Er, I'm not arguing for or against IP laws. I'm just stating that the American Legal System hasn't managed to derail or destroy our economy yet, and so juding it as an economic death sentence is very premature.
Actually, they (the pagans) did very much follow along.
Christianity was a cult some 1800 years ago. Then the pagans started converting in droves.
Of course, "pagan" is the bloody stupidist name for a religion I've ever heard. ("Wicca" or "Druid" is fine.) I don't know which interpreation is worse: "not-the-other-guy" or "hick".;) Just a rub on the name, actually. Got a lot of wiccan/pseduo-wiccan friends, and they all see my point when I rant about the name "pagan."
If you had your computer setup to launch a massive DDOS attack against a computer that pinged you, you'd still be the one launching the attack.
And as for ripping the songs from the CD you bought legally--that's totattly legal "media shifting", and it's considered Fair Use. Give those copies to anyone else, though, and you've committeed copyright infringement.
The common argument at this point is "well, if he has the CD, it's OK." Which is sort of like saying "If you rob a credit union for $12,375 dollars, and then make an anonymous donation of $12,375 dollars you haven't committed a crime."
Lent, for example, began as a form of sympathetic magic.
This is where I rant against alternate religions, and the @Q#%ing atheists who think they have a right to impose their religion on science.
Proving a casual connection and plausible explanation for cross-polination does not a connection make. Just becuse Jesus Christ seems like a perversion of the myth of the tree of life does not make it so. Dealing with prehistoric religious causality is something rife with conjecture, and it should be afforded no more scientific merit than assumptions about what kind of social structure alien life forms will have.
Easter is a natural thing to celebrate, so it's no surprise that some form of easter celebration happens all over the world. But that doesn't prove anything more than spring being a good time to celebrate.
Now, I'll readilly concede that Christendom adopted wholesale the rituals and additive trappings of the extant religions as it spread through Europe. But, even in an agnostic view, that doesn't invalidate the original celebration of passover, or the marking of Christ's death and alleged ressurection associated with it.
(Of course, if we go from agnostic scientific discussion into a religous debate, I can counter most arguments with "My God beat up your god, and then got high, which explains why we haven't seen him in awhile.")
Oh, one more thing. The site you linked to is woefully unimpressive. No credientials, no certification, and no quotation of the works of others that agree with him.
This judge is saying that Grokster has uses that don't infringe and it isn't the software makers responsibility to ensure that it is used legally. I agree with this. Imagine if everyone who has been hacked from an MS box could sue Microsoft. What if everyone who was hacked from a Linux box could sue Linus or the distro maker of the offending box? It would be ridiculous.
Yeah, what if the hackers who write exploits for script-kiddies could be prosecuted... er...
P2P systems and OSes are different animals--about as different as you can get when it comes to current-market software. Yes, there are some good uses to P2P--but the vast majority of their use is for copyright infringement. A reasonable case could be made for baning them because of this, and a reasonable case could be made for leaving them legal despite this.
Personally, I'm betting we'll have either a FCC or a Title 17 (copyright law) amendment to deal specifically with makers and users of P2P software. At least, we SHOULD have one, to decide where these buggers fall in the spectrum of legal software.
Correction the Easter festival is the Spring festival, like the Winter Solastic, your religion has stolen yet another cool thing. The truth is that it is about fertility.
You're messing up your tense there. Easter is a celebration linked to Passover, which is itself a celebration of God's providing for His people. Your (?) divinity-come-lately gods are both predated by Yawheh (if not Jesus as well), and more than likely what spiritual reality there is to these gods converted to Christianity along with their followers.
The world returns to life not some guy. I will enjoy my chocolate bunny, and think of the real patron (and far better role model) of the Season, BUGS BUNNY.
By all means, enjoy the chocolate bunny. I've been meaning to change the.sig anyway. (And I should probably comb my comments and make a JE with the best responses to my sig.)
For every printer in their line, they sell the print head and ink tank seperately--which means that they can design the print head to be a higher-quality system that will last longer than one ink tank's worth.
