No, it does not; because file sharing in and of itself has nothing to do at all with copyright. It may be the tool by which copyright is infringed, but by itself, it's simply an exercise of speech, which is protected. Do you see the distinction here?
Oh, indeed, file sharing in general is a clear example of a 1st amendment right. Copyright infringement, which is what the original poster was talking about, is a different animal entirely. The very fact that it's copyright infringement puts it outside first amendment protection.
File sharing definitely falls under freedom of speech and press; an argument could also be made for freedom of assembly. "Piracy" is a specific application of file sharing, just as murder is a specific application of weapons -- the presumption built into the Constitution is that the right is worth protecting for its own sake, regardless of whether or not some people take advantage of the right to do bad things.
File sharing also, however, falls under Section 8 Clause 8 of the same constitution, wherein authors are guaranteed exclusive right to their writings for a limited time. Amendments do not trump the main body of the constitution unless written to explicitly enumerate how they do so.
The preface may clarify but not restrict the operating law. The "militia" part is a comment, not code.
From the "wish list" working drafts of the Bill of Rights and writings of those involved in the drafting, that bit about the militia was shoehorned in to mollify states that were concerned that the federal government might outlaw state militias. Allowing the people to bear arms was all fine and dandy, they reasoned, but unless they can be legally called up they're worthless. Like many of the other amendments, it has more than one purpose crammed in so as to keep the list at 10 amendments. The "militia" aspect is indeed, like you say, essentially unrelated to the primary point of the amendment, which is that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
It is the difference between selling piano wire, and selling piano wire attached to hand grips, instructions on how to choke somebody with it, and the schedule of somebody that you don't like.
Indeed. The law is chock full of stuff like that. Posession of a crowbar, big screwdriver, wire cutters, and flashlight are all perfectly legal. But get caught carrying these things in the bushes 'round back of a house in the dead of night, and you will be charged with posession of burglary tools.
Expect an impact on the makers of "radar" detectors.
Nah, most of the legal issues over radar detectors were hashed out in the 70's. It's all simply dependent on state law now. If your state doesn't allow them, they're illegal. Simple as that. The thing is, it's not necessarily illegal to exceed the speed limit, so a warning device that tells you your speed is being measured is for the legitimate purpose of avoiding a citation that would force you to go to court to prove exceeding the limit was safe and prudent. A subtle distinction, but valid nonetheless.
You mean like armor peircing "cop killer" bullets???
No. So-called "cop killer" bullets were invented and sold by two police officers trying to develop a round that would go through an angled windshield rather than skipping off it like the normal hollow point bullets do. They were never marketed as "cop killer" or even "body armor piercing", because they aren't. Congratulations! You have proven yourself susceptible to unsophisticated chain-yanking propaganda like the rest of the sheeple, no better than those who believe Saddam was ready to sell nukes to al qaeda...
Indeed, the lack of funds necessary to run the system properly is disturbing. For every missle used to blow apart an innocent child or woman in Iraq, the US could probably fund three or four full-time researchers to properly assess patent applications.
Nah, those missiles were already sitting on the shelf, and there's no place to turn them in for money after the fact. The US gov't is actually being efficient: using up what it has lying around, rather than just letting it sit there. Remember folks: rotate your munitions! Bomb every 6 months or 3000 miles...
I've done very well at large chess tournaments in the past by performing really wacky, yet safe, openings, works especially well against the type that like to approach the game like a science by reading books and memorizing openings etc. The less conscious parsing of chess, and the more intuitive parsing, the more magical your skills become!
Much like the way unskilled "button mashers" can initially beat seasoned players of Street Fighter type games with surprising ease. It is, unfortunately, not an effective long-term strategy.
I'm sure you can't find the article because it probably doesn't exist. Artificial hearts (and the associated machinery) are quite noisy.
The article does exist-- I remember it. The guy with the artificial heart didn't actually comment that the lack of noise, but rather that the lack of a pulsing sensation was eerie. This makes more sense anyway, because you can't really hear your heart beat under normal circumstances anyway.
