosing who's disobeying that law. Ref. prohibition. But, oh wait, according to you, all the people who drank during prohibition were wrong b/c they didn't do so openly and "accept the consequences". Of course, that's absurd: the law was unconstitutional and should never have existed in the first place. There is nothing good or noble about allowing one's self to be punished by an unjust law.
Please, that is such bullshit. Copy does not necessarily imply "another instance of something to be used". It doesn't imply anything other than what it says: a copy. It does not imply or indicate whether that copy is to be used or kept merely as a safe-guard. Backup means a copy for the purposes of a safe-guard. However, copy does not imply another instance of something to be used.
Stop twisting the language to suite your own -- and the MPAA/RIAA's -- ends.
Wow, the editors of Slashdot accepted this bullshit but rejected 20 or so of my submissions? At least I wasn't full of shit.
This is just ridiculous bull crap. So is the brief mention of "subliminal messages". Normally, I would elaborate further and explain, but on this I think not. Anyone stupid enough to not immediately realize that this is bullshit is beyond reason anyways.
The only relevant point here is that the content is vastly different. Try actually reading the web-site before saying something; i.e., click on some of the articles.
Who cares? This is just superficial appearrance -- a template. The content of the sites is vastly different, and obviously different. Any copyright claims the school has are undermined by the fact that: 1. They haven't licensed their web-site code; 2. Lifting web-site code is common on the web.
In that case, the entire system is a crock of shit.
First, only the rich can get patents.
Second, its fraudulently based on "when the patent office finds out" not when the idea was brought to fruitation. Someone comes up with an idea, but doesn't report it to the USPO, and somehow someone who later comes up with the same idea and reports it has a patent right over it? Nonsense.
Thirdly, the entire idea of patents is to encourage invention. Invention means things actually being invented: ideas being implemented in reality. I can come up with an idea to make a UFO, that doesn't mean it should be patentable.
This is a bunch of bullshit. The person who first implements the idea should get patent rights. At the very least, AOL simply having proof that they "had a working idea" prior to anything else shouldn't prevent others from offering IM services, because those others were working on that when they had no idea AOL had such a patent.
The entire patent system is based on unconstitutional and fraudulent retro-active action. This is a case of AOL trying to retro-actively prevent anyone else from offering IM services, even though IM services have been around before AOL's IM and have been around for quite some time (common) now.
Invention in your own head doesn't count: only actual implementation in reality.
Simply having some "idea" and not bringing it to fruitation doesn't count for shit. I have an idea about a perfect User Interface which intelligently predicts what the user does/wants, and re-configures itself dynamically based around that. That doesn't count for shit: only the actual implementation of that idea.
Coming up with an idea for something that could be useful is easy and not worth rewarding. Actually doing the work to make that idea a reality is.
Simply "coming up with an idea" does not count. Zephyr was actually existed in 1988. AOL's instant messenger came out quite some time later.
What matters is the actual creation of the thing. Anyone can have an "idea".
AOL's patent claims are, of course, absurd. Any patent claims on such an obvious functionality as the basic IM features is absurd. What they want is the right to retroactively stop all other IM services to fill their coffers with $$$.
Please...for what damages? None. The school is not making any money off of their web-page layout, so they can't get any damages. Since this guy's site is a parody of the original, it's covered under fair use.
This is clearly a case of the school trying to shut up accurate and valid criticism -- via parody/hyperbole -- of their illegal and sleazy financial practices.
As I said, there are many subtle differences, all of them designed to parody the original site.
Most importantly, none of the actual content is the same, something you seem to be overlooking. Try looking deeper than just the visual appearance of the site: the conent is all different. Sorry, but the school doesn't get to sue because someone did a parody of their fraudulent school system and website.
Also, you don't get copyrights on HTML code. Its common practice on the web to copy and past the templates from other people's web-design to use on your own.
The content has been copied and modified to become a parody: thus, it is a re-creation. Get a clue, you idiot. This is squarely covered as fair use under parody.
People saying that this site blatantly rips things from the public site are mistaken. There are many subtle changes which make it a parody and not possibly conceived as a copyright violation.
A nice touch is the "please visit our partners: Enron, Worldcom, Anderson, Coca-Cola," all companies that are either corrupt or have severe financial fraud issues and are bankrupt.
$eattle Public $chools, again clever.
And of course, all of the content is completely different -- hyperboles of the schools' hard-to-hyperbolize financial scandal.
