As far as whether a project is 'derivative', it comes down to whether or not any of the GPL'd code exists in the project's souce code. If the code isn't there, but the same ideas are... no problem. GPL covers code, not ideas.
I'm not just talking about code. The GPL covers copyright, and one of the ambiguities of copyright law that it's thusly inherited is that "derivitive" is legally ambiguous. Some examples:
* If I look at your project, and then write one just like it, down to the UI setup and number & function of code "objects," am I derivitive?
* If I release a program and only one of my "code objects" is GPL, with the rest wholly done in-house with no reference to code that is not entirely mine or enitrely public domain, is the entire program derivitive or just that one code object?
* Assuming the answer to the above is "yes," then what about seperate files in the final version? Or what about two different programs sent on the same media? What if those two programs are desinged to work together? Too work seamless together (no user input)?
Don't get me wrong. I love copyleft for things where redundancy is bad (standards, code, roleplaying game systems.) But there's still one great big legal question mark, and that's "what is derivitive?"
I just checked, and the GPL itself doesn't say anything about what "the Program" is, just that it's "work released under the GPL."
A better way to do it, I think, is how the OGL handled it. The copyleft is on the *open material*, rather than the entire work. (Thus, you mark what parts are derivitive / open, and the rest of them aren't.)
There's no ambiguity there. Oh, the restrictive terms of the OGL (no trademark use of other OGL users w/o permission--written in to preserve the value of trademarks) are based on the "work", but the most legally ambiguous part (what is "derivitive") is handled by the Clear Identification rule.
That all said, I understand that what you write yourself you can do whatever you want with, including distrubte it under every license imaginable.
My observation of weakness is that a lawsuit that would otherwise be frivolous ("our contract with X ended six months ago, why should X sue us?") is now one that's not nearly so, requiring the innocent Big Company to pay the expense of a lawyer, possibly an unbudgeted-for expense, just to do their regular course of business.
The GPL probably was setup like this because it was written for the consumers, not for the authors or code. And, rather than be an end in and of itself, it's a vehicle to a differnet end (that being, the ending of treating code as a copyrightable medium.)
And now, at the risk of being horribly off-topic--aren't the ideas of code-as-speech and code-as-noncopyrightable contrary? Anything fixed down in a permanent fashion is copyrightable, ESPECIALLY if it's speech.
Yes, the GPL grants permissions, but it also takes away rights, such as the right to first sale of binary-only copies.
Hmm. If you are using someone else's code under the GPL, then you never had a right to sell their code in the first place. So I don't see how the GPL takes anything away from you.
Right of First Sale: The legal term that means "the ownership of a thing ends after the first sale, and the new owner can do Pretty Much whatever they want with the thing."
In other words, if I buy a copy of a GPL's software program and the vendor tells me "here's where you get the source" exteranally from the program files (and, yes, that IS explicitly stated as allowable in the GPL), I could normally just pass the program on to someone else, but the GPL seems to say that I have to communicate the same thing that the vendor told me, or else I've commited copyright infringment.
If I buy a game from ID software, ID can't really tell me not to take the disks after I'm done using it and sell them to a used-computer depo. But if the game was GPL'd, and ID tells me where to get the source outside of the disks (say, in a pamplhet in the box), I'm violating the GPL by "redistributing" the binary without the "source."
The GPL, and other sticky copyleft licenses like it (such as the Open Gaming License), is a contract where you pay for the right to use the code by agreeing to release your use of it under the GPL. You're not "getting something for free."
You're getting a "one-way ticket into copyleftland," to sound like an MSife for a moment. Considering how vauge "derivitive work" can be, I'd be shy releasing a GPL'd program and then going to (profitable) proprietary software too.
About the only valid complaint against the GPL is "what's to stop some meanie from saying a project I write six months after I finish my GPL project should be covered by the GPL because its 'derivitive', and thus dragging me into court?"
(I'm not as familiar with the GPL as I am with the OGL, but the OGL has a 30-day cure period and a much clearer definition of "use." Not to mention that the RPG industry is nowhere near as litgious or fragmented as the software industry.)
It's illegal to distribute copyrighted information *without permission.* Not, "illegal if they say so," but "illegal unless they say yes."
As for "backups" over the internet--it's impossible. The internet creates several copies of any packet sent--you wouldn't be "backing up a file," you'd be *transmitting* a file.
(Go ahead and argue that you were transmitting a file to perform a backup. If you were doing it on the public internet, it seems legally presumable that you weren't doing a backup.)
Re:Today, the WTO pulled the trigger on another 2.
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Just because you've decided on a lifetime commitment doesnt make you immune if your partner is or gets infected. The social issues and the percentages work against such a strategy being efficient in countries where AIDS runs rampant.
WHAT?
Tell me, how does two people being devoted to each other exclusively, and totally honest when they're not, NOT reduce your chance to get AIDS?
Oh, and you *do* have to choice to not have sex, by the way. The only people who say that you don't are people who want an excuse to have a lot of sex.
.I would be willing to give up the notion of copyright and the patent systems altogether. What moral right does someone who creates an artifact that represents an idea to the very eternal notion itself?
They don't have a right to the "eternal notion." They have it, at the maximum, for the entirety of their natural lifetime, plus a few years to cover at-the-grave publishing deals and care for their estate.
In exchange for this limited monopoly, we gain a permantent and complete copy of the "eternal notion." We do not suffer a disaster if an inventor selfishly burns his entire laboratory in an instant, or keeps the real meaning in code to create their own value--we have records in the patent office of how the thing really works.
