The guy for UNIX.org had a legitimate use for his site; he was not using it to squeeze money. He had a site-in-progress and had paid $5,000 dollars. Why pay 5k to cybersquat? That's absurd.
Furthermore, does this ruling mean that OpenFucks (aka OpenHypocrites, and those fucks who use the word Open in their name but are against those principles) gets to steal this persons domain name, but he doesn't get compensated the $5,000 dollars he spent on it?
Cybersquatting may be an issue. I argue that its no different than an investment. If people think a domain name may be valuable for its name, they buy it. Any problems with it can be solved by having the rights to such expire after a certain time of inactivity, with a hearing if the person objects because they're working on something in progress (as this person did).
Auto-terminating a person's rights to a domain-name after say one year of them not associating any website with it would almost completely solve cybersquatting problems. After all, a cybersquatter who purchases 5000 sites is certainly not going to able to put up sites for all of them (also do a redundancy check for simply putting the same page on diff. domain names).
In any case, ICANN's rules are crap. The only way to prove someone cyber-squats is if they explicitly ask for money for their site and buy many domain-names for such. One instance is certainly not proof.
We don't say the same thing of people who purchase tons of land (but don't want to use it), in hopes that someone will want to use it an pay them for it.
While we're rallying for Open Sourced Biology (OSB) or Free Biology (FB) [which is good], why not rally for OPEN SOURCED TRANSPARENT CORPORATE OPERATIONS. This way, the Martha Stewarts and Gary Wennig's can't defraud their investors.
Also -- this one's nothing new -- how about transparancy in ICANN?
Ok, back to biology. Open Sourced Biology is nothing new: its as old as science itself. Back in the good old days, we didn't call it that becase it was just assumed. It was assumed that when something was discovered it would be shared with the world. Watson & Crick & Franklin made their findings available to the public for free upon the presumption that that information would be used to generate more information which would be freely dispersed, ad infinitum. Of course, now the scientific community is moving towards a proprietary model -- the dark side of the force, so to speak. But don't be fooled. The overwhelming majority of science is still transparent and "open sourced".
E-mail any professor at a university about the method they use for a particular protocol, or a finding they've found, and they'll more likely than not respond helpfully if they have time. Try e-mailing Celera on their protocols and see what you get.
You can see the parallels between the science world and the software world. Both started out completely open. Both migrated towards the proprietary closed model (in the case of software, almost completely). Now, both are having lash-back movements of evangelicism for transparency, open source, free software/biology, etc.
Yeah, I've been waiting years for a real lame movie to watch.
While they're at it with "Superman v. Batman", why don't they throw in a few more lame scenarios, like:
Batman v. Spiderman
Spiderman v. Superman
Jaws v. Jurassic Park
Jason v. Freddy
Lara Croft v. Indianna Jones
Come one, does it get any lamer than this? Imagine what went through their minds when they came up with this one:
hmm...we could have another lame sequel that would make us a lot of money because people are stupid enough to keep coming back for more....or we could combine this movie with that movie to make a really lame movie that won't make sense and'll suck, but it'll bring in the fans from both series and make us gobs and gobs and gobs of money. Then we'll do a sequel.
Now, let me get this straight. I pay $50 for access to TimeWarner Road Runner. For that, I get broadband bandwidth (which usually ranges from 50 (on below avg. sites) to 800 (under good conditions). I get this bandwidth, and the deal is that I get UNLIMITED ACCESS.
So that means I could be on the net 24/7 and they'd have no cause to complain.
But no matter how long I'm on the net, the bandwidth i get at any one point doesn't change. I always get ~200-300KB/s (avg).
So, if I'm not going to use it 24/7, shouldn't I have the right to let other people use it, so I can get my money's worth? If I let other people come in my house and use my cable modem, Time Warner wouldn't gripe about that? What's the difference between that and me having something where I can broadcast my access to neighbors?
There is no difference in effect for Time Warner. I could do either one, and it would have the same effect on them. Time Warner's simply seizing this to stop it because its technological.
My statement was not at all slanderous towards Libertarians.
I myself am a Libertarian.
My statement was slanderous against self-proclaimed Libertarians who think its OK for corporations and citizens to trample all over our rights, but its only not OK when its the government. These people are not Libertarians. They're just anti-government, or possibly anarchist; it should be noted that, in practice, anarchy is not a Libertarian ideal, but rather the opposite thereof, as anyone can violate anyone elses' rights.
Now, lets clear up something. Libertarian in and of itself does not necessarily mean minimizing the number of laws. Minimizing the number of laws is a minimalist, Orwellian, pragmatic, practical, etc practice. Minimizing laws is not necessarily a Libertarian move (i.e., eliminating laws against murder is hardly Libertarian. However, there is a large degree of overlap in that people have the right to know exactly what laws govern them, and they can only reasonably be expected to know all the laws governing them if there are few laws, and if those laws are clear. This ties into another principal that is partly necessary for Libertarianism, which is clarity of the law. People have the right not only be able to know all of the laws (hence, there should be few laws), but also the right to be able to understand all of them (hence, they should be understandable to anyone who's not mentally retarded).