Not at all. One can devise a whole system of laws based on various kinds of theft. Murder is theft of life, larceny is theft of goods. Trespass is theft of privacy. Rape is theft of services...After a while, it starts to get a bit silly.
This is exactly why I called it what I did. It's an absurd reduction. It's an attempt to take a number of issues, some not even vaguely related, and tar them with the same brush. It's over-simplifying, i.e. simpleton reasoning.
Still, the value of a grant of copyright is wholly contained in the "exclusive" bit. If others parties do make copies, then a copyright holder no longer holds exclusive rights
Nonsense. The exclusive rights are granted by law. Illicit duplication doesn't repeal the law. It's an infringement of those rights, but those rights remain.
which in turn diminishes the value of the grant.
Does it? Value is an abstraction. There is no concrete definition of something's value. The main driving force in valuation of real goods is scarcity. In the case of "intellectual property" the scarcity is totally artificial.
Perhaps analogous to trespass?
No, trespass is a property crime-- perhaps the most basic. It's an expression of territory. Even dogs understand trespass.
PS. Perhaps it would be good of you not to refer to your fellow/.ers as morons, simpletons, or idiots. It's rather impolite and may decrease your Karma.
1) If the shoe fits, and it usually does....
2) I'm polite all day in real life. I choose/. as my venue for being a jackass
3) My karma has been maxed out for years
But it is theft. It is theft not of a book, nor of a song, but of a monopoly.
Incorrect. They still retain their government-granted monopoly on legal reproduction (copyright) regardless of how many illegal reproductions are made. You're showing the typical simpleton reasoning of "there are too many complicated distinctions-- let's just call it all theft" that illustrates how poorly you actually understand the issue.
Where the fuck did you get that cockamamie idea? You clearly have absolutely no idea how electricity works. If I don't turn on my 1200kW arc furnace, that's 1.2MW of load that doesn't need to be carried by a turbine somewhere. The water behind the dam, the coal or gas for the boiler, or the uranium in the core needed to generate that 1.2MW is subsequently not used. You're a fucking moron.
And finally, even if it were the case that once the word 'Steal' required an object, it doesn't any more. English is a living language that changes and evolves for the current situations.
Sorry, but in none of the vernacular uses of "steal" is it ever intended to imply theft. It's used to draw a moral equivalence, e.g. "that bitch stole my boyfriend", or "hey, you're stealing my pickup lines". Use of the the word "steal" in relation to copyright infringement is likewise an attempt to draw moral equivalence, only they go a step further and even call it "theft", which is pure propaganda. There is no definition of the unmodified word "theft", either in the vernacular or in legal terms, that legitimately applies to copyright infringement.
Off on a bit of a tangent here, but as for the following:
For example, Superman and other comic book superheroes owe much of their look to circus acrobats, who were similarly costumed in capes and tights.
You need to find a source to quote that does actual research rather than making shit up. Comic book superheroes owe none of their look to circus acrobats. Early comic book artists learned to draw the classical way, by drawing the nude human form. The nude human form is the most compelling and universal form, and as such ends up the favorite among audiences and artists alike. A nude form can be "clothed" in tights by simply drawing lines at the neck, wrists, and ankles (and leaving out the genitalia, of course), thus rendering the image "acceptable" to the general public. Superheroes, not being bound by any mundane fashion requirements, gravitate towards this near-nudity. This is well known historical fact in the comic book industry.
Now, circus acrobats, on the other hand, wear tights because loose clothing is a hazard, and tights are as close as one can get to eliminating the clothing hazard and still put on a public performance. At best, acrobats and Superman have slightly parallel reasons for wearing tights. Someone pulled that "superheroes are modeled after circus performers" straight out of their ass.
Nobody here seriously believes that a bunch of rednecks should have treated those 9 black students so badly just because "everyone thought it was OK." The copyright laws, like many others, are to protect the minority.