(At least, this is how the system is SUPPOSED to work.)
They should own only the artifact itself. Why should we subsidise the creation of such artifacts by granting copyright?
First off, creation of artifacts / inventions are covered by patent law, not copyright. Patents last for, IIRC, 15 years max. Copyrights are intended for literary and artistic work, and thus last much longer.
And, yes, I think software should be covered by patent law, not copyright law.
I don't think the value of what is created in that way warrants the subsidy since the material created is mostly created with the express purpose of making $$ and not with enriching my life.
That's just it. We're a capitalist-based economy. Thus, people who make more money have a better life. If not for the patent system, all those that create new things would be at the random and unfair mercy of whomever could copy the idea first. Less brilliant inventions would be more vauable, since fewer people would steal them. Really brilliant ideas wouldn't be worth the time to use, since everyone would take them immediately.
I think such a system would be unfair, and giving everyone who invents something new--even if it's not that good--a flat time to have an exclusive monopoly on that is a fair and good way to do it. Since all timespans are the same, the value of an invention is directly proportional to how many people will want it, and thus better ideas are now really worth more.
Why is fostering technological growth good in and of itself? Is the car really a good thing? Has it actually benefitted mankind?
Technological growth has, by and large, improved the life of everyone on the planet. There's still a lot left to improve, but I for one *like* the idea of being able to easily move more than ten miles away from my birthplace (my wife and I were born several hundred miles apart), being able to communicate with relatives across great distances, and being able to not live in polluted and unkempt quarters just to be able to work.
I have a hard time naming an invention that hasn't improved my life. Heck, even the patent granted on Magic:The Gathering has allowed my favorite hobby to have a competent and strong player in the lead of the industry. This is a good thing.
He hasn't created any, because there is no such thing. Knowledge and information cannot be owned, and what little pretention to "ownership" of it exists in law is a legal fiction created to stimulate "science and the useful arts."
How much money do you own? Money is just a legal fiction created to stimulate the exchange of value in a society.
How much property do you own? Property laws are just a legal fiction to keep us all from killing each other to get what we want.
Are you married? Marriage is just a legal fiction to encourage stable families.
I have created several items of intellectual property, and am working on a few sallable projects. If there were no guarantee for me to profit from people using the things I write or think up, I would not be able to spend time writing or thinking up things, becasue I would have to perform direct labor for someone else in order to surive.
There are quite a few very valid claims against harsh intellectual property enforcement--but all the rational ones rest on choice of the actual legal creators--the artists, inventors, authors, and research corporations that produce these things, rather than noncreative "agents" such as RIAA.
Calling "Intellectual Property" a "fiction" is insulting to anyone who values innovation or creation. Removing it from our legal system--which the term "fiction" implies--would cause mindless construction and labor to have more value than even the most treasured arts. I would not like to live in a world like that.
I also wouldn't want to live in a world where IP is all, or where it exists eternally with no checks whatsoever on their limit. *sigh* Just don't call it a "fiction", ok? It's as real as any other part of the law, so talk about it that way and let's deal with where it fits in the system, not *if* it fits in the system.
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Guess what, those people aren't dumber than you. I'm pretty sure that plenty of those 2,500 victims are smarter than you and me.
And most of them still made decisions that put them at risk for AIDS, and they're suffering for it.
I'm all for curing the damn disease, and I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for those who got it through no fault of their own--but I just can't bring myself to feel pity for people who engage in loose sex with AIDS out there, especially in countries where it's rampant.
If there's ever been a solid medical reason for lifetime monogamy, it's AIDS.:( I don't care if you're African, American, Gay, Straight, or whatnot--when an uncurable disease is trasmitted primarily through sex, keeping your pants on until you make a lifetime commitment seems like the best idea in the world.
The act of duplicating a file from one computer to another computer is not illegal, nor will it ever be.
Allow me to qualify.
"The act of duplicating a copyrighted file without permission from one computer to another computer is illegal, and always has been, save only for fair use."
Fair use claims also have to be made in court, btw.:) Good luck.
(see http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ for more information. IANALBIPON/.)
That's just the point though -- the Scorpion King receives the same protection as any other movie right? Being considered an action/popcorn movie/game or whatever is of no relevance.
Actually, The Scorpion King gets more protection than some movies. Think of porn, or child porn, or movies of people dying, or movies of people doing sick and unhealhty things.
A movie of a man graphically and explicitly killing a mouse is illegal. The same governmental power to regulate these things for the common good should be able to be applied to video games, as well.
Once this power is a given, then when the government USES it, we can object. If a law banning "violent video games" is ambiguous, unapproriate, or the like, then it needs to be fought on the same grounds that laws against drinking, pot use, or non-missionary sex are/were fought. Not "the government can't do that," but rather "the government *shouldn't* do that, and here's why..."
I'd suggest simply looking up the Judge's mailing address (or the address of the court) and writing a business letter addressed "dear judge X" or "to the court."
Sending a copy to the relevant appeals court might work too. Your local colledge with a legal or paralegal program may be able to help you find the right information--and if you're in the right state, your elected representatives in the gov't may help as well.
As for your game list:
* Planescape:Torment is a possibility. * Jet Set Radio sounds iffy. * Ultima I haven't played. (go figure.)
(IANAL, just in case you're wondering. But if you thought I was, feel free to talk to one of Slashdot's many IANAPs.)
