It seems to me that this incident is a window into the true goals of the RIAA and the music industry.
What they're trying to do here is attack a competing distribution chain. This is the whole reason they hate MP3s in the first place.
This is true. It also shows that Vivendi and all the other freedom-hating RIAA and MPAA filth are lying when they say their support of DRM is to help artists make a living. They don't give a fuck about artists, or anything except their own pockets.
(If they have made sany such arguments in a court of law, they should be charged with contempt of court and/or perjury, and should be sentenced to the maximum time in prison that the law allows).
China wants to manufacture DVD players, without having to pay $17 for every one it manufactures. So they invent their own system, EVD, which is similar to DVD but uses completely different file formats, video/audio encoding algorithms, etc, so no-one can complain they're infringing patents. Maybe they also have a capability to interface with a computer, for data transfer. They then get loads of films released in EVD format - this'll mostly be Chinese-language films for the China and Taiwan markets. (There might be films for other Asian markets: Japan, Korea, India, etc). Maybe there will be some USA or European films as well.
The main people buying EVD players will be in Asia, and diaspora Asian communities in Europe and the USA. The DVD manufacturers can't complain, since it isn't infringing their IP. Nor can Holywood. Then, as if from nowhere, REOM images appear on the Internet that when downloaded and put into an EVD player, make it able to play DVDs. Of course, the EVD manufacturers make public noises about how naughty it is to download these ROM images, and illegally play DVDs...
...but at the end of the day, they've managed to make DVD players without paying the $17 a go license fee, and not only that they are better than official DVD players: they are all-region, allow you to skip adverts, and play EVDs as well. The MPAA have a fit and issue lawsuits right, left and center, but by the time the suits are all settled, EVD has massive market share (at least in Asia), and even if illegal to sell in Europe and the USA, there are loads of players being smuggled in.
I've no idea how accurate this scenario is, it's just a guess.
(1) You say: Open Source != GNU Public License..
There's no such thing as the "GNU Public License"; you probably mean the GNU General Public License.
(2) Microsoft's license says: "You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights". This means if you write a program using Microsoft's license, and license your preogram under the BSDL, then someone using your program isn't licensed to modify it. I would imagine MS have done this deliberately to sabotage open source / free software implementations of their XML schemas.
Belkin (verb) - To surreptitiously alter a product in such a fashion that legitimate use is hijacked to the benefit of the manufacturer or associated beneficiaries, usually in a crass self-promoting fashion.
"I installed topdesk and it belkined my browser."
"VeriSign's SiteFinder belkined the.com and.net TLDs."
Oh, I like this very much.
Let's all use this in our sigs, and put it on our websites; hopefully it'll get in the Jargon File, and will be preserved for posterity.
IANAL, but my understanding is that unauthorised copying of copyright material, when done deliberately, wilfully and commercially, is a criminal offence in the USA, with penalties including large fines and imprisonment.
This being the case, perhaps copyright-holders of parts of the Linux kernel (Linus would be an appropriate person to do this) should notify the relevant law-enforcement authorities.
According to
this
and
this,
the maximum sentence is 10 years. Don't bend over to pick up the soap, Darl!
I won't be using one. Psion, once an innovative company, is now an irrelevant M$ cloner, doomed to continually decreasing margins, while any profits from their products increasingly go Bill Gates' way.
You'd have thought they would have learned from the mobile phone industry and realise why that industry is loathe to touch MS witrh a barge pole.
Looks like the Evil Empire is going to lose, and lose big, in the Far East. The Rebel Alliance is growing increasingly strong in Korea, along with Japan and China.
Personally, I favour the domino theory: once Linux is being used in 10-20% of the computers in these countries, more and more countries will choose freedom with Linux and OSS. First in the government infrastructure, then business and home users.
Microsoft will be unable to stem the tide in the server sector. They'll hold on longer on the business desktop. Possibly they will eventually re-position themselves as a home PC / games machine company.
The increasing shrillness and implausibility of MS denunciations of Linux will show that in their hearts they know they're losing.
I think they should play "Starving music industry executives", where the music industry executive buys a Porsche and lots of cocaine, only to be told he can't afford them, he's been sacked because his company's business model is obsolete.
So I guess human labor will be needed until AI has reached a level comparable to human (or at least dog) intelligence, and that aint happening any time soon. Not in any of our lifetimes at least.
I disagree. I think the Turing Test will probably be passed by a computer program between 2040 and 2050. And after that, we'll be living through the Singularity, where prediction gets difficult.
The German government is funding open source email encryption
software under project Aegypten. Some of this is KDE software, for example work on the kmail mail client.
The guarenteed way of protecting data against time is to make lots and lots of copies. The internet is the perfect medium for that. So yes, why don't they put it on the internet?