Apparantly their printers are a _bit_ pricier than HP's--but that's only for the basic printer. Price out the ink and printer for a year, and they're a lot closer in price.
You (as in the USA, not you personally:) ) have absolutely no right whatsoever to impose a constitution, bill of rights or system of govt on the Iraqi people. They should be free to decide whether they want this themselves and then be allowed to set it up themselves. If they want [what you propose], then for sure you can advise them, but it is not for you to say that they should choose this way to live.
Of course we do. Our military is ruling Iraq right now; instituting a copy of our form of government is reasonable and has oodles of historical precedent.
What we don't have the right to do is take action to ensure that they don't change the government we hand them.
My position is that "international law" is nothing more than a bunch of treaties that the powers-that-be find convenient. "International law" is to reality what communism is to reality--a cludge that's sometimes useful.
FWIW, international law does require us to aid in the rebuilding of Iraq--option 3.
We went in with an army to a foreign country and routed their government. Whatever the spin, a military victory followed by an occupation is a "conquest."
The "coalition"'s "liberation" effort is, from where I sit, primarily designed to reasssure everyone that we're going to do our national tradition, and let Iraq be its own counry as soon as is responsibly possible.
But their lack of advanced technology does not automatically make them warmer and friendlier. There are plenty of places in the US where the people are calm, warm, and friendly. I'll get back to you when I find a few examples.
Texas, Vermont, most of the midwest, most of the south...
Get out of the northeast (where I live) and the whole sheebang warms up a bit. Heck, even the native americans up in NY are rude and corrupt profiteers.
Yeah, I mean, darn our laws. They kept the internet from-- I mean, they killed the automotive-- er...
Ok, how about darn our colonial control of conquered powers, just like Japan-- er, I mean, just like Germany-- ah, forget it.;)
Someone explain to me how this isn't colonization?
We're planning on leaving once they're up and running. It's the least colonial activity we could possibly do that wasn't irresponsibly abrupt.
Remember: we conquered Iraq. We could either abanon them to the winds, absorb them, or set up an interim government to replace the one we just took out, leave, and let them replace the interim government on their own.
And how did you know it never fed or would never feed anyone?
I don't. But I DO know that the oil system will certainly feed every Iraqi.
If I were in the field and had to prioritize, I'd protect the things that will help my mission first, the things that will help the New Iraq second, and the things that the intellectuals really would like to see protected a distant third.
And in any case--Museums, theatres, and sports teams are all liesure elements of society, and are less important than actually finding food, shelter, and a livelihood for the nation.
What are you talking about? This applies to priests, lawyers, and psychiatrists.
Those are the ones forbidden to come forth. It's a different state than "not being compelled."
It does not apply to employees. Being an employee does not absolve you of the responsibility to report crimes.
You DO NOT have a responsibility to report crimes unless you're a police officer or a lawyer. You have no right to impede investigation into crimes, but you are not compelled to come forth and testify about every "crime" you see.
By that standard no one in Enron broke the law -- they were all in eaah other's confidence. Your conclusion is absurd.
Y'know, you really should come up with a better model of absurdity.
No one in the Enron case who didn't have a special complusion to be honest--the CEO and the CFO and the auditor--broke any law by being silent about things that they may or may not have. And, similarly, those that did come forward didn't break any law either.
Please go look up the difference between 'compel', 'forbid', and 'allow.' They ARE different, you know.
Neither the Israelites, the Egyptians, nor the Arabs were "black" in biblical times. If they had been, then large numbers of them would stll be "black" today.
Christ just had the Last Supper, is a day away from dying, and wants his message to live on. So he tells his followers "get your purse and your sword--you're outlaws now." That's a long bloddy way from advocating open rebellion.
As for your claim about "bible editing"--care to back it up with more than "constantine sucks" message? Heresey was a big deal back in the day--the Christians had a hard enough time without having "we're all really jews" and "the jews are evil!" camps diluting the important message.
But it has no relevance to the telemarketer issue so take your literalist interpretations of allegories elsewhere please.
Sheesh.
Christ said "forgive", "turn the other cheek", and all the rest. If Jesus Christ found himself working at a telemarketing firm, and he found fraud, do you REALLY think that he would call the government before giving the firm a chance to reform?