The school has nothing to gripe about. They've fucked up and schould be criticized. In fact, everyone there involved in money-management should be fired off the bat, and prosecuted for some kind of fraud or another.
Awnawld Swaartzinager, the ageinator...he make you grow old real fast. He zap you with age gun, and you get baad wrinkals and grway hair.
Is this round of Terminator going to feature a high-tech walking roller?
The terminator movies were good movies to watch -- once, for each of them. I'm just hoping that Terminator 3 is a little bit better than the disaster 3's we've had to endure so far: Jaws 3, Friday the 13th 3, Halloween 3, Jurassic Park 3, etc.
Actually, according to our founding fathers, Jury Nullificaiton was and is a right. This can easily be seen by looking at statements by Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
It is true that the most recent applications of jury nullification -- the acquittal of white's for crimes against blacks -- have been regrettable. But that is not a problem with jury nullification, but rather with jury selection. Besides, the benefits jury nullification can provide far outweigh its drawbacks, in that it allows ordinary people to prevent the government from forcing draconian laws on any individual citizen. Fugutive slave laws were wrong, and were rightfully disregarded by juries. Likewise with laws during prohibition. And defamation laws to which the "truth was no defense".
Even if it is, as you say, a violation of a jurror's "oath", that oath is irrelevant. Just as contracts which call for violations of the law (i.e., a contract for murder) are illegal, so are any oaths which call for poeple to ignore what is right/wrong (in their best estimation) void.
Slashdot Mirror
More appropriate to say if Jack Valentini had been around during the time of Nazi Germany, he would have led Hitler's book-burning campaign.
A faithful reproduction of an original work (in this case, a piece of classical music) does not get a copyright. Why? Because nothing has been added. The idea that faithful performances of classical music can be copyrighted undermines the whole point of classical works being in the public domain.
It was unconstituional by the constitution before and after it.
The law is wrong, therefore it is right (or at least not wrong) to break it. Rather simple. Sort of like how fugitive slave laws were wrong, and were secretly broken.
The solutions you speak of to shutting down P2P would not fly because they'd be unconstitutional, for a variety of reasons. Even if they were done, they'd only be applicable in the US.
I feel no need to justify or rationalize my actions. I will do what's in my best interest no matter what. However, in this case, that is both just (or at least not injust) and rational. (1) I probably download about a thousand songs a year; there's no way I was going to buy that many CD's per year; I still buy the same # of CD's now that I did before; thus, the music industry is losing nothing, nor am I stealing anything. (2) Copyright laws are overly broad in both duration and scope, thus it is no injustice disobeying them.
In short, I'm going to do whatever the fuck I think is in my best interest. If the RIAA/MPAA/SIAA doesn't like that, they can go fuck themselves.
Wow, what an idiot. Laws do not need to be openly challenged by non-anonymous individuals to be challenged. It is obvious that many people are disobeying copyright laws and the DMCA, as currently written. Just look at download statistics from Gnutella and Kazaa. You do not need to openly disobey the law to be counted as a voice of dissent.
I support organizations (like the EFF) and movements against the current wave of copyright law: both by signing petitions and donating occasionally, as well as writing congressmen. That does not mean I need to openly disobey those laws and unnecessarily subject myself to wrongful punishment for something which is not wrong.
Ghandi and Dr. King did wonderful things using civil disobediance. However, civil disobediance does not always work. Civil disobediance only works against a civilized and non-extreme opponent. Civil disobediance would not have worked against Hitler or Stalin. I can assure you that it won't work against Sadam Hussein. It also won't work against the DMCA or copyright laws, because it requires public awareness, which is lacking regarding copyright/DMCA. Also, civil disobediance simply can not overcome the corporate backing of copyright extension acts and the DMCA: it can't overcome the fact that every government politician was bribed into voting for the DMCA.
In short, there are situations where civil disobediance just doesn't work. This is one of them. Metaphorically speaking, what you are asking us to do is step into the boxing ring against a 240-pound heavyweight (the government) and trade punches. That doesn't work. In some cases, a sniper-attack is best. In this particular case, the best thing to do is use technological solutions to side-step the law, until the government eventually realizes how futile its efforts are and gives up. This is what programs like Gnutella and Kazaa do. Gnutella, in particular, can not be stopped for a few reasons: (1) Its development is distributed (there is no stand-still target); (2) It has many other significant uses aside from copyright infringement, thus cannot be shut down.
Sorry, laws which are wrong have no authority in the first place, and should not be obeyed. Why should people openly accept punishment for laws which are wrong? For example, laws against sodomy between consenting adults. If what you are doing is not wrong, and someone wants to punish you for doing it, you have the high ground whether you do it openly or in privacy. Period.