So, regarding the volume and understandability of laws, a few things should be done. Firstly, poor and bad laws should be reppealed. In this case, I agree with you in that the DMCA certainly should be reppealed. Other laws on the to-go list should be anti-sodomy laws, anti-prostitution laws, some anti-drug laws, TRIPPS laws, and any Copyright Act extending copyright protection beyond 20 years. Secondly, unnecessary or poor provisions of laws should be eliminated. Thirdly, redundancy in the laws should be eliminated. Redundancy is a good thing in the internet, but not in laws. For example, hate-crime laws are redundant to other laws against rape, murder, torture, and assault; thus, they should not exist. Once these three things are done, 90% of all existing laws today would be gone. Of the laws left, most would be dramatically reduced in legnth. Fourthly, of the laws remaining, all should be revised for clarity. Laws should be clearly interprettable by any person with an IQ above 70. There should be no ambiguity in laws. Fifthy, when there is ambiguity in a law in that lawyers can quibble about its meaning seriously affont a judge, no one should be punished: we do not use people as test-subjects for laws. Sixthly, and as an extension of the fifth point, there should be theoretical challenges to a law and cases deciding its meaning; we should not wait until a problem presents itself to deal with a flaw. Seventhly, of the remaining *clear* laws, all should be revised to be of minimal length. Unnecessary words should be removed, and long words replaced with short ones whenver possible. In short, that means no "the fact that"s, no thous, no thees, no whereupons, no henceforths, no thys, and none of that other British BULLSHIT. Furthermore, no words should be used which are not widely recognizeable and defineable; "prurient interests" is elitist bullshit language.
In short, the rules for writing laws should be the same as those for writing good English. 1. If you don't have anything intelligent to say, shut the fuck up. In other words, don't pass bad laws. 2. Above all else, be clear as to exactly what the laws mean. 3. Once clarity is secured, work on minimalism: that is, reducing the length of a document. 4. Do user-testing. Go out and ask someone who flunked out of high school to tell you what a law means; if he can't tell you exactly what your law means, your law is poorly written.
Ok, back to Libertarianism.
Libertarian means a strong belief in people's rights. Libertarian also does not necessarily mean blind adherance to the constitution -- that's constitutionalist. Libertarians happen to be the strongest supporters of the constitution, but Libertarian doctrine does not necessarily mean blind adherance to the constitution (though it does mean strong adherence, though not blind, to the Amendments).
It is possible for Constitutionalism and Libertarianism to conflict. The Constitution itself is not a Libertarian doctrine; rather, it is an authoritarian doctrine speaking of how the power to control our lives is to be divided up among various government branches. The Amendments, however, are Libertarian doctrines.
Now, your proposed laws, "No manufacturer or distributor of content may use technological measures to limit the exercise of Fair Use by legal licensees of said content," is exactly the kind of lack of clarity I'm talking about. Corporate lawyers can quibble ad-infinitum about what does and does not limit the exercise of Fair Use. There's a common, though flawed, argument that DRM protections do not limit fair use because people can always still use "technologies other than the cutting edge to get fair use". What you stated is a principal, not a law. Its precise meaning is questionable. What you need to do is state that as the guiding principal of a law, then explain exactly what your law prevents, then include a fail-safe catch-all to close loop-holes. Rep. Boucher's bill does in fact state exactly what companies can't do, though it doesn't, imo, go far enough.
I do agree with you that we should make an amendment clarifying the fact that the Amendments were not meant just to protect us from the government, but also from corporations, organizations, and other people; though there are some exceptions. I.e., not promoting any one religion obviously should not be forced on people, organizations, or some companies (though it should be forced on public companies, where the public owns stock).
As Lessig has pointed out in "The Future of Ideas," Sen. Orrin Hatch has his head screwed on right when it comes to intellectual property issues. So, will Orrin Hatch join Boucher in supporting this measure? I'd certainly hope so.
That would give the bill two sponsors, one from each party, which is good.
Also, for those of you "Libertarians" saying that banning the sale of copy-protected CD's is bad, I think you're forgetting that the public has rights too. Fair use is a right. The government shoud act so as to preserve our rights. In some cases, it is necessary for the government to interfere with business in order to protect the public's rights and consumer's rights. This is not a violation of the libertarian principal.
What amazes me about some so-called "Libertarians" is how much they despise it when the government disrespects our rights, but how easily and readily they are willing to allow businesses to violate our rights.
The Amendments to the constitution may have been designed by the Founders with concern that the government may violate our rights. However, they didn't mean for the Amendments to only apply to the government. They couldn't have predicted a time when companies would be able to violate our rights just as easily as the government, but they would not have approved. Nor would they approve any-more of individual's violating other individual's rights. The Amendments should protect us from actions by the government, businesses, and other citizens.
Certainly, the founding father's would not approve of our current bounty-hunter system, whereby simply because a bounty-hunter is not "part of the government," (s)he can violate the rights of the suspect.
Nor would they approve of companies and corporate organizations like the RIAA/MPAA/BSA violating our rights.
This guy's claims have no merits. This case isn't going anywhere, not even with our over-zealous IP laws.
But don't expect J. Falwell do know that. Remember, this is the same guy that thinks the purple teletubby is gay. What an idiot.
Lets examine his ridiculous claims one by one.
Yea, sure. Nice try Reverend crack pot. Firstly, trademark claims are weak when there's no commercial element involved. This site is non-commercial. Secondly, using a trademarked is not in itself a violation. Certainly, using a trademarked word/name to criticize the trademark, its owner, or its associated product is never a violation.
Here, he's referring to the instance where Cohn said Falwell is the third false prophet forseen in the bible, and where he compared Fallwell to Koresh and Jones. This is not libelous. Libel has to deal with falsely claiming factual matters, not matters of opinion. No matter which way its stated, saying "Falwell is a false prophet," "Falwell is the anti-christ," or "Falwell is Satan," is a matter of opinion because its neither provable nor unprovable; thus, it is an opinion, and cannot be touched by libel. Furthermore, any statements made cannot be touched by libel if qualified with "I think".