It's very relevant to the telemarketer issue. Were these actions moral? Well, according to how I understand The Great Fuzzy Jr., yes, they were totally moral to keep silent for a time and then speak out.
Jesus of Nazareth did not voice his concerns internally and work to improve the system from within. True change requires true sacrifice, which few are willing to make.
Er...
1: Jesus was a Rabbi. He knew the scriptures as well (or better) than any other, and His first acts (about the age of 12, I think) were to talk to the priests.
2: Jesus preached to the jews first, just like all the rest of the prophets before him. Very much a part of the system he was concerend about.
3: Jesus never advocated open rebellion, against Israel or Rome or even the local rabbis in a town. He followed the law as He knew it, and went against the words of the Rabbis extant at the time, but He certainy gave them a chance to reform first.
Change does NOT always require sacrafice. While change will take longer and be less effective if those who want change aren't willing to make sacrafices, it's foolish to sacrafice for change when the sacrafice is unnecessary.
Companies like this cannot be reformed, you can't improve a system where people knowingly and willingly commit fraud.
You may as well say that about the American revolution--it was, after all, started with legal fraud and treason.
Maybe if you believe the company is doing things that are unethical but legal, then you can try to reform from within. But when it's illegal (or deeply unethical) you have a moral duty to blow the whistle, even if it's going to suck for you. You aren't allowed to put ethics aside because they aren't convenient.
Please state your ethical basis for that statement.
By NO measure I've encountered for morality requries someone revealed a crime in confidence--which a company's employees are--to break that confidence and reveal the crime.
While it's very ethical to protect whistleblowers, it's foolhardy to try and ethically or morally compel them to come forth.
FWIW, in the whole "priest pedophile" scandal last year I think the church came out with one very good aspect--they followed what they preached, and gave forgiveness to the preists. Their sin was being (way) too forgiving and obstructing the wheels of justice, not the mere attempt to forgive and reform.
Because once you air this sort of thing, it sort of kills your career.
It's often better to voice your concerns internally, and work to improve the system from within.
I find it very moral to give a company a chance to improve itself. (How long a chance? About as long as it takes for the would-be-whistleblower to find a better job.)
Actually, this is not true. Star Destroyers use lasers for weaponry (well, turbo-lasers but lasers nonetheless). May I quote some dialog from the TNG episode The Outrageous Okona:
SW weaponry is no more a lazer than ST weaponry is. They both travel at sublight speeds, and they're both visible from the side.
Obviously, they're BOTH directed energy weapons, and they BOTH designed to attack/penetrate force fields. While it's obvious that ST has a higher per-strike charge (personal phasers either utterly destroy their targets or pierce through them), a SW SD can make up in sheer volume for what it lacks in power.
Remember: A SD has oodles and oodles of guns--and oodles and oodles and oodles of small fighters. If needs be, they could just kamikaze the enterprise with five thousand TIEs and win.
Of course, the quality of life on the Enterprise is better, and it can certainly claim a cleaner design and better PR--but it's really outclassed by a SD.
In my opinion the alleged infringers' identity should not be revealed unless a judge issues a warrant. If he uses the DMCA that will happen, and I suspect that's the roots of his moral qualms.
Can you kindly point me to the clause that says that ISPs have to hand over the identity of alleged infringers sans court order/warrant?
While the DMCA may be overly broad, I have yet to discover a reasonable argument for it being "bad law." (Dimitri was allegedly doing some for sale in the US that is illegal in the US--our laws apply to him just like they would apply to an international drug dealer.)
Please don't muddy the water by attributing things to "The DMCA" that aren't there. Keep this up, and I'll get a chain letter saying "The DMCA gives the USPS authority to charge for e-mail!"
Slashdot Mirror
Er, I'm not arguing for or against IP laws. I'm just stating that the American Legal System hasn't managed to derail or destroy our economy yet, and so juding it as an economic death sentence is very premature.
Actually, they (the pagans) did very much follow along.