Becasue they are stupid, probably.
The ironic thing is that because they have decided to convert it to a proprietary Microsoft format, they will probably have to repeat the exercise in another 15 years. Bloody idiots.
Could jamie please explain why this is censorship?
It is censorship when agents of the state (whether or not prompted by a private entity, such as a copyright holder) use force or threats of force to stop someone publishing or distributing any information.
Note that it is censorship whether you approve of it or not.
As to the substancial point, of whether it should be legal to make unauthorised derived works, personally I feel that if copyright law's purpose is to encoursage the creation of works, then it should allow the creation of derived works that the copyright holder doesn't want to do themself; this would include translations that the copyright holder doesn't want to do - but the copyright holder would get the first chance to do translations.
What the hell gives you the right to translate a book (for which the local editor has paid a pretty high price) and distributing it without caring for royalties and profit loss for all parties involved?
If you think the law should be about protecting the wealth of corporations, this is a sensible attitude. On the other hand, if the law should be about protecting the rights of people, it isn't.
An irony of "standardization" is that that some of the pro-open standards crowd insists on using the comma-to-indicate-decimals notation that has is used essentially only in northern europe. it's time for that convention to die.
Right, because not being able to listen to a CD in my car is an "inevitable problem." And suing them because I can't do this is "extortion." Exactly what principles do these companies subscribe to? (Don't answer.)
I hope the appeal court changes the $350 fine to $350,000.
What would be a reasonable fine for the music corporations to pay?
Given that they recently forced a student to
pay over his life savings, the vile evil filth should have the same done to them -- force them to turn over all their assets, including all their money, property and intellectiual property.
"Copyright" is a propaganda term for our opponents, since rights are seen as good things. But copyrights aren't rights; copyright doesn't mean the right to make copies,
it means the right to prevent others from making
copies, so copy-restriction or copy-monopoly are more accurate terms.
If we want to stop our opponents benefitting from these propaganda words, we'd better use words that more accurately reflect the monopolistic nature of so-called copyright and other similar concepts such as patents:
A "copyright" is a monopoly on making copies of a work, so call it a copy monopoly.
A "patent" is a monopoly on the use of an idea, so
call it an idea monopoly.
A generic term that covers both might be information monopoly or simply info-monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
I say virii. I don't do it to feel clever.
Good, because you are not clever. You are a stupid ignorant fuckwit. Scum (particularly anonymous scum) who say "virii" should be kicked to death.
And while we are at it, ban Angeles since angels are part of an archaic superstition system.
So Los Angeles County must now just be called Los.
It seems to me that this incident is a window into the true goals of the RIAA and the music industry. What they're trying to do here is attack a competing distribution chain. This is the whole reason they hate MP3s in the first place.
This is true. It also shows that Vivendi and all the other freedom-hating RIAA and MPAA filth are lying when they say their support of DRM is to help artists make a living. They don't give a fuck about artists, or anything except their own pockets.
(If they have made sany such arguments in a court of law, they should be charged with contempt of court and/or perjury, and should be sentenced to the maximum time in prison that the law allows).
Mono is an open source project, and Steve Ballmer says open source doesn't have roadmaps.
I believe everything Steve and Bill tell me, so this "roadmap" obviously doesn't exist.
China wants to manufacture DVD players, without having to pay $17 for every one it manufactures. So they invent their own system, EVD, which is similar to DVD but uses completely different file formats, video/audio encoding algorithms, etc, so no-one can complain they're infringing patents. Maybe they also have a capability to interface with a computer, for data transfer. They then get loads of films released in EVD format - this'll mostly be Chinese-language films for the China and Taiwan markets. (There might be films for other Asian markets: Japan, Korea, India, etc). Maybe there will be some USA or European films as well.
The main people buying EVD players will be in Asia, and diaspora Asian communities in Europe and the USA. The DVD manufacturers can't complain, since it isn't infringing their IP. Nor can Holywood. Then, as if from nowhere, REOM images appear on the Internet that when downloaded and put into an EVD player, make it able to play DVDs. Of course, the EVD manufacturers make public noises about how naughty it is to download these ROM images, and illegally play DVDs...
I've no idea how accurate this scenario is, it's just a guess.
I think you are making 2 mistakes here:
(1) You say: Open Source != GNU Public License..
There's no such thing as the "GNU Public License"; you probably mean the GNU General Public License.
(2) Microsoft's license says: "You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights". This means if you write a program using Microsoft's license, and license your preogram under the BSDL, then someone using your program isn't licensed to modify it. I would imagine MS have done this deliberately to sabotage open source / free software implementations of their XML schemas.
Oh, I like this very much.
Let's all use this in our sigs, and put it on our websites; hopefully it'll get in the Jargon File, and will be preserved for posterity.