Please, what bullshit. If a law is commonly disobeyed, it's likely to be struck down. Ref. prohibition.
Compilation CD's aren't magic bullets, and don't contain what people want. What is needed is for them to sell individual songs and put them on a custom-made CD.
Classical music is public domain. Any standard performance of it is also public domain: the idea of such is to replicate the intent of the original composer faithfully. Thus, there is nothing that is copyrightable: its not a new twist/innovation, just a faithful reproduction of the original. Saying that these people should get copyrights on the performances is like saying that I should get a copyright on a public-domain book like 1984 if I republish it in a slightly different format from the original. That's absurd.
By your logic of the public domain, the public domain has no meaning with respect to (for example) classical composers, because people still wouldn't able to listen to it for free. This undermines the entire purpose.
Blah blah blah. If a law's bad, and we don't agree with it, why should be obey it? And why, according to you, if we disobey it, should we do so in such a manner as to be punished for doing so? If a law is wrong, then surely being punished for violating that law is wrong. The simple fact is, the massive number of people violating copyright/DMCA undermines those laws, which is a good thing.
Btw, its possible to do something for multiple reasons. I think that copyrights (as they currently exist) are wrong [excessive and unconstitutional scope and duration]. I also don't want to spend tons of money on CD's where most of the CD is crap, nor is $18 for the latest pop-release a "fair deal". I buy the CD's of a few modern pop artists when they come out, such as C. Aguilera and B. Spears: that's because I like most of the songs on those CD's, thus its a good value for me. But I'm not going to buy more than a few CD's per year. Thus, the music industry loses nothing when I download Eminem's latest song, because there's no way I would have bought an entire CD filled with crap for one good song (nor would I have bought an $5 single). So, in short, the music industry loses nothing on me, since I wasn't going to buy the vast majority of modern music I downloaded anyways. The artists -- who perhaps make a few cents off of each CD -- lose even less.
Btw, the vast majority of music I download is classical, all of which is public-domain.
But file sharing is no big benefit to society, its a convenience pure and simple for those who fit in one of the categories I described above.
Wrong. File-sharing has dramatically increased the average societal interest in music. It has increased interest in modern music, old-time hits, and classical music. This is a good thing.
Thus, file sharing has been a big benefit to society.
No, that's what your narrow definition of civil disobedience is.
Civil disobedience simply means peacefully disobeying the laws. That's what people of Kazaa are doing. Why shouldn't they be anonymous? Anonymosity is a good thing: it protects our privacy. Getting a law to be changed due to massive non-compliance with that law does not require publicly disclosing who's disobeying that law. Ref. prohibition. But, oh wait, according to you, all the people who drank during prohibition were wrong b/c they didn't do so openly and "accept the consequences". Of course, that's absurd: the law was unconstitutional and should never have existed in the first place. There is nothing good or noble about allowing one's self to be punished by an unjust law.
Please, that is such bullshit. Copy does not necessarily imply "another instance of something to be used". It doesn't imply anything other than what it says: a copy. It does not imply or indicate whether that copy is to be used or kept merely as a safe-guard. Backup means a copy for the purposes of a safe-guard. However, copy does not imply another instance of something to be used.
Stop twisting the language to suite your own -- and the MPAA/RIAA's -- ends.
Wow, the editors of Slashdot accepted this bullshit but rejected 20 or so of my submissions? At least I wasn't full of shit.
This is just ridiculous bull crap. So is the brief mention of "subliminal messages". Normally, I would elaborate further and explain, but on this I think not. Anyone stupid enough to not immediately realize that this is bullshit is beyond reason anyways.
The only relevant point here is that the content is vastly different. Try actually reading the web-site before saying something; i.e., click on some of the articles.
Who cares? This is just superficial appearrance -- a template. The content of the sites is vastly different, and obviously different. Any copyright claims the school has are undermined by the fact that: 1. They haven't licensed their web-site code; 2. Lifting web-site code is common on the web.
Actually, as someone else here has noted out, Zephyr was in development since 1983, and fully developed by 1987. That proves there was prior art.
In that case, the entire system is a crock of shit.
First, only the rich can get patents.
Second, its fraudulently based on "when the patent office finds out" not when the idea was brought to fruitation. Someone comes up with an idea, but doesn't report it to the USPO, and somehow someone who later comes up with the same idea and reports it has a patent right over it? Nonsense.