;) Just a rub on the name, actually. Got a lot of wiccan/pseduo-wiccan friends, and they all see my point when I rant about the name "pagan."
Christianity was a cult some 1800 years ago. Then the pagans started converting in droves.
Of course, "pagan" is the bloody stupidist name for a religion I've ever heard. ("Wicca" or "Druid" is fine.) I don't know which interpreation is worse: "not-the-other-guy" or "hick".
No, you distributed it.
If you had your computer setup to launch a massive DDOS attack against a computer that pinged you, you'd still be the one launching the attack.
And as for ripping the songs from the CD you bought legally--that's totattly legal "media shifting", and it's considered Fair Use. Give those copies to anyone else, though, and you've committeed copyright infringement.
The common argument at this point is "well, if he has the CD, it's OK." Which is sort of like saying "If you rob a credit union for $12,375 dollars, and then make an anonymous donation of $12,375 dollars you haven't committed a crime."
Lent, for example, began as a form of sympathetic magic.
This is where I rant against alternate religions, and the @Q#%ing atheists who think they have a right to impose their religion on science.
Proving a casual connection and plausible explanation for cross-polination does not a connection make. Just becuse Jesus Christ seems like a perversion of the myth of the tree of life does not make it so. Dealing with prehistoric religious causality is something rife with conjecture, and it should be afforded no more scientific merit than assumptions about what kind of social structure alien life forms will have.
Easter is a natural thing to celebrate, so it's no surprise that some form of easter celebration happens all over the world. But that doesn't prove anything more than spring being a good time to celebrate.
Now, I'll readilly concede that Christendom adopted wholesale the rituals and additive trappings of the extant religions as it spread through Europe. But, even in an agnostic view, that doesn't invalidate the original celebration of passover, or the marking of Christ's death and alleged ressurection associated with it.
(Of course, if we go from agnostic scientific discussion into a religous debate, I can counter most arguments with "My God beat up your god, and then got high, which explains why we haven't seen him in awhile.")
Oh, one more thing. The site you linked to is woefully unimpressive. No credientials, no certification, and no quotation of the works of others that agree with him.
This judge is saying that Grokster has uses that don't infringe and it isn't the software makers responsibility to ensure that it is used legally. I agree with this. Imagine if everyone who has been hacked from an MS box could sue Microsoft. What if everyone who was hacked from a Linux box could sue Linus or the distro maker of the offending box? It would be ridiculous.
Yeah, what if the hackers who write exploits for script-kiddies could be prosecuted... er...
P2P systems and OSes are different animals--about as different as you can get when it comes to current-market software. Yes, there are some good uses to P2P--but the vast majority of their use is for copyright infringement. A reasonable case could be made for baning them because of this, and a reasonable case could be made for leaving them legal despite this.
Personally, I'm betting we'll have either a FCC or a Title 17 (copyright law) amendment to deal specifically with makers and users of P2P software. At least, we SHOULD have one, to decide where these buggers fall in the spectrum of legal software.
What, you mean "Mr. Personality" is high-class entertainment?
Yes, it costs some $$$ out of the box, but the cost per page is an order of magnitude lower than inkjet.
?
Please quote some specs. I have never heard a claim like that.
Correction the Easter festival is the Spring festival, like the Winter Solastic, your religion has stolen yet another cool thing. The truth is that it is about fertility.
.sig anyway. (And I should probably comb my comments and make a JE with the best responses to my sig.)
You're messing up your tense there. Easter is a celebration linked to Passover, which is itself a celebration of God's providing for His people. Your (?) divinity-come-lately gods are both predated by Yawheh (if not Jesus as well), and more than likely what spiritual reality there is to these gods converted to Christianity along with their followers.
The world returns to life not some guy. I will enjoy my chocolate bunny, and think of the real patron (and far better role model) of the Season, BUGS BUNNY.
By all means, enjoy the chocolate bunny. I've been meaning to change the
Canon.
For every printer in their line, they sell the print head and ink tank seperately--which means that they can design the print head to be a higher-quality system that will last longer than one ink tank's worth.