Furthermore, we should note that Cohn is only doing to Falwell what Falwell has done so often to homosexuals and others who don't fit into his conception of "pious people". Falwell is hardly in a position to complain about being demonized.
How exactly is this Cohn competing with Falwell? He's not. Even if he were, how would this be unfair? After all, he's not pretending to be Fallwell; he's not being mis-representative.
What a crock of shit. Cybersquatting is where you register a domain name just to make money off of it from someone else who has an interest in that name. This is obviously not the case here, as Cohn is actually using this site, and going to court to ensure he keeps it. If he was a cyber-squatter, he would have sold it to Falwell a long time ago.
Now that we've dismissed Falwell's absurd legal claims, lets make fun of him a little bit.
Trips to Israel for profit? Gee, a real holy guy. Remember in the bible something about it being harder to stuff a camel's ass through the eye of a needle than getting a rich man into heaven?
Promoted credit cards? Are these the kind of credit cards that track for buying "deviant" items and then report this back to Christian Coalition central?
Insurance policies? Like what, if you die blowing up an abortion clinic, your family gets a free get out of hell card?
Long distance services? Hmmm...I don't know about the credability of 1-800-GOD-TALK.
Lawrence Lessig said "code is law". Namely, he was talking about code that business', ISP', and government's write on top of standard protocols to regulate our behavior.
But code is also law for us.
We are the one's who write the code for P2P services like Phex, LimeWire, BearShear, etc. Thus, we are the one's who create the "law" for those services.
We have the ability to code away this problem, and any other problems presented to our P2P utopia.
So how do you deal with bogus files? Well, one way to do it is by detection. Write protocols into P2P programs to detect bogus music files. How do you do that? By reverse engineering their technology. Lets say that their "bogus" files appear the same size as normal files, but about 1/4 of the way through have a hitch in them w/c causes your player to play over the part over and over again. So you write code to detect that.
Another way to deal with it is the same way we deal with spammers: block unreliable sources. If a domain-name for e-mails often gives you spam, you block that domain name. Same thing w/ P2P networks with a little bit of ingenuity.
The only thing to worry about is the red queen effect; namely, we take counter-measures to their measures, and they take counter-counter measures to our counter-measures, and so on and so forth. This results in a lot of wasted time for us, and also will eventually make our code bloated.
Another alternative is the legal route. Contrary to what some say, there is a legal option. Their actions garble up the P2P network, which will negatively affect many who are sharing non-copyrighted files. Hence, a basis for a legal restraint.
The other possibility is a counter-attack. They've screwing up our networks, so we screw up theirs and their systems. The best defense is a good offense. This would be DoS attacks on their servers, or virus'/worms aimed specifically at their computers.
Another possibility is very simple. Rather than trying to weed out untrustworthy sources, try to find trustworthy ones. This is much easier as you'll get cooperation. Real netizens of the P2P community may put tags on their files, as identification, which would securely identify them; then, those files would be rated on two categories -- quality and completeness.
Rather than dynamically searching for the file you want each and every time you type in the name, why not each user create a data-base on the files all the other users on the network are using?
Once you get on the network, it does a search and accesses other people's database, so your current file database is updated.
This would require much less bandwidth than searching dynamically every time you typed in a search term (though it would require a little bit of hard drive space), and it would allow search results to be produced very quickly, as you'd essentially be searching a file on your hard drive.
Basically, what he has done is created a personalized keyboard, well-suited to the things which he frequently types.
Different people type different things; thus, different optimal results will be seen.
I'd also suggest that he try using a Bayesian Analysis to do this study; Bayesian Analysis and GA are very close to one another, but Bayesian Analysis is faster and is more widely accepted/used.
Great, so the Japanese have an even GREATER affinity for buying shit that probably doesn't work as well as its advertised to work, that they don't need in the first place, and that they probably can't even afford, than we do.
Is that something to celebrate about?
The most important decision for one should be cost-effectiveness, overall. That doesn't necessarily mean just the purchase price, but everything considered.
I'm sitting in front of a 19" monitor. It is big; it takes up a lot of room in all dimensions. It costed me about 300 dollars. Now, I could have spent and extra 300 dollars or so and gotten a flat-screen monitor.
That would definately be smaller and cooler.
But would it be worth it to me?
Well, NO.
I have plenty of space, so size is not an issue. I also value resolution and monitor integrity, so the flat-screen would blow. Flat screens have poor resolution (ever tried reading fine text on a flat-screen?), and their colors change depending on the angle you view them from. Also, I find the edges of flat-screen monitors to be very annoying.
Well, gee, talk about FLAMEBAIT and OFF TOPIC at a LinuxWorld Expo. Using it to further their own interests, despite the fact it has no place at all.
Try to think about what people are saying before your criticize. The point was M$ wouldn't be showing anything beneficial to Linux; they're only there to serve their own interests, and its completely inappropriate of them to be there.
Like they're going to be contributing anything worthwhile tot the Linux community anyways.
Give me a break. Linux is MS' mortal enemy.
The only thing they'll be there to do is spout BS FUD about how MS is superior to Linux.
They'll probably point out a bunch of "flaws" in Linux which are unrelated to its superiority as an OS; i.e., "there's no clear scheme of ownership in Linux". They'll, of course, have no constructive criticism: all there will be is propaganda on how Linux is "fatally and irrecoverably flawed". They certainly won't offer any insights into solutions for the "problems" they point out, other than to switch to MS.
When its a big rich corporation v. a small organization or individual, the corproation should ALWAYS have to reimburse the individual/organization its legal costs.
