The thing is, gains are almost never possible without some expenditure. Someone is paying to produce the gain, with the hope that the gain will be enough so that they at least break even, and usually with some expectation of making a profit.
That's fair enough. So, copyright infringement is wrong.
Thus gaining through no expenditure of effort of your own, but entirely through the effort of someone else, is wrong, unless we are talking about gifts, loans, or finding bars of gold on the bottom of the ocean as someone tried to argue.
Pirates do gain through their own efforts. They're the ones making a copy. It hasn't suddenly increased costs for the copyright holder any more than any legal form of competition has.
If I buy somethign and sell at a profit, I gain. Who loses? Have I stolen from the person I bought it from or the person I sold it from?
I'm arguing that it is identical to stealing, in terms of the effect it has on the content creator/owner.
It's a bizarre argument. If I steal, the owner has to replace the property, and find someone else to sell it to. If I infringe copyright, the owner does not have to replace the copy but still has to find someone else to sell it to. Not only that, but legally it's different. The whole concept of intellectual property is only tangentially similar to physical porperty.
Fair use isn't an exhaustive list of allowed uses. It is possible that given the nature of the copy (single copy for personal use), and the effect on the market (is it reasonable that someone should have to pay twice for the same movie?).
The media cartels don't bother prosecuting over small scale issues like this, and without a court ruling on the matter, any statement that something is, or is not fair use is merely an opinion.
Theft is wrong because someone is deprived of their property. Not because someone gains. Gaining without causing loss to others is not, in itself, wrong. The whole concept of capitalism is based on doing just this.
But it doesn't matter. If copyright infringement is wrong, justify it on the grounds that copyright infringement is wrong. Not on the grounds that its sort of like stealing, and stealing is wrong. Otherwise I'll counter with "There's nothing wrong with stealing".
to me, it seems that the gist of your argument is that since you haven't gotten your hands on a physical thing, you haven't stolen anything. you aren't depriving a retailer of a product or the money they could have gotten in exchange for it.
Seems you missed the point entirely.
The gist I got was that if you steal a physical object, the retailer actually has to replace that physical object, and so has lost the wholesale price of said object. The fact that he may have also sold said object fo rmore is immaterial. He may or may not have done but it doesn't make any difference. He has still paid money for a product, and has a tangible loss on his balance sheet.
The level of medical security you appreciate so much could be provided with a simple insurance system, or a (voluntary) trust fund chartered to pay up front (as a charity-based loan) for those whose savings and/or insurance won't cover the hospital's costs; there's no need to resort to taxation when private solutions exist. That's essentially what we do in the States, and despite the occasional exaggerated horror story, U.S. hospitals generally don't make people wait when time is an issue, just as I'm sure your "free" medical care isn't as poor as some people have reported it to be.
Indeed. Education should be funded in the same way.
Perl may be slow, but this doesn't always matter. If you use a fast high level API to deal with physics and graphics, and keep AI fairly simple, then the time spent executing perl code will be very small, and the effect on overall speed will be negligible.
And if the government were to introduce a simple voluntary ID card with a photo, to be administered by local government, at a cost of £5 or so, then I'd see a certain benefit to it. I might even approve.
Why though, do we need a £3 billion scheme with a huge database, biometrics, and countless other security measures just to open a bank account?
We learned "Don't trust the government".
There is gong to be a lot of public resistance over this. The government may think ID cards are a good idea, but the public don't, whatever screwed up polls might suggest.
Rights are relative. Most of Europe has the right to free healthcare, and the right to protect personal data from corporations. The right to freedom of speech is often slightly lower, but this is generally because it's balanced against other rights. In the US, the government can deny your right to life (which they do in the case of murderers).
By allowing customers to claim any losses back from their credit card company, or something like that, making it totally unprofitable for the online casinos? You just need to do more of this sort of thing. They need to come up with laws that will allow people access to the software but not require them to pay for it, and let the publishers censor themsleves.
Perhaps we should use that term. Would take the wind out of Jack Thomspons sails. "These Murder simulators are totally unsuitable for children". "This is disgusting! This murder simulator has sex in it!"
These arguments are kinda weak when applied to somethign not called a game.
Democracy doesnt work everywhere, last time i checked it doesnt even work in the states.
In what way? The Americans want low taxes, and cheap petrol. They also want the economy to do well and are willing to see this happen at the expense of the environment. They have a government that gives them this.
China is not a democracy and you have to respect another countrys culture.
No I don't. I don't respect Saudi Arabia for chopping people's hands off. i don't repect Afghanistan under the Taliban for any reason. I don't respect the insularity and paranoia of North Korea, and I don't respect the lack of basic human rights practiced by China.
Google have every right and a responsibilty to respect the laws of a country they intend on doing business with.
Yes they do. They don't have a right or a responsibility to do business with them in the first place. They could decide that if they have to do something that is ethically wrong, in a country, then they don't do business in that country. If all American businesses behaved in this way, China would lose out.
Democracy is a basic human right. As is freedom of speech. If Google doesn't believe these are basic rights as well, then they have a bizarre set of wthics and might as well scrap their whole "do no evil" policy.