Firstly, how is fighting a virtual war that different than writing about a fictional one? The interactivity enhances the experience, not demerits it.
It's the difference between playing a football game and writing about a make-believe one. The first is a sport, not speech, the second one is speech, not a sport.
Lets say I use the paintball cheat in Goldeneye to write something on a wall, is that free speech? What about using buried Zerglings to do it? True you can't write much, but you can in other games, along the same lines. You could theoretically write a novel through character names. Can there be free speech inside an explicitly non-speech environment?
(Who said anything about "explicitly non-speech?" I'm talking "not always speech", not "not speech.")
Sure, you could write something, and that would be speech. But me using a pencil to write as speech doesn't make the *pencil* speech.
Merit is opinion-based, which is why I dislike it as a standard. I wouldn't say "Pat the Bunny" has any merit (btw, that "bunny" looks like a deformed caterpillar). Free speech is a protection of art, in a way. Art is conidered a form of comminucation, is it not? A picture is worth a thousand words, a painting can be studied for a lifetime. How can you say that The Last Supper doesn't say anything? It says more than many books I've read (there's a lot of junk out there, you know).
What makes you think I said that an artistic painting isn't speech? However, since most painting (by drops of paint) are functional rather than artistic, I would say that "painting isn't a default of speech," just like code. If you think that your painting is speech / art, then you'll need to prove it in court. (this might not be a hard thing, btw.)
Right at this moment, I think the standard is *communication.* Speech is trying to get a point across, at its most basic. Covince a judge that your (whatever) is making a point, and its speech.
Of course, it might not be *protected* speech. Sure, you can have artistic porn--but that doesn't mean that the government shouldn't be able to regulate when and where you can sell it for the common good (just like the regulate what you can build on your own property, or what you can do with your own body for money.)
Starcraft's movies shouldn't be considered seperate from the game. They are clearly part of it. You can't watch them without playing it.
Sure you can. Record a game of starcraft, and play it back. It's no longer a *game*, but the *movies* still remain exactly the same (less signal loss) as they are in the game itself. Therefore, they're seperable.
Perhaps the value of the game is unlocking the movies, then. A toll, in effect. The value of book can't be realized if you don't pay or can't read. Perhaps it's just a different form payment for speech (free speech is rarely free).
Possible.
So long as someone expresses their opinion, they are exercizing free speech. What if their statement is about the brutality of war, and can only be realized by someone witnessing it first hand (enter Wolfenstein, etc)?
Intersting take, but I remember Wolfenstein, and it's not "speech." It's a game where you kill Nazis, not a tale about how war is wrong. Wolfenstein et al have about as much artisitc merit as a toy gun.
(And they're also fun toys that have a valid place in society--and that should be fair game for small-scale regulation.)
By 'merit' I guess you mean that they just aren't good enough?
Not at all. What's good in a literary sense and what's good in a game sense are almost always two different things.
There a plenty of games with writing far better than half of the novels out there (maybe not better than the half you read, but you didn't mention what you read).
That's a matter of opinion, and I disagree with you totally. (change "novels" to "tv shows", and you'll get me.)
Try Planescape: Torment, The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, etc. etc. So maybe a lot of games are more like Hollywood action movies -- they crank them out and make some quick dough. Most MOVIES are frequently just as vacuos. Doesn't mean they aren't protected just like the good ones though.
I'm not familiar with The Longest Joureny, but I am with the first two--and they're not action games AFAIK.
Still, I stand by what I said in an differnet post in this thread. Video Games, like computer code, physical actions, lighting a fire, making food, or a whole slew of other things, should not be considered speech save for in "exceptional circumstances", like "on stage."
Playing Starcraft or C&C is very similar reading Dune (as well they should be, both having come from it), with a strong emphasis on racial differences, war, peace, and the concepts of equality. I can't find anything like that in the dictionary...
A dictionary isn't, AFAIK, free speech. It's just a book that collects and defines words as accurately as possible--if anything, it should (I have no idea if it is or not) be treated as the furthest thing from free speech.
Starcraft and C&C--as I recall, most of the "worth" of these games (and similar ones) comes from the small movies that are shown at parts in the game, not from the game itself. The movies, as motion pictures, are allready speech.
As for the interactive part of the game--what part, exactly, has merit? A few quotes here and there *might* have enough merit to be speech, but they also might not--and even if they do, the game sans-them still isn't good enough.
Of course, I also think that code shouldn't be assumed to be speech, either. Just in the same way that an action or construction shouldn't be assumed to be speech, but sometimes can be.
If you think the judge was wrong, then find four video cames that have a conveyance of ideas, expression, and real speech.
And then write up a formal letter and send it to the judge, expressing why you think video games should be speech.
I, personally, haven't seen any games that merit the same protection as half the novels I read. While I can think of a theoretical video game that would do such, I don't know of any offhand that meet the standard.
(I'm also pefectly fine with the government having the power to regulate commerce of catagorically objectionable material, including violent video games. I know what to do if a legislature with jurisdiction over me passes a law that adversly affects my life.)
If (at least in some states) source code is free speech [advogato.org], and games are just the result of that code, I don't see how this is going to hold up under appeal. IANAL (obviously).
Code might be speech. It might even, as a default, be _protected_ speech.
But trust me--write the wrong code (like a virus or a massive copyright / patent infringment) and the 1st amendment will protect you no more than it protects people guilty of perjury, slander, libel, or conspiracy to commit a felony.