But private individual's or small organizations shouldn't necessarily have to reimburse the big corporation. If the corporation wants reimbursement, it should have bear a large burden of proof.
2. They worked pretty damn well. Probably better than the previous US election for President. Don't recall 15 recounts, looking at chads, divits, partial penetration, etc.
3. Not only did the elections work, but they produced the "right" results. I'm referring here to Karl Auerbach and Andy Mueller-Maguhn being elected. They didn't work perfectly everywhere -- especially Africa -- and ICANN's jumped on that as an excuse to do away with them; i.e., "because so few people voted in Africa, we have to do away with elections and just control everything ourselves -- buahahahaha." Lets look at the results of these elections (winners marked by *):
AFRICA:
Calvin Browne 30 Alan Levin 33 **Nii Quaynor 67** TOTAL 130
ASIA/AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC:
Johannes Chiang 935 Lulin Gao 1,750 **Masanobu Katoh 13,913** Hongjie Li 749 Sureswaran Ramadas 398 TOTAL 17,745
EUROPE:
Maria Livanos Cattaui 514 Alf Hansen 629 Jeanette Hofmann,2295 **Andy Mueller-Maguhn 5,948** Olivier Muron 544 Oliver Popov 389 Winfried Schueller 990 TOTAL 11,309
LATIN AMERICA AND CARRIBEAN:
**Ivan Moura Campos 946** Raul Echeberria 141 Claudio Silva Menezes 157 Aluisio S. Nunes 79 Patricio Poblete 79 TOTAL 1,402
AMERICA: (of course everything in the US is complicated, so there were 6 stages of voting; I'll just summarize the first stage, which is pretty much representative)
Karl Auerbach 1,074 Lyman Chapin 127 Donald Langenberg 83 Lawrence Lessig 725 Harris Miller 179 Barbara Simons 771 Emerson Tiller 490 TOTAL 3,449
Gee, I don't see how these elections didn't work. Please fill me in on that one. I don't know anything about these guys other than Auerbach*, Lessig, and Mueller-Maguhn*, but it seems like it worked fine to me. Great guys got elected -- Auerbach and Mueller-Maguhn. Too bad the US couldn't be represented twice, b/c Lessig would've done well. Anyways, it works fine. Yes, very few people voted in Africa and other poor regions: duh, most of them don't have the internet. Yes, few people (relatively speaking) voted in the rich nations: duh, even in presidential elections, turnout is normally low.
Its better having an election with low turnout than no elections at all, or than having an election with high turnout of voters who don't know what the fuck is going on.
What ICANN's really bitching about is that the elections didn't go THEIR way. Hillary Rosen, Jack Valentini, or Bill Gates didn't get elected as ICANN members -- that's their gripe.
Besides being outrageous, Ford's actions also violate the basic ideals of the internet.
Linking and domain-name-pointing is what makes the internet what it is. If I make a link --these assholes, and you don't like it, tough shit. Same thing with domain-name pointing.
If you have a problem with linking or domain-name pointing, get the fuck off the net.
But Ford should have to reimburse them for attorney's fees and other damages.
As long as big companies can do this kind of crap without having to pay for it, its going to keep on happening.
What should happen is that Ford should be fined 10 times the damages for wasting 2600's time and the Court's time. That'll act as a deterrent for other companies who want to file frivolous law-suits.
Getting a nation which is -- considering the number of people in it -- very poor...to pay $100 for each copy of windows (ok, maybe its $10 per copy on a volume deal). Dream on.
Same thing with Russia.
Ditto with India.
Sure, they'll pirate your software -- that's free. But why pay for it?
The fact is that Linux is the future in Russia, China, and India. Heck, because these government's don't have to worry about BSA lawsuites or pay expensive licensing fees, Linux might even rejuvinate their starved economies.
Government's around the world are starting to realize that Linux is -- in every way important -- superior to MS. The deficiencies in Linux (read, GUI, Xfree, anti-aliasing, [minor] hardware recognition [moderate]) can easily be fixed using the kind of money the government throws around.
This guy is obviously a made-man: paid-off, bribed, owned by the RIAA/MPAA -- in their back pocket.
This probably won't get passed, because numerous representatives will raise objections, as it'll prevent people from sharing non-copyrighted files. As P2P may be the future of communication, such a bill threatnes that very future.
However, rest assured, that if this bill passes, counter-measures will be taken. There are ways to deal with people offering fake files. There are also ways to make a network resistant to various types of attacks.
Normally, the attackers of the network have the advantage, but not in this case. In this case, P2P, the P2P community has the advantage b/c we have far more programmers, and the code is open, and anyone around the world can contribute.
Also, since MS is releasing the source for this integration, it'll be very easy for Linux or BSD to have such integration -- minux DRM, of course -- in BSD and Linux.
Like I said, what has MS ever done to be considered trust-worthy?
Undoubtedly, Linux and BSD will integrate such features, minux the draconian DRM. Furthermore, BSD and Linux as they are now are much less prone to security problems, because people login as a user, thus security problems are usually localized. Furthermore, there's just less virus' and malware out there that affects *nix, as opposed to windows.
And don't kid yourself, all this is ONLY a smoke-screen by MS to introduce further, more integrated, DRM in order to curb our fair-use rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply put, this is bullshit.
The guy for UNIX.org had a legitimate use for his site; he was not using it to squeeze money. He had a site-in-progress and had paid $5,000 dollars. Why pay 5k to cybersquat? That's absurd.
Furthermore, does this ruling mean that OpenFucks (aka OpenHypocrites, and those fucks who use the word Open in their name but are against those principles) gets to steal this persons domain name, but he doesn't get compensated the $5,000 dollars he spent on it?