Incorrect. Copyright laws exist in order to promote science and the useful arts. Attempting to draw an analogy with segregation is either an apalling case of ignorance or a laughably absurd troll. The purpose of the copyright is to enrich the public domain. To facilitate this, creators are granted a limited monopoly on reproduction of works. Society at large temporarily gives up its right to freely share in common cultural artifacts with the expectation that the profit gained from this monopoly will encourage yet more cultaral enrichment. It hasn't a damn thing to do with protecting minorities. Your comparison to segregation is insulting.
Most record labels etc. do not make their material available "for sale" in that way; the only way to get a copy is to "license" it, which involves a contract. As soon as you violate even one part of the contract, your license is revoked. So legally, you get it on their terms or not at all.
Except that nobody has to sign a contract to buy a CD in a store. They conveniently pursue "music is a license for 1 copy" or "music is the CD itself" depending on whether they want us to buy a separate CD for the house and the car (the former), or buy a new copy of the CD when the old one gets damaged (the latter). Frankly, unless they can produce a signature on a piece of paper wherein we agree to their terms, they can shove their contract theory up their collective asses. The only implied contract is the doctrine of first sale.
Veering off tack a little, it's interesting to consider what would happen if DVDs were sold at realistic prices in Malaysia. I could imagine malay market DVDs being sold back to the Europe and the US and drastically undermining the prices there. I suppose that was what the area code was supposed to prevent.
All of a sudden, I get the feeling that the implications of the term "global market" have yet to sink in for some of the big boys...
FWIW, the "big boys" know full well the implications of the "global market". That's why DVDs have region codes. They wanted to be able to exploit popular works in low income regions without having to wait for the "first world" to reach the point of saturation first. "Multi-region hackable" chinese DVD players and the weakness of CSS encryption have rendered this scheme largely irrelevant, though.
Don't judge a book by its cover. Or in this case, dont' judge a book by the layout/appearance of its contents. This hardly useful in a book review.
You're wasting your breath. The day I decided humanity was a lost cause in this regard was the day I read a book review on Amazon that basically said:
"This book wasn't long enough. For what I paid, I expected more pages. - 1 star"
Thank you for putting the Comic Book Guy image in my head. I re-read the review and it was much more enjoyable with the Comic Book Guy voice in my head.
Heh. You mean you don't read all posts on/. as if they're by the Comic Book Guy, like I do? You'd be amazed at how rarely the voice is not appropriate!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to change the mylar bags on my "X-Men" collection
Nice dictionary definition.
Now how are they REALLY counted. If you are on unemployment and you go to the office every week or file the paperwork every week to get your check, you are easy to count. If your benefits run out and you stop filing the paperwork, what happens? Does someone call you every week/month to see if you finally got a job (yeah, right)? Do they just assume you will never get a job and you are counted for life (yeah, right)?
So while that is the official definition, how does it REALLY work? Is the bureaucratic definition, "those that filed paperwork"?
Oh for cripes sake quit endlessly spouting speculation that conveniently supports your preferred view and go look it the fuck up. They use a weekly random national survey of 60,000 people. It hasn't got a goddamn thing to do with who is or is not colecting unemployment insurance.
In addition, I'd like to see some consideration for a legal means to compel companies to open-source their old abandonware. IANAL, nor am I a software developer, so I don't know what would be an appropriate means, of what exceptions should be granted. However, it seems to me that if you're a software company who wrote something 20 years ago, you're not using it, you're not selling it, and you have no plans for it whatsoever-- well, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to me that someone with use for the software should be able to get the government to compel them to release the source code.
Nice as it would be to have the source code, such a policy would be a step in the wrong direction. It'd require a Department of Source Code, with a byzantine set of regulations defining:
-Who's covered: does Joe Schmoe's shareware totally sux0rz IRC chat app have to have its source in escrow?
-What format: is running it thru a source obfuscator allowed, i.e. the "SortMainTree" class renamed to "kQ56324xu"? If not, does poor programming style count as obfuscation and is therefore prohibited?
-Where is it kept: Must one send quarterly source copies to the DSC for escrow, or will it be more like the FTC, where they make you keep the records at your own expense?
