Unfortunately, the US is about as anti-UN as they come. The move to take control of Iraq goes along with the rest of the US's practices - to break down boundaries of countries and slowly form a single worldwide US government. While that sounds like a good idea, the US is a little too imperialist for my likes. They openly state in their charter that all humans have certain rights, like freedom of speech, as long as using that right doesn't interfere with a stated goal of the US. This will mean chaos in Iraq and probably will cause countries to isolate themselves from the rest of the world to avoid the negative effects of a US run Iraq.
No, but it means that rational people will yawn and say "So what?" when you argue that because X is currently illegal, you shouldn't do X.
Oh I murdered a gas station attentend while robbing the store... so what I guess.
In the case of copyright, the whole idea of "pay-per-copy" is dying if not dead. It's long past time to start developing alternative ways for authors and musicians to get paid.
We sell our software and the customer pays for one copy. It seems to be working quite fine for both us the producer and them the consumer. The whole problem with the music industry is the middle man, the distributor. But why go after the producer's rights when they have done nothing wrong?
Eliminating copyright would stifle innovation. If all we could enforce were royaltyrights we'd go out of business and stop innovating.
Interesting point put don't blur the lines of economics and law. It is true that music industry is having its merry way with both producers and consumers but this has very little to do with copyright laws.
Copyright laws are simply for the protection of the producer. As far as I am concerned the consumer has no right to demand changes in copyright laws to benefit themselves. Copyright laws have never really taken the consumer into real consideration and neither should they.
If copyright laws are to continue to aid in the development of new ideas in science and the arts then the producer needs to have protection or else they are not going to put time and effort into their project. Even OSS relies on this. Those who contribute to GPLed software do so knowing that their work is protected in the way they want it to be. My company has put a lot of time and money (over 20 years) into real world models that out perform all of our competitors. If we can't retain the rights to our code we might as well give up on further developing our technology.
We should be going after the distributers not the producers rights.
Oh that's real good. So someone posts a statement backing up natural law theory and totally disregards positive law theory and you treat it as gospel. Natural law theory is dead. All of the post you referred to is no longer part of modern jurisprudence. Do some thinking of your own next time.
Well I would argue that copyright laws are examples of "limited" laws. The copyright only last for so long. Where I see the most room for improving copyright laws is to adjust this "limit".
I do not deny having anything to do with the moral validity of copyright laws. I simply deny ever having voiced my opinion. You however seem to think that you know what I think without me ever expressing my thoughts to you.
But since you keep pushing I'll make a comment. I do not believe that all laws are moral. How can they be when ones personal opinion of what is moral and what is not differs from person to person and group to group. Where Lars thinks copyright laws are moral you perhaps don't. So is it moral or not? Slavery was once morally okay but would now be frowned on in Western Countries. So yes, law has to change as the moral values of the society change.
So do I think copyright laws are moral? Yes and no. I believe that an artist/creator/inventor should be allowed to control to a certain extent the distribution of what he or she has created. Do I think that copyright laws are out dated? Yes, there does need to be change. Do I think it is morally okay to download music from the internet? In most cases no.
Got any other questions or are you happy to just keep assuming my thoughts.
Considering the alternative, it might be. Recall Prohibition. Laws that are broken by a large proportion, or even a majority, of the population lead to corruption of the justice system and society itself.
True, Prohibition did more harm than good. However, consider the laws governing driving. Who can say that they always keep to the speed limit? These laws are broken repeatedly by an overwhelming majority of motorists. Do they have to be changed since the majority do not comply with them anyway? I don't think the justice system or society has been corrupted by motorists who habitually go 10% over the speed limit.
So one example backs the need for change and one doesn't. But like I've said elsewhere, I would agree that copyright laws need to be changed because they are out dated, but not because they are now too easy to break.
More recently the "war on drugs" with similar or worse effects -- locally and globally (recall the Afghan Taleban and the Burmese junta both used opium/heroin profits to buy arms).
Don't forget that the provideder of the opium seeds to the Taliban also provided the weapons because the 'war on communism' took precedence over the 'war on drugs'.
But is it immoral? There are many good arguments that point out that copyrights can be immoral. But then again, I suppose you're saying that everything that is legal is also moral?
You suppose a lot of things don't you Mr. Anonymous Coward. I've seen you round quite a bit actually, supposing things here and there.
If you want to argue the moral grounds of copyright by all means start a new thread and go for it but don't guessing my views on a subject I've never voiced them on.
My point still stands. It is illegal and if you think it is morally wrong then talk to your congressman.
And just because I speed and get away with it does it mean I never committed the crime at all?
Yes, copyright laws aren't perfect for this day and age but changing them so that you can legally download the latest 'music' from Metallica may not fulfill the goal of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts" either.