Cybersquatting may be an issue. I argue that its no different than an investment. If people think a domain name may be valuable for its name, they buy it. Any problems with it can be solved by having the rights to such expire after a certain time of inactivity, with a hearing if the person objects because they're working on something in progress (as this person did).
Auto-terminating a person's rights to a domain-name after say one year of them not associating any website with it would almost completely solve cybersquatting problems. After all, a cybersquatter who purchases 5000 sites is certainly not going to able to put up sites for all of them (also do a redundancy check for simply putting the same page on diff. domain names).
In any case, ICANN's rules are crap. The only way to prove someone cyber-squats is if they explicitly ask for money for their site and buy many domain-names for such. One instance is certainly not proof.
What utter bullshit.
We don't say the same thing of people who purchase tons of land (but don't want to use it), in hopes that someone will want to use it an pay them for it.
There's little difference in "cybersquatting".
While we're rallying for Open Sourced Biology (OSB) or Free Biology (FB) [which is good], why not rally for OPEN SOURCED TRANSPARENT CORPORATE OPERATIONS. This way, the Martha Stewarts and Gary Wennig's can't defraud their investors.
Also -- this one's nothing new -- how about transparancy in ICANN?
Ok, back to biology. Open Sourced Biology is nothing new: its as old as science itself. Back in the good old days, we didn't call it that becase it was just assumed. It was assumed that when something was discovered it would be shared with the world. Watson & Crick & Franklin made their findings available to the public for free upon the presumption that that information would be used to generate more information which would be freely dispersed, ad infinitum. Of course, now the scientific community is moving towards a proprietary model -- the dark side of the force, so to speak. But don't be fooled. The overwhelming majority of science is still transparent and "open sourced".
E-mail any professor at a university about the method they use for a particular protocol, or a finding they've found, and they'll more likely than not respond helpfully if they have time. Try e-mailing Celera on their protocols and see what you get.
You can see the parallels between the science world and the software world. Both started out completely open. Both migrated towards the proprietary closed model (in the case of software, almost completely). Now, both are having lash-back movements of evangelicism for transparency, open source, free software/biology, etc.
Yeah, I've been waiting years for a real lame movie to watch.
While they're at it with "Superman v. Batman", why don't they throw in a few more lame scenarios, like:
Batman v. Spiderman
Spiderman v. Superman
Jaws v. Jurassic Park
Jason v. Freddy
Lara Croft v. Indianna Jones
Come one, does it get any lamer than this? Imagine what went through their minds when they came up with this one:
hmm...we could have another lame sequel that would make us a lot of money because people are stupid enough to keep coming back for more....or we could combine this movie with that movie to make a really lame movie that won't make sense and'll suck, but it'll bring in the fans from both series and make us gobs and gobs and gobs of money. Then we'll do a sequel.
Now, let me get this straight. I pay $50 for access to TimeWarner Road Runner. For that, I get broadband bandwidth (which usually ranges from 50 (on below avg. sites) to 800 (under good conditions). I get this bandwidth, and the deal is that I get UNLIMITED ACCESS.
So that means I could be on the net 24/7 and they'd have no cause to complain.
But no matter how long I'm on the net, the bandwidth i get at any one point doesn't change. I always get ~200-300KB/s (avg).
So, if I'm not going to use it 24/7, shouldn't I have the right to let other people use it, so I can get my money's worth? If I let other people come in my house and use my cable modem, Time Warner wouldn't gripe about that? What's the difference between that and me having something where I can broadcast my access to neighbors?
There is no difference in effect for Time Warner. I could do either one, and it would have the same effect on them. Time Warner's simply seizing this to stop it because its technological.
My statement was not at all slanderous towards Libertarians.
I myself am a Libertarian.
My statement was slanderous against self-proclaimed Libertarians who think its OK for corporations and citizens to trample all over our rights, but its only not OK when its the government. These people are not Libertarians. They're just anti-government, or possibly anarchist; it should be noted that, in practice, anarchy is not a Libertarian ideal, but rather the opposite thereof, as anyone can violate anyone elses' rights.
Now, lets clear up something. Libertarian in and of itself does not necessarily mean minimizing the number of laws. Minimizing the number of laws is a minimalist, Orwellian, pragmatic, practical, etc practice. Minimizing laws is not necessarily a Libertarian move (i.e., eliminating laws against murder is hardly Libertarian. However, there is a large degree of overlap in that people have the right to know exactly what laws govern them, and they can only reasonably be expected to know all the laws governing them if there are few laws, and if those laws are clear. This ties into another principal that is partly necessary for Libertarianism, which is clarity of the law. People have the right not only be able to know all of the laws (hence, there should be few laws), but also the right to be able to understand all of them (hence, they should be understandable to anyone who's not mentally retarded).