My only thought at this point is, who should set the rules on what is acceptable and unacceptable for a developing child to see? I'm not talking about ages 8-12 or whatever.. but mid to late teens... are growing constantly at that age...
The same people who set all of the other standards, of course.
Currently, that's the government legislatures, and they work on setting absolute minumum ages for children to do adult things. Until we have a massive change in how these limits are set, it's best to be consistent with what we allready have--it'll make a final (theoretical) changeover all that much easier.
Just as with a computer, a simple government is a good government.
That's actually a good question; if I hadn't allready commented, I'd mod you up for it.
MS et al actually gain from someone pirating their software rather than using OSS. Many people I know of priated MS Word, and if they didn't learn it this way and get used to it this way, they'd probably be using OpenOffice or whatever was cheapest for the jobs.
The fact is, software piracy only "hurts" the comercial software industry in the way that me walking into a store and not buying anything "hurts" the store. Counting non-certain purchasers as "lost sales" is a logical fallicy that's propagated to grant powers of asinine enforcement, and outrageous legal fees.
But for home & workplace use, it isn't. While open source alternatives do exist, they aren't of the quality of features that home and workplace users have come to expect. A website admin doesn't need to deal with anyone except for web browsers--while a home user needs to deal with games & whatnot, and business users have the even bigger problem of not wanting to lose time and money figuring out software that doesn't quite work the way they expect it to.
I just tried OpenOffice, and I'll try it again in a few versions--once it stops marking my grammatical choices as spelling mistakes, and maybe when it tracks changes & deals with outlines.
(I use both in writing at home, and my boss uses the track changes feature at work.)
Okay, I've checked Fowler's, and you're right. Usage of spaces in double dashes as punctuation is arbitrary.:)
:) Guess I am a writer, then.
I will say that it does seem somewhat archaic, for the very reason that it confuses more word processors than just StarOffice:), so I'm not used to seeing it done like that much recently. Besides, it's easier to parse when reading if it's not all run together -- depending on the font it an look like hyphenation.
It doesn't confuse MS Office--and because of that, any program claiming "compatability" that is confused is glossing at best.
Aplogies for the blanket statement, though. Can I change a 'must' to a 'should'?:)
That's because they are. You're supposed to have spaces in there. (works -- words)
Says who? (remember: the english language is living, and so differing sources can differ on the "proper" use. Please provide an authority, and I'll add it to my list.)
I was using real en-dashes and em-dashes, and I was using them properly. Starofice didn't suggest an alternative use--they just marked them wrong. If a program's going to treat punctuation marks as letters, it had better suggest "proper" usage or not bother.
Last time I tried it (I'm not in the habit of installing random pieces of software) it marked all my punctuated works--words with dashes touching them, like this--as misspellings.
It also didn't provide enough for me to stop using Word and start using it.
If StarOffice still had a free version of 6, I'd test it and write up a review. *sigh* There's an older review of Staroffice 5.2 on my website, but it won't tell you anything new--everone allready knows that one didn't work.
Don't be ridiculous. If such beings operate in a different world, or hide their existence from us, then they are not testable by us even in principle: there is no experiment we can do to reveal them.
Hogwash. Here's the test: If reliigon says that you meet them when you die, then the religion is tested when you die. The fact that it's impossible to reliably retrieve data from such a test doesn't negate it as a test for the individual that just died.
Once you croak, you're eihter convined of religion (or at least, life-after-death) or obvivious too it.;)
(Not to mention that, testable or not, theological claims are still not scientific theories -- but that's a separate issue.)
Seperate issue? That's my whole bloody point!;)
If a so-called "scientific theory" doesn't have any science testing it, then what differentiates it from a theology that also allows for all of the current tested experiments from a "theory" that does the same, and stretches into territory (creation of the universe / other worlds / meaning of it all) that's really the territory we call "religion."
I'm not opposed to science. I'm opposed to people creating a religion based on science and then trying to tie it back into science.
No, God, Angels and Heaven aren't testable, if we have no possible means to test them.
Sure we do. If a person showed up with glowing white wings who could perform miracles at will, that'd be a pretty strong evidence that they exist. The fact that they *don't* is only about as good evidence that they don't exist as not ever meeting someone is evidence that *they* don't.
Question: given some data that says a thing exists, and no data that conclusively says that they don't, wouldn't it be scientifically false to say "they don't exist?" Isn't it truer to simply say "science doesn't say?"
Science is, as you said, the search for the best possible explination for the observed world. Or, better yet, it's a method of conducting a search for an explination of how the world really works. ("Best" is a subjective term; what is "best" for you might not be "best" for me, but we've still only got one world. "Truest" would also be a good word.)
As a chemist, you should know that once your field did *not* require the thought that atoms existed. Once, called alchemy, it was the trial-and-error search for chemical reactions. Somewhere along the way a scientist got the idea of atoms, and found evidence for them. Building on that evidence, a real chemist can't work without knowledge of atoms, just like a mathamatician can't work without knowledge of the base 10 number system.
I call Hawkings not-a-scientist because he doesn't, as far as I know, actually test his theories. While calling him a "priest" might be exterme, "theorist" certainly isn't. I simply chose the word that would best express my reaction to a so-called "scientist" talking about things that can never be proven.
Call me a layman, but the province of things that can can never be proven sounds like religion to me--especially when it deals with the creation of the universe, the existance of "other, unseen universes," or (in my biased opinion) the origin of other religions.
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As far as whether a project is 'derivative', it comes down to whether or not any of the GPL'd code exists in the project's souce code. If the code isn't there, but the same ideas are... no problem. GPL covers code, not ideas.