The ease of violating musical copyrights is still not a valid reason to change copyright laws. This is an argument that people continue to push. If the major argument was that copyright laws are simply making rich people filthy rich years after their initial contribution to the arts then yes, I would agree with that.
And I admit I should use a smaller brush, but you do have to admit that at least here on/. a fair amount of anti-copyright posts get modded up and posts like mine often dwell in the land of the trolls.
Okay, so we'll all agree that copyright infringement is neither theft nor piracy. It is however still illegal.
But just because it has now become childs play to participate in copyright violations does not mean we have to change copyright laws. Like the grandparent stated, the OSS community holds dear the rights outlined in the OS licenses like the GPL, but seem to ignore and blatantly disregard other peoples choice of more restrictive licenses.
That would make all those late night Cthulhu missions with Lord Nekrull, my 16th level Assassin demi-god, a smashing good time!"
I just don't get it. The article is about an ancient game of some sort, but nobody really knows what, and you think that this will somehow highten the excitement of some seemingly unrelated game of which your mastery is directly proportional to your sex appeal.
They do have kangaroos in New Zealand, don't they?
Only in the zoo.
Despite the fact that our countries (Australia and NZ) are geographically close we have vastly different flora and fauna. Additionally our indigenous people only share the same skin colour.
But it is still number 5 on the list. IBM DB2 on a Windows cluster is number 4 and if you are going to go with Oracle then it looks like you really want to be running it on Solaris if performance is your main objective.
I think the judge would throw out the case when you argue that Microsoft has used it's dominance in the OS market to squeeze out competitors in the 'I can edit basic text files' and 'I can draw squiggly lines and boxes' application market.
Multimedia players are a little bit different. If you can't see that then please consult your doctor.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahhh the fine lines between +1 funny, +1 insightful and -1 flamebait. I dance on the tightropes of /. moderation.
It's a joke, get over it
Unfortunately, the US is about as anti-UN as they come. The move to take control of Iraq goes along with the rest of the US's practices - to break down boundaries of countries and slowly form a single worldwide US government. While that sounds like a good idea, the US is a little too imperialist for my likes. They openly state in their charter that all humans have certain rights, like freedom of speech, as long as using that right doesn't interfere with a stated goal of the US. This will mean chaos in Iraq and probably will cause countries to isolate themselves from the rest of the world to avoid the negative effects of a US run Iraq.
When are these people going to realize that they need to get the input of someone that at least represents the people that they are going to 'govern'?
Yeah but what does this has to do with ICANN? Oh, you thought ICANN represents the people, how quaint.
THIS IS AN EX-PROTOCOL!!
There is nothing inherently wrong with the X protocol, simply XFree's implementation of it mmmkay!
Sorry, just a knee jerk reaction.
No, but it means that rational people will yawn and say "So what?" when you argue that because X is currently illegal, you shouldn't do X.
... so what I guess.
Oh I murdered a gas station attentend while robbing the store
In the case of copyright, the whole idea of "pay-per-copy" is dying if not dead. It's long past time to start developing alternative ways for authors and musicians to get paid.
We sell our software and the customer pays for one copy. It seems to be working quite fine for both us the producer and them the consumer. The whole problem with the music industry is the middle man, the distributor. But why go after the producer's rights when they have done nothing wrong?
Eliminating copyright would stifle innovation. If all we could enforce were royaltyrights we'd go out of business and stop innovating.
Interesting point put don't blur the lines of economics and law. It is true that music industry is having its merry way with both producers and consumers but this has very little to do with copyright laws.
Copyright laws are simply for the protection of the producer. As far as I am concerned the consumer has no right to demand changes in copyright laws to benefit themselves. Copyright laws have never really taken the consumer into real consideration and neither should they.
If copyright laws are to continue to aid in the development of new ideas in science and the arts then the producer needs to have protection or else they are not going to put time and effort into their project. Even OSS relies on this. Those who contribute to GPLed software do so knowing that their work is protected in the way they want it to be. My company has put a lot of time and money (over 20 years) into real world models that out perform all of our competitors. If we can't retain the rights to our code we might as well give up on further developing our technology.
We should be going after the distributers not the producers rights.
Legal folk have not been thinking that at all lately. That is what is known as natural law theory. Positive law theory is the latest view.
Oh that's real good. So someone posts a statement backing up natural law theory and totally disregards positive law theory and you treat it as gospel. Natural law theory is dead. All of the post you referred to is no longer part of modern jurisprudence. Do some thinking of your own next time.
Well I would argue that copyright laws are examples of "limited" laws. The copyright only last for so long. Where I see the most room for improving copyright laws is to adjust this "limit".