So, regarding the volume and understandability of laws, a few things should be done. Firstly, poor and bad laws should be reppealed. In this case, I agree with you in that the DMCA certainly should be reppealed. Other laws on the to-go list should be anti-sodomy laws, anti-prostitution laws, some anti-drug laws, TRIPPS laws, and any Copyright Act extending copyright protection beyond 20 years. Secondly, unnecessary or poor provisions of laws should be eliminated. Thirdly, redundancy in the laws should be eliminated. Redundancy is a good thing in the internet, but not in laws. For example, hate-crime laws are redundant to other laws against rape, murder, torture, and assault; thus, they should not exist. Once these three things are done, 90% of all existing laws today would be gone. Of the laws left, most would be dramatically reduced in legnth. Fourthly, of the laws remaining, all should be revised for clarity. Laws should be clearly interprettable by any person with an IQ above 70. There should be no ambiguity in laws. Fifthy, when there is ambiguity in a law in that lawyers can quibble about its meaning seriously affont a judge, no one should be punished: we do not use people as test-subjects for laws. Sixthly, and as an extension of the fifth point, there should be theoretical challenges to a law and cases deciding its meaning; we should not wait until a problem presents itself to deal with a flaw. Seventhly, of the remaining *clear* laws, all should be revised to be of minimal length. Unnecessary words should be removed, and long words replaced with short ones whenver possible. In short, that means no "the fact that"s, no thous, no thees, no whereupons, no henceforths, no thys, and none of that other British BULLSHIT. Furthermore, no words should be used which are not widely recognizeable and defineable; "prurient interests" is elitist bullshit language.
In short, the rules for writing laws should be the same as those for writing good English. 1. If you don't have anything intelligent to say, shut the fuck up. In other words, don't pass bad laws. 2. Above all else, be clear as to exactly what the laws mean. 3. Once clarity is secured, work on minimalism: that is, reducing the length of a document. 4. Do user-testing. Go out and ask someone who flunked out of high school to tell you what a law means; if he can't tell you exactly what your law means, your law is poorly written.
Ok, back to Libertarianism.
Libertarian means a strong belief in people's rights. Libertarian also does not necessarily mean blind adherance to the constitution -- that's constitutionalist. Libertarians happen to be the strongest supporters of the constitution, but Libertarian doctrine does not necessarily mean blind adherance to the constitution (though it does mean strong adherence, though not blind, to the Amendments).
It is possible for Constitutionalism and Libertarianism to conflict. The Constitution itself is not a Libertarian doctrine; rather, it is an authoritarian doctrine speaking of how the power to control our lives is to be divided up among various government branches. The Amendments, however, are Libertarian doctrines.
Now, your proposed laws, "No manufacturer or distributor of content may use technological measures to limit the exercise of Fair Use by legal licensees of said content," is exactly the kind of lack of clarity I'm talking about. Corporate lawyers can quibble ad-infinitum about what does and does not limit the exercise of Fair Use. There's a common, though flawed, argument that DRM protections do not limit fair use because people can always still use "technologies other than the cutting edge to get fair use". What you stated is a principal, not a law. Its precise meaning is questionable. What you need to do is state that as the guiding principal of a law, then explain exactly what your law prevents, then include a fail-safe catch-all to close loop-holes. Rep. Boucher's bill does in fact state exactly what companies can't do, though it doesn't, imo, go far enough.
I do agree with you that we should make an amendment clarifying the fact that the Amendments were not meant just to protect us from the government, but also from corporations, organizations, and other people; though there are some exceptions. I.e., not promoting any one religion obviously should not be forced on people, organizations, or some companies (though it should be forced on public companies, where the public owns stock).
As Lessig has pointed out in "The Future of Ideas," Sen. Orrin Hatch has his head screwed on right when it comes to intellectual property issues. So, will Orrin Hatch join Boucher in supporting this measure? I'd certainly hope so.
That would give the bill two sponsors, one from each party, which is good.
Also, for those of you "Libertarians" saying that banning the sale of copy-protected CD's is bad, I think you're forgetting that the public has rights too. Fair use is a right. The government shoud act so as to preserve our rights. In some cases, it is necessary for the government to interfere with business in order to protect the public's rights and consumer's rights. This is not a violation of the libertarian principal.
What amazes me about some so-called "Libertarians" is how much they despise it when the government disrespects our rights, but how easily and readily they are willing to allow businesses to violate our rights.
The Amendments to the constitution may have been designed by the Founders with concern that the government may violate our rights. However, they didn't mean for the Amendments to only apply to the government. They couldn't have predicted a time when companies would be able to violate our rights just as easily as the government, but they would not have approved. Nor would they approve any-more of individual's violating other individual's rights. The Amendments should protect us from actions by the government, businesses, and other citizens.
Certainly, the founding father's would not approve of our current bounty-hunter system, whereby simply because a bounty-hunter is not "part of the government," (s)he can violate the rights of the suspect.
Nor would they approve of companies and corporate organizations like the RIAA/MPAA/BSA violating our rights.
This guy's claims have no merits. This case isn't going anywhere, not even with our over-zealous IP laws.
But don't expect J. Falwell do know that. Remember, this is the same guy that thinks the purple teletubby is gay. What an idiot.
Lets examine his ridiculous claims one by one.
Yea, sure. Nice try Reverend crack pot. Firstly, trademark claims are weak when there's no commercial element involved. This site is non-commercial. Secondly, using a trademarked is not in itself a violation. Certainly, using a trademarked word/name to criticize the trademark, its owner, or its associated product is never a violation.
Here, he's referring to the instance where Cohn said Falwell is the third false prophet forseen in the bible, and where he compared Fallwell to Koresh and Jones. This is not libelous. Libel has to deal with falsely claiming factual matters, not matters of opinion. No matter which way its stated, saying "Falwell is a false prophet," "Falwell is the anti-christ," or "Falwell is Satan," is a matter of opinion because its neither provable nor unprovable; thus, it is an opinion, and cannot be touched by libel. Furthermore, any statements made cannot be touched by libel if qualified with "I think".
Furthermore, we should note that Cohn is only doing to Falwell what Falwell has done so often to homosexuals and others who don't fit into his conception of "pious people". Falwell is hardly in a position to complain about being demonized.
How exactly is this Cohn competing with Falwell? He's not. Even if he were, how would this be unfair? After all, he's not pretending to be Fallwell; he's not being mis-representative.