I'm not just talking about code. The GPL covers copyright, and one of the ambiguities of copyright law that it's thusly inherited is that "derivitive" is legally ambiguous. Some examples:
* If I look at your project, and then write one just like it, down to the UI setup and number & function of code "objects," am I derivitive?
* If I release a program and only one of my "code objects" is GPL, with the rest wholly done in-house with no reference to code that is not entirely mine or enitrely public domain, is the entire program derivitive or just that one code object?
* Assuming the answer to the above is "yes," then what about seperate files in the final version? Or what about two different programs sent on the same media? What if those two programs are desinged to work together? Too work seamless together (no user input)?
Don't get me wrong. I love copyleft for things where redundancy is bad (standards, code, roleplaying game systems.) But there's still one great big legal question mark, and that's "what is derivitive?"
I just checked, and the GPL itself doesn't say anything about what "the Program" is, just that it's "work released under the GPL."
A better way to do it, I think, is how the OGL handled it. The copyleft is on the *open material*, rather than the entire work. (Thus, you mark what parts are derivitive / open, and the rest of them aren't.)
There's no ambiguity there. Oh, the restrictive terms of the OGL (no trademark use of other OGL users w/o permission--written in to preserve the value of trademarks) are based on the "work", but the most legally ambiguous part (what is "derivitive") is handled by the Clear Identification rule.
That all said, I understand that what you write yourself you can do whatever you want with, including distrubte it under every license imaginable.
My observation of weakness is that a lawsuit that would otherwise be frivolous ("our contract with X ended six months ago, why should X sue us?") is now one that's not nearly so, requiring the innocent Big Company to pay the expense of a lawyer, possibly an unbudgeted-for expense, just to do their regular course of business.
The GPL probably was setup like this because it was written for the consumers, not for the authors or code. And, rather than be an end in and of itself, it's a vehicle to a differnet end (that being, the ending of treating code as a copyrightable medium.)
And now, at the risk of being horribly off-topic--aren't the ideas of code-as-speech and code-as-noncopyrightable contrary? Anything fixed down in a permanent fashion is copyrightable, ESPECIALLY if it's speech.
Yes, the GPL grants permissions, but it also takes away rights, such as the right to first sale of binary-only copies.
Hmm. If you are using someone else's code under the GPL, then you never had a right to sell their code in the first place. So I don't see how the GPL takes anything away from you.
Right of First Sale: The legal term that means "the ownership of a thing ends after the first sale, and the new owner can do Pretty Much whatever they want with the thing."
In other words, if I buy a copy of a GPL's software program and the vendor tells me "here's where you get the source" exteranally from the program files (and, yes, that IS explicitly stated as allowable in the GPL), I could normally just pass the program on to someone else, but the GPL seems to say that I have to communicate the same thing that the vendor told me, or else I've commited copyright infringment.
If I buy a game from ID software, ID can't really tell me not to take the disks after I'm done using it and sell them to a used-computer depo. But if the game was GPL'd, and ID tells me where to get the source outside of the disks (say, in a pamplhet in the box), I'm violating the GPL by "redistributing" the binary without the "source."
The GPL, and other sticky copyleft licenses like it (such as the Open Gaming License), is a contract where you pay for the right to use the code by agreeing to release your use of it under the GPL. You're not "getting something for free."
You're getting a "one-way ticket into copyleftland," to sound like an MSife for a moment. Considering how vauge "derivitive work" can be, I'd be shy releasing a GPL'd program and then going to (profitable) proprietary software too.
About the only valid complaint against the GPL is "what's to stop some meanie from saying a project I write six months after I finish my GPL project should be covered by the GPL because its 'derivitive', and thus dragging me into court?"
(I'm not as familiar with the GPL as I am with the OGL, but the OGL has a 30-day cure period and a much clearer definition of "use." Not to mention that the RPG industry is nowhere near as litgious or fragmented as the software industry.)
Sheesh.
It's illegal to distribute copyrighted information *without permission.* Not, "illegal if they say so," but "illegal unless they say yes."
As for "backups" over the internet--it's impossible. The internet creates several copies of any packet sent--you wouldn't be "backing up a file," you'd be *transmitting* a file.
(Go ahead and argue that you were transmitting a file to perform a backup. If you were doing it on the public internet, it seems legally presumable that you weren't doing a backup.)
Just because you've decided on a lifetime commitment doesnt make you immune if your partner is or gets infected. The social issues and the percentages work against such a strategy being efficient in countries where AIDS runs rampant.
WHAT?
Tell me, how does two people being devoted to each other exclusively, and totally honest when they're not, NOT reduce your chance to get AIDS?
Oh, and you *do* have to choice to not have sex, by the way. The only people who say that you don't are people who want an excuse to have a lot of sex.
.I would be willing to give up the notion of copyright and the patent systems altogether. What moral right does someone who creates an artifact that represents an idea to the very eternal notion itself?
They don't have a right to the "eternal notion." They have it, at the maximum, for the entirety of their natural lifetime, plus a few years to cover at-the-grave publishing deals and care for their estate.
In exchange for this limited monopoly, we gain a permantent and complete copy of the "eternal notion." We do not suffer a disaster if an inventor selfishly burns his entire laboratory in an instant, or keeps the real meaning in code to create their own value--we have records in the patent office of how the thing really works.
(At least, this is how the system is SUPPOSED to work.)
They should own only the artifact itself. Why should we subsidise the creation of such artifacts by granting copyright?