Apparantly their printers are a _bit_ pricier than HP's--but that's only for the basic printer. Price out the ink and printer for a year, and they're a lot closer in price.
You (as in the USA, not you personally :) ) have absolutely no right whatsoever to impose a constitution, bill of rights or system of govt on the Iraqi people. They should be free to decide whether they want this themselves and then be allowed to set it up themselves. If they want [what you propose], then for sure you can advise them, but it is not for you to say that they should choose this way to live.
Of course we do. Our military is ruling Iraq right now; instituting a copy of our form of government is reasonable and has oodles of historical precedent.
What we don't have the right to do is take action to ensure that they don't change the government we hand them.
My position is that "international law" is nothing more than a bunch of treaties that the powers-that-be find convenient. "International law" is to reality what communism is to reality--a cludge that's sometimes useful.
FWIW, international law does require us to aid in the rebuilding of Iraq--option 3.
Yes, they have. But I haven't.
We went in with an army to a foreign country and routed their government. Whatever the spin, a military victory followed by an occupation is a "conquest."
The "coalition"'s "liberation" effort is, from where I sit, primarily designed to reasssure everyone that we're going to do our national tradition, and let Iraq be its own counry as soon as is responsibly possible.
Germany and Japan.
But their lack of advanced technology does not automatically make them warmer and friendlier. There are plenty of places in the US where the people are calm, warm, and friendly. I'll get back to you when I find a few examples.
Texas, Vermont, most of the midwest, most of the south...
Get out of the northeast (where I live) and the whole sheebang warms up a bit. Heck, even the native americans up in NY are rude and corrupt profiteers.
They'll be forever burried by our stupid laws
;)
Yeah, I mean, darn our laws. They kept the internet from-- I mean, they killed the automotive-- er...
Ok, how about darn our colonial control of conquered powers, just like Japan-- er, I mean, just like Germany-- ah, forget it.
Someone explain to me how this isn't colonization?
We're planning on leaving once they're up and running. It's the least colonial activity we could possibly do that wasn't irresponsibly abrupt.
Remember: we conquered Iraq. We could either abanon them to the winds, absorb them, or set up an interim government to replace the one we just took out, leave, and let them replace the interim government on their own.
And how did you know it never fed or would never feed anyone?
I don't. But I DO know that the oil system will certainly feed every Iraqi.
If I were in the field and had to prioritize, I'd protect the things that will help my mission first, the things that will help the New Iraq second, and the things that the intellectuals really would like to see protected a distant third.
And in any case--Museums, theatres, and sports teams are all liesure elements of society, and are less important than actually finding food, shelter, and a livelihood for the nation.
What are you talking about? This applies to priests, lawyers, and psychiatrists.
Those are the ones forbidden to come forth. It's a different state than "not being compelled."
It does not apply to employees. Being an employee does not absolve you of the responsibility to report crimes.
You DO NOT have a responsibility to report crimes unless you're a police officer or a lawyer. You have no right to impede investigation into crimes, but you are not compelled to come forth and testify about every "crime" you see.
By that standard no one in Enron broke the law -- they were all in eaah other's confidence. Your conclusion is absurd.
Y'know, you really should come up with a better model of absurdity.
No one in the Enron case who didn't have a special complusion to be honest--the CEO and the CFO and the auditor--broke any law by being silent about things that they may or may not have. And, similarly, those that did come forward didn't break any law either.
Please go look up the difference between 'compel', 'forbid', and 'allow.' They ARE different, you know.
Jews aren't black, dumbass.
Neither the Israelites, the Egyptians, nor the Arabs were "black" in biblical times. If they had been, then large numbers of them would stll be "black" today.
The National Musem never fed anyone; it was a luxury item. Oil Fields can feed all of Iraq; it's the company's meal ticket.
Sweet Jesus, that's out of context!
Christ just had the Last Supper, is a day away from dying, and wants his message to live on. So he tells his followers "get your purse and your sword--you're outlaws now." That's a long bloddy way from advocating open rebellion.
As for your claim about "bible editing"--care to back it up with more than "constantine sucks" message? Heresey was a big deal back in the day--the Christians had a hard enough time without having "we're all really jews" and "the jews are evil!" camps diluting the important message.