What a crock of shit. Cybersquatting is where you register a domain name just to make money off of it from someone else who has an interest in that name. This is obviously not the case here, as Cohn is actually using this site, and going to court to ensure he keeps it. If he was a cyber-squatter, he would have sold it to Falwell a long time ago.
Now that we've dismissed Falwell's absurd legal claims, lets make fun of him a little bit.
Trips to Israel for profit? Gee, a real holy guy. Remember in the bible something about it being harder to stuff a camel's ass through the eye of a needle than getting a rich man into heaven?
Promoted credit cards? Are these the kind of credit cards that track for buying "deviant" items and then report this back to Christian Coalition central?
Insurance policies? Like what, if you die blowing up an abortion clinic, your family gets a free get out of hell card?
Long distance services? Hmmm...I don't know about the credability of 1-800-GOD-TALK.
Lawrence Lessig said "code is law". Namely, he was talking about code that business', ISP', and government's write on top of standard protocols to regulate our behavior.
But code is also law for us.
We are the one's who write the code for P2P services like Phex, LimeWire, BearShear, etc. Thus, we are the one's who create the "law" for those services.
We have the ability to code away this problem, and any other problems presented to our P2P utopia.
So how do you deal with bogus files? Well, one way to do it is by detection. Write protocols into P2P programs to detect bogus music files. How do you do that? By reverse engineering their technology. Lets say that their "bogus" files appear the same size as normal files, but about 1/4 of the way through have a hitch in them w/c causes your player to play over the part over and over again. So you write code to detect that.
Another way to deal with it is the same way we deal with spammers: block unreliable sources. If a domain-name for e-mails often gives you spam, you block that domain name. Same thing w/ P2P networks with a little bit of ingenuity.
The only thing to worry about is the red queen effect; namely, we take counter-measures to their measures, and they take counter-counter measures to our counter-measures, and so on and so forth. This results in a lot of wasted time for us, and also will eventually make our code bloated.
Another alternative is the legal route. Contrary to what some say, there is a legal option. Their actions garble up the P2P network, which will negatively affect many who are sharing non-copyrighted files. Hence, a basis for a legal restraint.
The other possibility is a counter-attack. They've screwing up our networks, so we screw up theirs and their systems. The best defense is a good offense. This would be DoS attacks on their servers, or virus'/worms aimed specifically at their computers.
Another possibility is very simple. Rather than trying to weed out untrustworthy sources, try to find trustworthy ones. This is much easier as you'll get cooperation. Real netizens of the P2P community may put tags on their files, as identification, which would securely identify them; then, those files would be rated on two categories -- quality and completeness.
Here's an idea...
Rather than dynamically searching for the file you want each and every time you type in the name, why not each user create a data-base on the files all the other users on the network are using?
Once you get on the network, it does a search and accesses other people's database, so your current file database is updated.
This would require much less bandwidth than searching dynamically every time you typed in a search term (though it would require a little bit of hard drive space), and it would allow search results to be produced very quickly, as you'd essentially be searching a file on your hard drive.
Basically, what he has done is created a personalized keyboard, well-suited to the things which he frequently types.
Different people type different things; thus, different optimal results will be seen.
I'd also suggest that he try using a Bayesian Analysis to do this study; Bayesian Analysis and GA are very close to one another, but Bayesian Analysis is faster and is more widely accepted/used.
Great, so the Japanese have an even GREATER affinity for buying shit that probably doesn't work as well as its advertised to work, that they don't need in the first place, and that they probably can't even afford, than we do.
Is that something to celebrate about?
The most important decision for one should be cost-effectiveness, overall. That doesn't necessarily mean just the purchase price, but everything considered.
I'm sitting in front of a 19" monitor. It is big; it takes up a lot of room in all dimensions. It costed me about 300 dollars. Now, I could have spent and extra 300 dollars or so and gotten a flat-screen monitor.
That would definately be smaller and cooler.
But would it be worth it to me?
Well, NO.
I have plenty of space, so size is not an issue. I also value resolution and monitor integrity, so the flat-screen would blow. Flat screens have poor resolution (ever tried reading fine text on a flat-screen?), and their colors change depending on the angle you view them from. Also, I find the edges of flat-screen monitors to be very annoying.
Well, gee, talk about FLAMEBAIT and OFF TOPIC at a LinuxWorld Expo. Using it to further their own interests, despite the fact it has no place at all.
Try to think about what people are saying before your criticize. The point was M$ wouldn't be showing anything beneficial to Linux; they're only there to serve their own interests, and its completely inappropriate of them to be there.
Like they're going to be contributing anything worthwhile tot the Linux community anyways.
Give me a break. Linux is MS' mortal enemy.
The only thing they'll be there to do is spout BS FUD about how MS is superior to Linux.
They'll probably point out a bunch of "flaws" in Linux which are unrelated to its superiority as an OS; i.e., "there's no clear scheme of ownership in Linux". They'll, of course, have no constructive criticism: all there will be is propaganda on how Linux is "fatally and irrecoverably flawed". They certainly won't offer any insights into solutions for the "problems" they point out, other than to switch to MS.
So, the same companies that are lecturing us about how immoral it is to trade music, are price-fixing?
Yea, fuck that.
Fuck their moral bullshit.
Fuck their intellectual property.
Fuck them.
Any contract like this should be illegal and void.
Its like making a contract, where in very fine print at the bottom it says, "You agree that you will become a slave."
What's next, are they going to put in clauses saying that you agree that they may place virus' on your computer?
When its a big rich corporation v. a small organization or individual, the corproation should ALWAYS have to reimburse the individual/organization its legal costs.