First off, creation of artifacts / inventions are covered by patent law, not copyright. Patents last for, IIRC, 15 years max. Copyrights are intended for literary and artistic work, and thus last much longer.
And, yes, I think software should be covered by patent law, not copyright law.
I don't think the value of what is created in that way warrants the subsidy since the material created is mostly created with the express purpose of making $$ and not with enriching my life.
That's just it. We're a capitalist-based economy. Thus, people who make more money have a better life. If not for the patent system, all those that create new things would be at the random and unfair mercy of whomever could copy the idea first. Less brilliant inventions would be more vauable, since fewer people would steal them. Really brilliant ideas wouldn't be worth the time to use, since everyone would take them immediately.
I think such a system would be unfair, and giving everyone who invents something new--even if it's not that good--a flat time to have an exclusive monopoly on that is a fair and good way to do it. Since all timespans are the same, the value of an invention is directly proportional to how many people will want it, and thus better ideas are now really worth more.
Why is fostering technological growth good in and of itself? Is the car really a good thing? Has it actually benefitted mankind?
Technological growth has, by and large, improved the life of everyone on the planet. There's still a lot left to improve, but I for one *like* the idea of being able to easily move more than ten miles away from my birthplace (my wife and I were born several hundred miles apart), being able to communicate with relatives across great distances, and being able to not live in polluted and unkempt quarters just to be able to work.
I have a hard time naming an invention that hasn't improved my life. Heck, even the patent granted on Magic:The Gathering has allowed my favorite hobby to have a competent and strong player in the lead of the industry. This is a good thing.
He hasn't created any, because there is no such thing. Knowledge and information cannot be owned, and what little pretention to "ownership" of it exists in law is a legal fiction created to stimulate "science and the useful arts."
How much money do you own? Money is just a legal fiction created to stimulate the exchange of value in a society.
How much property do you own? Property laws are just a legal fiction to keep us all from killing each other to get what we want.
Are you married? Marriage is just a legal fiction to encourage stable families.
I have created several items of intellectual property, and am working on a few sallable projects. If there were no guarantee for me to profit from people using the things I write or think up, I would not be able to spend time writing or thinking up things, becasue I would have to perform direct labor for someone else in order to surive.
There are quite a few very valid claims against harsh intellectual property enforcement--but all the rational ones rest on choice of the actual legal creators--the artists, inventors, authors, and research corporations that produce these things, rather than noncreative "agents" such as RIAA.
Calling "Intellectual Property" a "fiction" is insulting to anyone who values innovation or creation. Removing it from our legal system--which the term "fiction" implies--would cause mindless construction and labor to have more value than even the most treasured arts. I would not like to live in a world like that.
I also wouldn't want to live in a world where IP is all, or where it exists eternally with no checks whatsoever on their limit. *sigh* Just don't call it a "fiction", ok? It's as real as any other part of the law, so talk about it that way and let's deal with where it fits in the system, not *if* it fits in the system.
Guess what, those people aren't dumber than you. I'm pretty sure that plenty of those 2,500 victims are smarter than you and me.
:( I don't care if you're African, American, Gay, Straight, or whatnot--when an uncurable disease is trasmitted primarily through sex, keeping your pants on until you make a lifetime commitment seems like the best idea in the world.
And most of them still made decisions that put them at risk for AIDS, and they're suffering for it.
I'm all for curing the damn disease, and I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for those who got it through no fault of their own--but I just can't bring myself to feel pity for people who engage in loose sex with AIDS out there, especially in countries where it's rampant.
If there's ever been a solid medical reason for lifetime monogamy, it's AIDS.
I hate to say it, but that's how I feel.
The act of duplicating a file from one computer to another computer is not illegal, nor will it ever be.
:) Good luck.
Allow me to qualify.
"The act of duplicating a copyrighted file without permission from one computer to another computer is illegal, and always has been, save only for fair use."
Fair use claims also have to be made in court, btw.
(see http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ for more information. IANALBIPON/.)
That's just the point though -- the Scorpion King receives the same protection as any other movie right? Being considered an action/popcorn movie/game or whatever is of no relevance.
Actually, The Scorpion King gets more protection than some movies. Think of porn, or child porn, or movies of people dying, or movies of people doing sick and unhealhty things.
A movie of a man graphically and explicitly killing a mouse is illegal. The same governmental power to regulate these things for the common good should be able to be applied to video games, as well.
Once this power is a given, then when the government USES it, we can object. If a law banning "violent video games" is ambiguous, unapproriate, or the like, then it needs to be fought on the same grounds that laws against drinking, pot use, or non-missionary sex are/were fought. Not "the government can't do that," but rather "the government *shouldn't* do that, and here's why..."
WHY?
:)
If you want to fight the ruling, find a list of relevant parties and send the four games along with a description of WHY they're art.
Posting on slashdot doesn't do much for the legal system.
I'd suggest simply looking up the Judge's mailing address (or the address of the court) and writing a business letter addressed "dear judge X" or "to the court."
Sending a copy to the relevant appeals court might work too. Your local colledge with a legal or paralegal program may be able to help you find the right information--and if you're in the right state, your elected representatives in the gov't may help as well.
As for your game list:
* Planescape:Torment is a possibility.
* Jet Set Radio sounds iffy.
* Ultima I haven't played. (go figure.)
(IANAL, just in case you're wondering. But if you thought I was, feel free to talk to one of Slashdot's many IANAPs.)