IANAL, but my understanding is that unauthorised copying of copyright material, when done deliberately, wilfully and commercially, is a criminal offence in the USA, with penalties including large fines and imprisonment.
This being the case, perhaps copyright-holders of parts of the Linux kernel (Linus would be an appropriate person to do this) should notify the relevant law-enforcement authorities.
According to this and this, the maximum sentence is 10 years. Don't bend over to pick up the soap, Darl!
I wish I was getting one of those vouchers - it'd give me so much pleasure to buy the latest SuSE distro, paid for by Bill Gates.
When Smith, Berman, and Conyers are up for re-election, ballots papers should give a warning against them:
I won't be using one. Psion, once an innovative company, is now an irrelevant M$ cloner, doomed to continually decreasing margins, while any profits from their products increasingly go Bill Gates' way.
You'd have thought they would have learned from the mobile phone industry and realise why that industry is loathe to touch MS witrh a barge pole.
Looks like the Evil Empire is going to lose, and lose big, in the Far East. The Rebel Alliance is growing increasingly strong in Korea, along with Japan and China.
Personally, I favour the domino theory: once Linux is being used in 10-20% of the computers in these countries, more and more countries will choose freedom with Linux and OSS. First in the government infrastructure, then business and home users.
Microsoft will be unable to stem the tide in the server sector. They'll hold on longer on the business desktop. Possibly they will eventually re-position themselves as a home PC / games machine company.
The increasing shrillness and implausibility of MS denunciations of Linux will show that in their hearts they know they're losing.
I think they should play "Starving music industry executives", where the music industry executive buys a Porsche and lots of cocaine, only to be told he can't afford them, he's been sacked because his company's business model is obsolete.
So I guess human labor will be needed until AI has reached a level comparable to human (or at least dog) intelligence, and that aint happening any time soon. Not in any of our lifetimes at least.
I disagree. I think the Turing Test will probably be passed by a computer program between 2040 and 2050. And after that, we'll be living through the Singularity, where prediction gets difficult.
The German government is funding open source email encryption software under project Aegypten. Some of this is KDE software, for example work on the kmail mail client.
See Project Aegypten Home Page for details.
It seems to me that the very idea of paying someone to write free software is the very antithesis of what free software is all about.
It seems to me that you've no idea what free software is about. Rerhaps reading this will help.
The guarenteed way of protecting data against time is to make lots and lots of copies. The internet is the perfect medium for that. So yes, why don't they put it on the internet?
Becasue they are stupid, probably.
The ironic thing is that because they have decided to convert it to a proprietary Microsoft format, they will probably have to repeat the exercise in another 15 years. Bloody idiots.
Can Slashdot please do one of the following:
Could jamie please explain why this is censorship?
It is censorship when agents of the state (whether or not prompted by a private entity, such as a copyright holder) use force or threats of force to stop someone publishing or distributing any information.
Note that it is censorship whether you approve of it or not.
As to the substancial point, of whether it should be legal to make unauthorised derived works, personally I feel that if copyright law's purpose is to encoursage the creation of works, then it should allow the creation of derived works that the copyright holder doesn't want to do themself; this would include translations that the copyright holder doesn't want to do - but the copyright holder would get the first chance to do translations.
What the hell gives you the right to translate a book (for which the local editor has paid a pretty high price) and distributing it without caring for royalties and profit loss for all parties involved?
If you think the law should be about protecting the wealth of corporations, this is a sensible attitude. On the other hand, if the law should be about protecting the rights of people, it isn't.
If Microsoft continues to fail to comply, the court will double their fine.
Let's work it out: the original fine was $0, twice $0 is $0, so the new fine will be $0.
I guess American justice is the best that money can buy.
An irony of "standardization" is that that some of the pro-open standards crowd insists on using the comma-to-indicate-decimals notation that has is used essentially only in northern europe. it's time for that convention to die.
Since when is Brazil in northern Europe?
Right, because not being able to listen to a CD in my car is an "inevitable problem." And suing them because I can't do this is "extortion." Exactly what principles do these companies subscribe to? (Don't answer.)
I hope the appeal court changes the $350 fine to $350,000.
What would be a reasonable fine for the music corporations to pay?
Given that they recently forced a student to pay over his life savings, the vile evil filth should have the same done to them -- force them to turn over all their assets, including all their money, property and intellectiual property.
"Copyright" is a propaganda term for our opponents, since rights are seen as good things. But copyrights aren't rights; copyright doesn't mean the right to make copies, it means the right to prevent others from making copies, so copy-restriction or copy-monopoly are more accurate terms.
If we want to stop our opponents benefitting from these propaganda words, we'd better use words that more accurately reflect the monopolistic nature of so-called copyright and other similar concepts such as patents:
The EU != Britain, cretin.