Theres a word for that people... racism
Bit rich coming from someone who tarred all American with the same brush.
They're obligated to work for shareholder benefit. This does not always mean maximising profits. Many companies have explicit ethical policies. Many Investors invest based on these concerns.
9th - Balance. 10th - Position of limbs and body (there's a technical term for this). Apparently there's about 12-20 depending on what you count as a sense and which ones you consider the same.
A place that the public has access to does not constitute a 'public' facility.
Never said it did.
Your definition doesn't agree with law.
Which law is that?
. For example, an airport and airplane are both areas to which the public are granted access, but under screening, no different than Blizzard's screening, the target is simply different: the screening at airports is towards Islamic Extremists
An airline is allowed to discriminate against people who represent a genuine threat to safety. They are not allowed to discriminate based on race or sexual preference either.
, the screening in Blizzard's case is towards a 'glbt' player that could not disassociate reality from the world of the computer, or follow the rules they agreed to by 'signing' the TOS, a requirement to play.
Being Gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender does not create any threat to other users. The TOS do not ban people from being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. If they did, it would potentially be in breach of anti-discrimination legislation since putting an illegal clause into an agreement does not make it legal. The TOS do bar people from harrasment based on these sexuality. The players were not harrasing people based on their sexuality. In fact, were doing the exact opposite. The difference between reality and the world of the computer and alleged inability to distinguish between these is irrelevant.
I think the one serious problem with this scheme is that they think they can drop support for Classic. I think more people use Classic than they think.
I wonder how much of an effect it will have on Apple. Presumably these people are not buying a lot of new computer equipment, and Apple are primarily interested in hardware sales. Not even sure whether it will affect users that much. Their existing software will continue to work.
Depends on the use of public. Shops and restarants, for example tend to be public places because the public have access. They are not public property because they are not owned by the public. Public means people. Not government.
1. It's public. Once they open it to the public, they can no longer discriminate based on racem gender sexual preference.
2. Even if they do have the legal right to enforce this policy, that doesn't give them the right, and I damn well expect the publis to give them hell over it.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is, gains are almost never possible without some expenditure. Someone is paying to produce the gain, with the hope that the gain will be enough so that they at least break even, and usually with some expectation of making a profit.
That's fair enough. So, copyright infringement is wrong.
Thus gaining through no expenditure of effort of your own, but entirely through the effort of someone else, is wrong, unless we are talking about gifts, loans, or finding bars of gold on the bottom of the ocean as someone tried to argue.
Pirates do gain through their own efforts. They're the ones making a copy. It hasn't suddenly increased costs for the copyright holder any more than any legal form of competition has.
If I buy somethign and sell at a profit, I gain. Who loses? Have I stolen from the person I bought it from or the person I sold it from?
I'm arguing that it is identical to stealing, in terms of the effect it has on the content creator/owner.
It's a bizarre argument. If I steal, the owner has to replace the property, and find someone else to sell it to. If I infringe copyright, the owner does not have to replace the copy but still has to find someone else to sell it to. Not only that, but legally it's different. The whole concept of intellectual property is only tangentially similar to physical porperty.
Fair use isn't an exhaustive list of allowed uses. It is possible that given the nature of the copy (single copy for personal use), and the effect on the market (is it reasonable that someone should have to pay twice for the same movie?).
The media cartels don't bother prosecuting over small scale issues like this, and without a court ruling on the matter, any statement that something is, or is not fair use is merely an opinion.
Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.
I have several CDs that I couldn't replace easily. Sometimes they go out of print.
Theft is wrong because someone is deprived of their property. Not because someone gains. Gaining without causing loss to others is not, in itself, wrong. The whole concept of capitalism is based on doing just this.
But it doesn't matter. If copyright infringement is wrong, justify it on the grounds that copyright infringement is wrong. Not on the grounds that its sort of like stealing, and stealing is wrong. Otherwise I'll counter with "There's nothing wrong with stealing".
to me, it seems that the gist of your argument is that since you haven't gotten your hands on a physical thing, you haven't stolen anything. you aren't depriving a retailer of a product or the money they could have gotten in exchange for it.
Seems you missed the point entirely.
The gist I got was that if you steal a physical object, the retailer actually has to replace that physical object, and so has lost the wholesale price of said object. The fact that he may have also sold said object fo rmore is immaterial. He may or may not have done but it doesn't make any difference. He has still paid money for a product, and has a tangible loss on his balance sheet.
The level of medical security you appreciate so much could be provided with a simple insurance system, or a (voluntary) trust fund chartered to pay up front (as a charity-based loan) for those whose savings and/or insurance won't cover the hospital's costs; there's no need to resort to taxation when private solutions exist. That's essentially what we do in the States, and despite the occasional exaggerated horror story, U.S. hospitals generally don't make people wait when time is an issue, just as I'm sure your "free" medical care isn't as poor as some people have reported it to be.
Indeed. Education should be funded in the same way.
Perl may be slow, but this doesn't always matter. If you use a fast high level API to deal with physics and graphics, and keep AI fairly simple, then the time spent executing perl code will be very small, and the effect on overall speed will be negligible.