Thirdly, the entire idea of patents is to encourage invention. Invention means things actually being invented: ideas being implemented in reality. I can come up with an idea to make a UFO, that doesn't mean it should be patentable.
This is a bunch of bullshit. The person who first implements the idea should get patent rights. At the very least, AOL simply having proof that they "had a working idea" prior to anything else shouldn't prevent others from offering IM services, because those others were working on that when they had no idea AOL had such a patent.
The entire patent system is based on unconstitutional and fraudulent retro-active action. This is a case of AOL trying to retro-actively prevent anyone else from offering IM services, even though IM services have been around before AOL's IM and have been around for quite some time (common) now.
Invention in your own head doesn't count: only actual implementation in reality.
Simply having some "idea" and not bringing it to fruitation doesn't count for shit. I have an idea about a perfect User Interface which intelligently predicts what the user does/wants, and re-configures itself dynamically based around that. That doesn't count for shit: only the actual implementation of that idea.
Coming up with an idea for something that could be useful is easy and not worth rewarding. Actually doing the work to make that idea a reality is.
He may have copied chunks of code verbatum, that that's irrelevant to the issue.
The issue here is him using the school's web-site as a template to parody, attack, and discredit the school, which falls under fair use.
Simply "coming up with an idea" does not count. Zephyr was actually existed in 1988. AOL's instant messenger came out quite some time later.
What matters is the actual creation of the thing. Anyone can have an "idea".
AOL's patent claims are, of course, absurd. Any patent claims on such an obvious functionality as the basic IM features is absurd. What they want is the right to retroactively stop all other IM services to fill their coffers with $$$.
Please...for what damages? None. The school is not making any money off of their web-page layout, so they can't get any damages. Since this guy's site is a parody of the original, it's covered under fair use.
This is clearly a case of the school trying to shut up accurate and valid criticism -- via parody/hyperbole -- of their illegal and sleazy financial practices.
As I said, there are many subtle differences, all of them designed to parody the original site.
Most importantly, none of the actual content is the same, something you seem to be overlooking. Try looking deeper than just the visual appearance of the site: the conent is all different. Sorry, but the school doesn't get to sue because someone did a parody of their fraudulent school system and website.
Also, you don't get copyrights on HTML code. Its common practice on the web to copy and past the templates from other people's web-design to use on your own.
The content has been copied and modified to become a parody: thus, it is a re-creation. Get a clue, you idiot. This is squarely covered as fair use under parody.
People saying that this site blatantly rips things from the public site are mistaken. There are many subtle changes which make it a parody and not possibly conceived as a copyright violation.
A nice touch is the "please visit our partners: Enron, Worldcom, Anderson, Coca-Cola," all companies that are either corrupt or have severe financial fraud issues and are bankrupt.
$eattle Public $chools, again clever.
And of course, all of the content is completely different -- hyperboles of the schools' hard-to-hyperbolize financial scandal.
The school has nothing to gripe about. They've fucked up and schould be criticized. In fact, everyone there involved in money-management should be fired off the bat, and prosecuted for some kind of fraud or another.
Awnawld Swaartzinager, the ageinator...he make you grow old real fast. He zap you with age gun, and you get baad wrinkals and grway hair.
Is this round of Terminator going to feature a high-tech walking roller?
The terminator movies were good movies to watch -- once, for each of them. I'm just hoping that Terminator 3 is a little bit better than the disaster 3's we've had to endure so far: Jaws 3, Friday the 13th 3, Halloween 3, Jurassic Park 3, etc.
The only difference is newer special effects and the evil terminator is a buxom blonde, with big breasts, and wearing a tight red leather outfit
Not to be the stereotypical guy, but that sounds good to me.
Actually, according to our founding fathers, Jury Nullificaiton was and is a right. This can easily be seen by looking at statements by Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
It is true that the most recent applications of jury nullification -- the acquittal of white's for crimes against blacks -- have been regrettable. But that is not a problem with jury nullification, but rather with jury selection. Besides, the benefits jury nullification can provide far outweigh its drawbacks, in that it allows ordinary people to prevent the government from forcing draconian laws on any individual citizen. Fugutive slave laws were wrong, and were rightfully disregarded by juries. Likewise with laws during prohibition. And defamation laws to which the "truth was no defense".
Even if it is, as you say, a violation of a jurror's "oath", that oath is irrelevant. Just as contracts which call for violations of the law (i.e., a contract for murder) are illegal, so are any oaths which call for poeple to ignore what is right/wrong (in their best estimation) void.