Firstly, how is fighting a virtual war that different than writing about a fictional one? The interactivity enhances the experience, not demerits it.
It's the difference between playing a football game and writing about a make-believe one. The first is a sport, not speech, the second one is speech, not a sport.
Lets say I use the paintball cheat in Goldeneye to write something on a wall, is that free speech? What about using buried Zerglings to do it? True you can't write much, but you can in other games, along the same lines. You could theoretically write a novel through character names. Can there be free speech inside an explicitly non-speech environment?
(Who said anything about "explicitly non-speech?" I'm talking "not always speech", not "not speech.")
Sure, you could write something, and that would be speech. But me using a pencil to write as speech doesn't make the *pencil* speech.
Merit is opinion-based, which is why I dislike it as a standard. I wouldn't say "Pat the Bunny" has any merit (btw, that "bunny" looks like a deformed caterpillar). Free speech is a protection of art, in a way. Art is conidered a form of comminucation, is it not? A picture is worth a thousand words, a painting can be studied for a lifetime. How can you say that The Last Supper doesn't say anything? It says more than many books I've read (there's a lot of junk out there, you know).
What makes you think I said that an artistic painting isn't speech? However, since most painting (by drops of paint) are functional rather than artistic, I would say that "painting isn't a default of speech," just like code. If you think that your painting is speech / art, then you'll need to prove it in court. (this might not be a hard thing, btw.)
Right at this moment, I think the standard is *communication.* Speech is trying to get a point across, at its most basic. Covince a judge that your (whatever) is making a point, and its speech.
Of course, it might not be *protected* speech. Sure, you can have artistic porn--but that doesn't mean that the government shouldn't be able to regulate when and where you can sell it for the common good (just like the regulate what you can build on your own property, or what you can do with your own body for money.)
Starcraft's movies shouldn't be considered seperate from the game. They are clearly part of it. You can't watch them without playing it.
Sure you can. Record a game of starcraft, and play it back. It's no longer a *game*, but the *movies* still remain exactly the same (less signal loss) as they are in the game itself. Therefore, they're seperable.
Perhaps the value of the game is unlocking the movies, then. A toll, in effect. The value of book can't be realized if you don't pay or can't read. Perhaps it's just a different form payment for speech (free speech is rarely free).
Possible.
So long as someone expresses their opinion, they are exercizing free speech. What if their statement is about the brutality of war, and can only be realized by someone witnessing it first hand (enter Wolfenstein, etc)?
Intersting take, but I remember Wolfenstein, and it's not "speech." It's a game where you kill Nazis, not a tale about how war is wrong. Wolfenstein et al have about as much artisitc merit as a toy gun.
(And they're also fun toys that have a valid place in society--and that should be fair game for small-scale regulation.)
By 'merit' I guess you mean that they just aren't good enough?
Not at all. What's good in a literary sense and what's good in a game sense are almost always two different things.
There a plenty of games with writing far better than half of the novels out there (maybe not better than the half you read, but you didn't mention what you read).
That's a matter of opinion, and I disagree with you totally. (change "novels" to "tv shows", and you'll get me.)
Try Planescape: Torment, The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, etc. etc. So maybe a lot of games are more like Hollywood action movies -- they crank them out and make some quick dough. Most MOVIES are frequently just as vacuos. Doesn't mean they aren't protected just like the good ones though.
I'm not familiar with The Longest Joureny, but I am with the first two--and they're not action games AFAIK.
Still, I stand by what I said in an differnet post in this thread. Video Games, like computer code, physical actions, lighting a fire, making food, or a whole slew of other things, should not be considered speech save for in "exceptional circumstances", like "on stage."
Playing Starcraft or C&C is very similar reading Dune (as well they should be, both having come from it), with a strong emphasis on racial differences, war, peace, and the concepts of equality. I can't find anything like that in the dictionary...
A dictionary isn't, AFAIK, free speech. It's just a book that collects and defines words as accurately as possible--if anything, it should (I have no idea if it is or not) be treated as the furthest thing from free speech.
Starcraft and C&C--as I recall, most of the "worth" of these games (and similar ones) comes from the small movies that are shown at parts in the game, not from the game itself. The movies, as motion pictures, are allready speech.
As for the interactive part of the game--what part, exactly, has merit? A few quotes here and there *might* have enough merit to be speech, but they also might not--and even if they do, the game sans-them still isn't good enough.
Of course, I also think that code shouldn't be assumed to be speech, either. Just in the same way that an action or construction shouldn't be assumed to be speech, but sometimes can be.
If you think the judge was wrong, then find four video cames that have a conveyance of ideas, expression, and real speech.
And then write up a formal letter and send it to the judge, expressing why you think video games should be speech.
I, personally, haven't seen any games that merit the same protection as half the novels I read. While I can think of a theoretical video game that would do such, I don't know of any offhand that meet the standard.
(I'm also pefectly fine with the government having the power to regulate commerce of catagorically objectionable material, including violent video games. I know what to do if a legislature with jurisdiction over me passes a law that adversly affects my life.)
If (at least in some states) source code is free speech [advogato.org], and games are just the result of that code, I don't see how this is going to hold up under appeal. IANAL (obviously).
Code might be speech. It might even, as a default, be _protected_ speech.
But trust me--write the wrong code (like a virus or a massive copyright / patent infringment) and the 1st amendment will protect you no more than it protects people guilty of perjury, slander, libel, or conspiracy to commit a felony.