I wasn't bitching. It's not a criticism. It's a fucking observation. Like I said...
RIGHTS ARE RELATIVE Got it?
And if the government were to introduce a simple voluntary ID card with a photo, to be administered by local government, at a cost of £5 or so, then I'd see a certain benefit to it. I might even approve.
Why though, do we need a £3 billion scheme with a huge database, biometrics, and countless other security measures just to open a bank account?
We learned "Don't trust the government". There is gong to be a lot of public resistance over this. The government may think ID cards are a good idea, but the public don't, whatever screwed up polls might suggest.
Rights are relative. Most of Europe has the right to free healthcare, and the right to protect personal data from corporations. The right to freedom of speech is often slightly lower, but this is generally because it's balanced against other rights. In the US, the government can deny your right to life (which they do in the case of murderers).
By allowing customers to claim any losses back from their credit card company, or something like that, making it totally unprofitable for the online casinos? You just need to do more of this sort of thing. They need to come up with laws that will allow people access to the software but not require them to pay for it, and let the publishers censor themsleves.
Or, even better - stop nannying their citizens.
Perhaps we should use that term. Would take the wind out of Jack Thomspons sails. "These Murder simulators are totally unsuitable for children". "This is disgusting! This murder simulator has sex in it!"
These arguments are kinda weak when applied to somethign not called a game.
Or you can save yousrself some hassle. If wasting their time is less valuable to you than saving your own time then you might as well let them in.
You americans dont get it dont you.
I'm not an American.
Democracy doesnt work everywhere, last time i checked it doesnt even work in the states.
In what way? The Americans want low taxes, and cheap petrol. They also want the economy to do well and are willing to see this happen at the expense of the environment. They have a government that gives them this.
China is not a democracy and you have to respect another countrys culture.
No I don't. I don't respect Saudi Arabia for chopping people's hands off. i don't repect Afghanistan under the Taliban for any reason. I don't respect the insularity and paranoia of North Korea, and I don't respect the lack of basic human rights practiced by China.
Google have every right and a responsibilty to respect the laws of a country they intend on doing business with.
Yes they do. They don't have a right or a responsibility to do business with them in the first place. They could decide that if they have to do something that is ethically wrong, in a country, then they don't do business in that country. If all American businesses behaved in this way, China would lose out.
Democracy is a basic human right. As is freedom of speech. If Google doesn't believe these are basic rights as well, then they have a bizarre set of wthics and might as well scrap their whole "do no evil" policy.
Theres a word for that people... racism
Bit rich coming from someone who tarred all American with the same brush.
They have no obligation to operate in China at all.
They're obligated to work for shareholder benefit. This does not always mean maximising profits. Many companies have explicit ethical policies. Many Investors invest based on these concerns.
9th - Balance. 10th - Position of limbs and body (there's a technical term for this). Apparently there's about 12-20 depending on what you count as a sense and which ones you consider the same.
A place that the public has access to does not constitute a 'public' facility.
Never said it did.
Your definition doesn't agree with law.
Which law is that?
. For example, an airport and airplane are both areas to which the public are granted access, but under screening, no different than Blizzard's screening, the target is simply different: the screening at airports is towards Islamic Extremists
An airline is allowed to discriminate against people who represent a genuine threat to safety. They are not allowed to discriminate based on race or sexual preference either.
, the screening in Blizzard's case is towards a 'glbt' player that could not disassociate reality from the world of the computer, or follow the rules they agreed to by 'signing' the TOS, a requirement to play.
Being Gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender does not create any threat to other users. The TOS do not ban people from being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. If they did, it would potentially be in breach of anti-discrimination legislation since putting an illegal clause into an agreement does not make it legal. The TOS do bar people from harrasment based on these sexuality. The players were not harrasing people based on their sexuality. In fact, were doing the exact opposite. The difference between reality and the world of the computer and alleged inability to distinguish between these is irrelevant.
I think the one serious problem with this scheme is that they think they can drop support for Classic. I think more people use Classic than they think.
I wonder how much of an effect it will have on Apple. Presumably these people are not buying a lot of new computer equipment, and Apple are primarily interested in hardware sales. Not even sure whether it will affect users that much. Their existing software will continue to work.
You have a right to be able to move state-to-state and within the state.
Nobody ever restricted Rosa Parks' right to do so. Simply her right to sit in a certain part of the bus while doing so.
Depends on the use of public. Shops and restarants, for example tend to be public places because the public have access. They are not public property because they are not owned by the public. Public means people. Not government.
A MMORPG is a service offered to the public.
1. It's public. Once they open it to the public, they can no longer discriminate based on racem gender sexual preference.
2. Even if they do have the legal right to enforce this policy, that doesn't give them the right, and I damn well expect the publis to give them hell over it.
It's not about science. It's about explosions, tits and silliness.
The PS3 is going to be using games that come on blu-ray disks, wich can hold a lot more data than the DVDs that the X-Box currently uses.
They can. But what makes you think they will?
Besides, Sony doesn't intend to sell the PS3 at a loss, so the profits won't have to be made back in the games.
But they're still charging developers a royalty per game. just because they don't have to doesn't mean they aren't going to. They're after profits.