But private individual's or small organizations shouldn't necessarily have to reimburse the big corporation. If the corporation wants reimbursement, it should have bear a large burden of proof.
Lets go over the facts.
,2295
1. ICANN had public elections.
2. They worked pretty damn well. Probably better than the previous US election for President. Don't recall 15 recounts, looking at chads, divits, partial penetration, etc.
3. Not only did the elections work, but they produced the "right" results. I'm referring here to Karl Auerbach and Andy Mueller-Maguhn being elected. They didn't work perfectly everywhere -- especially Africa -- and ICANN's jumped on that as an excuse to do away with them; i.e., "because so few people voted in Africa, we have to do away with elections and just control everything ourselves -- buahahahaha." Lets look at the results of these elections (winners marked by *):
AFRICA:
Calvin Browne 30
Alan Levin 33
**Nii Quaynor 67**
TOTAL 130
ASIA/AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC:
Johannes Chiang 935
Lulin Gao 1,750
**Masanobu Katoh 13,913**
Hongjie Li 749
Sureswaran Ramadas 398
TOTAL 17,745
EUROPE:
Maria Livanos Cattaui 514
Alf Hansen 629
Jeanette Hofmann
**Andy Mueller-Maguhn 5,948**
Olivier Muron 544
Oliver Popov 389
Winfried Schueller 990
TOTAL 11,309
LATIN AMERICA AND CARRIBEAN:
**Ivan Moura Campos 946**
Raul Echeberria 141
Claudio Silva Menezes 157
Aluisio S. Nunes 79
Patricio Poblete 79
TOTAL 1,402
AMERICA: (of course everything in the US is complicated, so there were 6 stages of voting; I'll just summarize the first stage, which is pretty much representative)
Karl Auerbach 1,074
Lyman Chapin 127
Donald Langenberg 83
Lawrence Lessig 725
Harris Miller 179
Barbara Simons 771
Emerson Tiller 490
TOTAL 3,449
Gee, I don't see how these elections didn't work. Please fill me in on that one. I don't know anything about these guys other than Auerbach*, Lessig, and Mueller-Maguhn*, but it seems like it worked fine to me. Great guys got elected -- Auerbach and Mueller-Maguhn. Too bad the US couldn't be represented twice, b/c Lessig would've done well. Anyways, it works fine. Yes, very few people voted in Africa and other poor regions: duh, most of them don't have the internet. Yes, few people (relatively speaking) voted in the rich nations: duh, even in presidential elections, turnout is normally low.
Its better having an election with low turnout than no elections at all, or than having an election with high turnout of voters who don't know what the fuck is going on.
What ICANN's really bitching about is that the elections didn't go THEIR way. Hillary Rosen, Jack Valentini, or Bill Gates didn't get elected as ICANN members -- that's their gripe.
Besides being outrageous, Ford's actions also violate the basic ideals of the internet.
Linking and domain-name-pointing is what makes the internet what it is. If I make a link --these assholes, and you don't like it, tough shit. Same thing with domain-name pointing.
If you have a problem with linking or domain-name pointing, get the fuck off the net.
Yea yea, they won the lawsuit.
But Ford should have to reimburse them for attorney's fees and other damages.
As long as big companies can do this kind of crap without having to pay for it, its going to keep on happening.
What should happen is that Ford should be fined 10 times the damages for wasting 2600's time and the Court's time. That'll act as a deterrent for other companies who want to file frivolous law-suits.
Getting a nation which is -- considering the number of people in it -- very poor...to pay $100 for each copy of windows (ok, maybe its $10 per copy on a volume deal). Dream on.
Same thing with Russia.
Ditto with India.
Sure, they'll pirate your software -- that's free. But why pay for it?
The fact is that Linux is the future in Russia, China, and India. Heck, because these government's don't have to worry about BSA lawsuites or pay expensive licensing fees, Linux might even rejuvinate their starved economies.
Government's around the world are starting to realize that Linux is -- in every way important -- superior to MS. The deficiencies in Linux (read, GUI, Xfree, anti-aliasing, [minor] hardware recognition [moderate]) can easily be fixed using the kind of money the government throws around.
Looking at the contributions made to him proves it. Gee, lets see, the people contributing the most to him are the movie/music industry and lawyers who represent the music/movie industry. I wonder.
This guy is obviously a made-man: paid-off, bribed, owned by the RIAA/MPAA -- in their back pocket.
This probably won't get passed, because numerous representatives will raise objections, as it'll prevent people from sharing non-copyrighted files. As P2P may be the future of communication, such a bill threatnes that very future.
However, rest assured, that if this bill passes, counter-measures will be taken. There are ways to deal with people offering fake files. There are also ways to make a network resistant to various types of attacks.
Normally, the attackers of the network have the advantage, but not in this case. In this case, P2P, the P2P community has the advantage b/c we have far more programmers, and the code is open, and anyone around the world can contribute.
Also, since MS is releasing the source for this integration, it'll be very easy for Linux or BSD to have such integration -- minux DRM, of course -- in BSD and Linux.
Like I said, what has MS ever done to be considered trust-worthy?
Undoubtedly, Linux and BSD will integrate such features, minux the draconian DRM. Furthermore, BSD and Linux as they are now are much less prone to security problems, because people login as a user, thus security problems are usually localized. Furthermore, there's just less virus' and malware out there that affects *nix, as opposed to windows.
And don't kid yourself, all this is ONLY a smoke-screen by MS to introduce further, more integrated, DRM in order to curb our fair-use rights.
Btw, I never said security = stability.