With an army of "regulators" crawling up everyone's ass with a microscope, checking your source trees, fining those who fail to file timely source updates, demanding reams of paperwork documenting everything, this sounds like a nightmare on par with the IRS. And all this just so a few basement-dwelling fat guys can diddle with a 20 year old version of "Hallmark Card Maker Pro"? Better to side with the "more freedom/less regulation" way. I vote no.
Here's one for you, Hawking...which is easier to replace if compromised...your password, or your eye?
Oh, that problem is easy to solve. Instead of using your actual eye, you can use a randomly generated computer rendering of an iris. Basically you'll have this picture of an eye at the end of a popsicle stick, and you hold that up to the reader. If it's compromised, you just throw it away and register a new popsicle stick! Biometric security without the hassle of unchangeable keys! (rolling eyes)
I have in mind a mental image of a guy at an ATM fumbling with a keyring of "eye-sticks", trying to remember which one he used for his bank account.
Those people are called "officers" (and, occasionally, "senior NCOs").
Private Rockhead doesn't need to know any of that, he just needs to do what his lieutenant and/or platoon sergeant tell him to do. After 15 years, Private Rockhead might accquire some sense and get promoted to Sergeant Rockhead
In soviet russia, that's how their army worked. That's not, however, how the US military works. It's always amusing when dumbasses like you presume to know what being in the US military is like. Of course, if they started up the draft and people like you started showing up in the ranks, it'd probably be just like you describe.
Not good enough. If someone accidentally zeros out that field in all the records, there's no obvious way to tell that you've essentially lost your opt-out list. With a separate opt-out list, if someone accidentally deletes the list it's going to be quite obvious to everyone, if not immediately, then the next time a "compare and purge" operation is done, that they need to go get the most recent backup.
How exactly is this different from all my friends who were clean-cut, straight arrows in high school, and then turned into similar beasts as you've described above once in college and on their own?
PS: also the one that don't go to college or the military. I think this has more to do with being on one's own for the first time, and learning one's limitations. A cross section of all people age 18-22 is going to show a hefty portion of them partying more than one reasonably should.
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Oh, indeed, file sharing in general is a clear example of a 1st amendment right. Copyright infringement, which is what the original poster was talking about, is a different animal entirely. The very fact that it's copyright infringement puts it outside first amendment protection.
File sharing also, however, falls under Section 8 Clause 8 of the same constitution, wherein authors are guaranteed exclusive right to their writings for a limited time. Amendments do not trump the main body of the constitution unless written to explicitly enumerate how they do so.
From the "wish list" working drafts of the Bill of Rights and writings of those involved in the drafting, that bit about the militia was shoehorned in to mollify states that were concerned that the federal government might outlaw state militias. Allowing the people to bear arms was all fine and dandy, they reasoned, but unless they can be legally called up they're worthless. Like many of the other amendments, it has more than one purpose crammed in so as to keep the list at 10 amendments. The "militia" aspect is indeed, like you say, essentially unrelated to the primary point of the amendment, which is that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Indeed. The law is chock full of stuff like that. Posession of a crowbar, big screwdriver, wire cutters, and flashlight are all perfectly legal. But get caught carrying these things in the bushes 'round back of a house in the dead of night, and you will be charged with posession of burglary tools.
Nah, most of the legal issues over radar detectors were hashed out in the 70's. It's all simply dependent on state law now. If your state doesn't allow them, they're illegal. Simple as that. The thing is, it's not necessarily illegal to exceed the speed limit, so a warning device that tells you your speed is being measured is for the legitimate purpose of avoiding a citation that would force you to go to court to prove exceeding the limit was safe and prudent. A subtle distinction, but valid nonetheless.
No. So-called "cop killer" bullets were invented and sold by two police officers trying to develop a round that would go through an angled windshield rather than skipping off it like the normal hollow point bullets do. They were never marketed as "cop killer" or even "body armor piercing", because they aren't. Congratulations! You have proven yourself susceptible to unsophisticated chain-yanking propaganda like the rest of the sheeple, no better than those who believe Saddam was ready to sell nukes to al qaeda...