My only thought at this point is, who should set the rules on what is acceptable and unacceptable for a developing child to see? I'm not talking about ages 8-12 or whatever.. but mid to late teens... are growing constantly at that age...
The same people who set all of the other standards, of course.
Currently, that's the government legislatures, and they work on setting absolute minumum ages for children to do adult things. Until we have a massive change in how these limits are set, it's best to be consistent with what we allready have--it'll make a final (theoretical) changeover all that much easier.
Just as with a computer, a simple government is a good government.
That's actually a good question; if I hadn't allready commented, I'd mod you up for it.
MS et al actually gain from someone pirating their software rather than using OSS. Many people I know of priated MS Word, and if they didn't learn it this way and get used to it this way, they'd probably be using OpenOffice or whatever was cheapest for the jobs.
The fact is, software piracy only "hurts" the comercial software industry in the way that me walking into a store and not buying anything "hurts" the store. Counting non-certain purchasers as "lost sales" is a logical fallicy that's propagated to grant powers of asinine enforcement, and outrageous legal fees.
For webservers, the software really is better.
But for home & workplace use, it isn't. While open source alternatives do exist, they aren't of the quality of features that home and workplace users have come to expect. A website admin doesn't need to deal with anyone except for web browsers--while a home user needs to deal with games & whatnot, and business users have the even bigger problem of not wanting to lose time and money figuring out software that doesn't quite work the way they expect it to.
I just tried OpenOffice, and I'll try it again in a few versions--once it stops marking my grammatical choices as spelling mistakes, and maybe when it tracks changes & deals with outlines.
(I use both in writing at home, and my boss uses the track changes feature at work.)
Okay, I've checked Fowler's, and you're right. Usage of spaces in double dashes as punctuation is arbitrary. :)
:), so I'm not used to seeing it done like that much recently. Besides, it's easier to parse when reading if it's not all run together -- depending on the font it an look like hyphenation.
:)
:)
:) Guess I am a writer, then.
I will say that it does seem somewhat archaic, for the very reason that it confuses more word processors than just StarOffice
It doesn't confuse MS Office--and because of that, any program claiming "compatability" that is confused is glossing at best.
Aplogies for the blanket statement, though. Can I change a 'must' to a 'should'?
Sure.
That's because they are. You're supposed to have spaces in there. (works -- words)
Says who? (remember: the english language is living, and so differing sources can differ on the "proper" use. Please provide an authority, and I'll add it to my list.)
I was using real en-dashes and em-dashes, and I was using them properly. Starofice didn't suggest an alternative use--they just marked them wrong. If a program's going to treat punctuation marks as letters, it had better suggest "proper" usage or not bother.
Last time I tried it (I'm not in the habit of installing random pieces of software) it marked all my punctuated works--words with dashes touching them, like this--as misspellings.
It also didn't provide enough for me to stop using Word and start using it.
If StarOffice still had a free version of 6, I'd test it and write up a review. *sigh* There's an older review of Staroffice 5.2 on my website, but it won't tell you anything new--everone allready knows that one didn't work.
Don't be ridiculous. If such beings operate in a different world, or hide their existence from us, then they are not testable by us even in principle: there is no experiment we can do to reveal them.
;)
;)
Hogwash. Here's the test: If reliigon says that you meet them when you die, then the religion is tested when you die. The fact that it's impossible to reliably retrieve data from such a test doesn't negate it as a test for the individual that just died.
Once you croak, you're eihter convined of religion (or at least, life-after-death) or obvivious too it.
(Not to mention that, testable or not, theological claims are still not scientific theories -- but that's a separate issue.)
Seperate issue? That's my whole bloody point!
If a so-called "scientific theory" doesn't have any science testing it, then what differentiates it from a theology that also allows for all of the current tested experiments from a "theory" that does the same, and stretches into territory (creation of the universe / other worlds / meaning of it all) that's really the territory we call "religion."
I'm not opposed to science. I'm opposed to people creating a religion based on science and then trying to tie it back into science.
No, God, Angels and Heaven aren't testable, if we have no possible means to test them.
Sure we do. If a person showed up with glowing white wings who could perform miracles at will, that'd be a pretty strong evidence that they exist. The fact that they *don't* is only about as good evidence that they don't exist as not ever meeting someone is evidence that *they* don't.
Question: given some data that says a thing exists, and no data that conclusively says that they don't, wouldn't it be scientifically false to say "they don't exist?" Isn't it truer to simply say "science doesn't say?"
Thanks for the link.
Science is, as you said, the search for the best possible explination for the observed world. Or, better yet, it's a method of conducting a search for an explination of how the world really works. ("Best" is a subjective term; what is "best" for you might not be "best" for me, but we've still only got one world. "Truest" would also be a good word.)
As a chemist, you should know that once your field did *not* require the thought that atoms existed. Once, called alchemy, it was the trial-and-error search for chemical reactions. Somewhere along the way a scientist got the idea of atoms, and found evidence for them. Building on that evidence, a real chemist can't work without knowledge of atoms, just like a mathamatician can't work without knowledge of the base 10 number system.
I call Hawkings not-a-scientist because he doesn't, as far as I know, actually test his theories. While calling him a "priest" might be exterme, "theorist" certainly isn't. I simply chose the word that would best express my reaction to a so-called "scientist" talking about things that can never be proven.
Call me a layman, but the province of things that can can never be proven sounds like religion to me--especially when it deals with the creation of the universe, the existance of "other, unseen universes," or (in my biased opinion) the origin of other religions.