Let's hear your argument as to why it is moral.
I do not deny having anything to do with the moral validity of copyright laws. I simply deny ever having voiced my opinion. You however seem to think that you know what I think without me ever expressing my thoughts to you.
But since you keep pushing I'll make a comment. I do not believe that all laws are moral. How can they be when ones personal opinion of what is moral and what is not differs from person to person and group to group. Where Lars thinks copyright laws are moral you perhaps don't. So is it moral or not? Slavery was once morally okay but would now be frowned on in Western Countries. So yes, law has to change as the moral values of the society change.
So do I think copyright laws are moral? Yes and no. I believe that an artist/creator/inventor should be allowed to control to a certain extent the distribution of what he or she has created. Do I think that copyright laws are out dated? Yes, there does need to be change. Do I think it is morally okay to download music from the internet? In most cases no.
Got any other questions or are you happy to just keep assuming my thoughts.
Considering the alternative, it might be. Recall Prohibition. Laws that are broken by a large proportion, or even a majority, of the population lead to corruption of the justice system and society itself.
True, Prohibition did more harm than good. However, consider the laws governing driving. Who can say that they always keep to the speed limit? These laws are broken repeatedly by an overwhelming majority of motorists. Do they have to be changed since the majority do not comply with them anyway? I don't think the justice system or society has been corrupted by motorists who habitually go 10% over the speed limit.
So one example backs the need for change and one doesn't. But like I've said elsewhere, I would agree that copyright laws need to be changed because they are out dated, but not because they are now too easy to break.
More recently the "war on drugs" with similar or worse effects -- locally and globally (recall the Afghan Taleban and the Burmese junta both used opium/heroin profits to buy arms).
Don't forget that the provideder of the opium seeds to the Taliban also provided the weapons because the 'war on communism' took precedence over the 'war on drugs'.
But is it immoral? There are many good arguments that point out that copyrights can be immoral. But then again, I suppose you're saying that everything that is legal is also moral?
You suppose a lot of things don't you Mr. Anonymous Coward. I've seen you round quite a bit actually, supposing things here and there.
If you want to argue the moral grounds of copyright by all means start a new thread and go for it but don't guessing my views on a subject I've never voiced them on.
My point still stands. It is illegal and if you think it is morally wrong then talk to your congressman.
And just because I speed and get away with it does it mean I never committed the crime at all?
/. a fair amount of anti-copyright posts get modded up and posts like mine often dwell in the land of the trolls.
Yes, copyright laws aren't perfect for this day and age but changing them so that you can legally download the latest 'music' from Metallica may not fulfill the goal of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts" either.
The ease of violating musical copyrights is still not a valid reason to change copyright laws. This is an argument that people continue to push. If the major argument was that copyright laws are simply making rich people filthy rich years after their initial contribution to the arts then yes, I would agree with that.
And I admit I should use a smaller brush, but you do have to admit that at least here on
Okay, so we'll all agree that copyright infringement is neither theft nor piracy. It is however still illegal.
But just because it has now become childs play to participate in copyright violations does not mean we have to change copyright laws. Like the grandparent stated, the OSS community holds dear the rights outlined in the OS licenses like the GPL, but seem to ignore and blatantly disregard other peoples choice of more restrictive licenses.
The sad thing is that just like Axl Rose, they probably thought they were spelling it correctly.
Well i_am_syco, articles are there for reading. They can even increase your knowledge, and one day you may even learn how to spell psycho properly.
otgay otay dmitaay tiay siay rettypay oodgay.
The site will be slashdotted in 10, 9, 8, ... ooops already gone.
I just don't get it. The article is about an ancient game of some sort, but nobody really knows what, and you think that this will somehow highten the excitement of some seemingly unrelated game of which your mastery is directly proportional to your sex appeal.
Only in the zoo.
Despite the fact that our countries (Australia and NZ) are geographically close we have vastly different flora and fauna. Additionally our indigenous people only share the same skin colour.
But it is still number 5 on the list. IBM DB2 on a Windows cluster is number 4 and if you are going to go with Oracle then it looks like you really want to be running it on Solaris if performance is your main objective.
But at least you have access to the Linux source code to know this. What does the Windows source code look like?
NOTE: I do not claim to own this
while (memory_available)
{
eat_major_portion_of_memory (no_real_reason);
if (feel_like_it)
make_user_THINK (this_is_an_OS);
Bill_Gates_bank_balance++;
}
I think the judge would throw out the case when you argue that Microsoft has used it's dominance in the OS market to squeeze out competitors in the 'I can edit basic text files' and 'I can draw squiggly lines and boxes' application market.
Multimedia players are a little bit different. If you can't see that then please consult your doctor.