But it has no relevance to the telemarketer issue so take your literalist interpretations of allegories elsewhere please.
Sheesh.
Christ said "forgive", "turn the other cheek", and all the rest. If Jesus Christ found himself working at a telemarketing firm, and he found fraud, do you REALLY think that he would call the government before giving the firm a chance to reform?
It's very relevant to the telemarketer issue. Were these actions moral? Well, according to how I understand The Great Fuzzy Jr., yes, they were totally moral to keep silent for a time and then speak out.
Jesus of Nazareth did not voice his concerns internally and work to improve the system from within. True change requires true sacrifice, which few are willing to make.
Er...
1: Jesus was a Rabbi. He knew the scriptures as well (or better) than any other, and His first acts (about the age of 12, I think) were to talk to the priests.
2: Jesus preached to the jews first, just like all the rest of the prophets before him. Very much a part of the system he was concerend about.
3: Jesus never advocated open rebellion, against Israel or Rome or even the local rabbis in a town. He followed the law as He knew it, and went against the words of the Rabbis extant at the time, but He certainy gave them a chance to reform first.
Change does NOT always require sacrafice. While change will take longer and be less effective if those who want change aren't willing to make sacrafices, it's foolish to sacrafice for change when the sacrafice is unnecessary.
Companies like this cannot be reformed, you can't improve a system where people knowingly and willingly commit fraud.
You may as well say that about the American revolution--it was, after all, started with legal fraud and treason.
Maybe if you believe the company is doing things that are unethical but legal, then you can try to reform from within. But when it's illegal (or deeply unethical) you have a moral duty to blow the whistle, even if it's going to suck for you. You aren't allowed to put ethics aside because they aren't convenient.
Please state your ethical basis for that statement.
By NO measure I've encountered for morality requries someone revealed a crime in confidence--which a company's employees are--to break that confidence and reveal the crime.
While it's very ethical to protect whistleblowers, it's foolhardy to try and ethically or morally compel them to come forth.
FWIW, in the whole "priest pedophile" scandal last year I think the church came out with one very good aspect--they followed what they preached, and gave forgiveness to the preists. Their sin was being (way) too forgiving and obstructing the wheels of justice, not the mere attempt to forgive and reform.
Because once you air this sort of thing, it sort of kills your career.
It's often better to voice your concerns internally, and work to improve the system from within.
I find it very moral to give a company a chance to improve itself. (How long a chance? About as long as it takes for the would-be-whistleblower to find a better job.)
Actually, this is not true. Star Destroyers use lasers for weaponry (well, turbo-lasers but lasers nonetheless). May I quote some dialog from the TNG episode The Outrageous Okona:
SW weaponry is no more a lazer than ST weaponry is. They both travel at sublight speeds, and they're both visible from the side.
Obviously, they're BOTH directed energy weapons, and they BOTH designed to attack/penetrate force fields. While it's obvious that ST has a higher per-strike charge (personal phasers either utterly destroy their targets or pierce through them), a SW SD can make up in sheer volume for what it lacks in power.
Remember: A SD has oodles and oodles of guns--and oodles and oodles and oodles of small fighters. If needs be, they could just kamikaze the enterprise with five thousand TIEs and win.
Of course, the quality of life on the Enterprise is better, and it can certainly claim a cleaner design and better PR--but it's really outclassed by a SD.
In my opinion the alleged infringers' identity should not be revealed unless a judge issues a warrant. If he uses the DMCA that will happen, and I suspect that's the roots of his moral qualms.
Can you kindly point me to the clause that says that ISPs have to hand over the identity of alleged infringers sans court order/warrant?
While the DMCA may be overly broad, I have yet to discover a reasonable argument for it being "bad law." (Dimitri was allegedly doing some for sale in the US that is illegal in the US--our laws apply to him just like they would apply to an international drug dealer.)
Please don't muddy the water by attributing things to "The DMCA" that aren't there. Keep this up, and I'll get a chain letter saying "The DMCA gives the USPS authority to charge for e-mail!"