Nah, those missiles were already sitting on the shelf, and there's no place to turn them in for money after the fact. The US gov't is actually being efficient: using up what it has lying around, rather than just letting it sit there. Remember folks: rotate your munitions! Bomb every 6 months or 3000 miles...
Sheesh, people and their morbid fear of death.
Much like the way unskilled "button mashers" can initially beat seasoned players of Street Fighter type games with surprising ease. It is, unfortunately, not an effective long-term strategy.
The article does exist-- I remember it. The guy with the artificial heart didn't actually comment that the lack of noise, but rather that the lack of a pulsing sensation was eerie. This makes more sense anyway, because you can't really hear your heart beat under normal circumstances anyway.
This is exactly why I called it what I did. It's an absurd reduction. It's an attempt to take a number of issues, some not even vaguely related, and tar them with the same brush. It's over-simplifying, i.e. simpleton reasoning.
Still, the value of a grant of copyright is wholly contained in the "exclusive" bit. If others parties do make copies, then a copyright holder no longer holds exclusive rights
Nonsense. The exclusive rights are granted by law. Illicit duplication doesn't repeal the law. It's an infringement of those rights, but those rights remain.
which in turn diminishes the value of the grant.
Does it? Value is an abstraction. There is no concrete definition of something's value. The main driving force in valuation of real goods is scarcity. In the case of "intellectual property" the scarcity is totally artificial.
Perhaps analogous to trespass?
No, trespass is a property crime-- perhaps the most basic. It's an expression of territory. Even dogs understand trespass.
PS. Perhaps it would be good of you not to refer to your fellow /.ers as morons, simpletons, or idiots. It's rather impolite and may decrease your Karma.
1) If the shoe fits, and it usually does.... /. as my venue for being a jackass
2) I'm polite all day in real life. I choose
3) My karma has been maxed out for years
Incorrect. They still retain their government-granted monopoly on legal reproduction (copyright) regardless of how many illegal reproductions are made. You're showing the typical simpleton reasoning of "there are too many complicated distinctions-- let's just call it all theft" that illustrates how poorly you actually understand the issue.
Where the fuck did you get that cockamamie idea? You clearly have absolutely no idea how electricity works. If I don't turn on my 1200kW arc furnace, that's 1.2MW of load that doesn't need to be carried by a turbine somewhere. The water behind the dam, the coal or gas for the boiler, or the uranium in the core needed to generate that 1.2MW is subsequently not used. You're a fucking moron.
Sorry, but in none of the vernacular uses of "steal" is it ever intended to imply theft. It's used to draw a moral equivalence, e.g. "that bitch stole my boyfriend", or "hey, you're stealing my pickup lines". Use of the the word "steal" in relation to copyright infringement is likewise an attempt to draw moral equivalence, only they go a step further and even call it "theft", which is pure propaganda. There is no definition of the unmodified word "theft", either in the vernacular or in legal terms, that legitimately applies to copyright infringement.
Off on a bit of a tangent here, but as for the following:
You need to find a source to quote that does actual research rather than making shit up. Comic book superheroes owe none of their look to circus acrobats. Early comic book artists learned to draw the classical way, by drawing the nude human form. The nude human form is the most compelling and universal form, and as such ends up the favorite among audiences and artists alike. A nude form can be "clothed" in tights by simply drawing lines at the neck, wrists, and ankles (and leaving out the genitalia, of course), thus rendering the image "acceptable" to the general public. Superheroes, not being bound by any mundane fashion requirements, gravitate towards this near-nudity. This is well known historical fact in the comic book industry.Now, circus acrobats, on the other hand, wear tights because loose clothing is a hazard, and tights are as close as one can get to eliminating the clothing hazard and still put on a public performance. At best, acrobats and Superman have slightly parallel reasons for wearing tights. Someone pulled that "superheroes are modeled after circus performers" straight out of their ass.
Incorrect. Copyright laws exist in order to promote science and the useful arts. Attempting to draw an analogy with segregation is either an apalling case of ignorance or a laughably absurd troll. The purpose of the copyright is to enrich the public domain. To facilitate this, creators are granted a limited monopoly on reproduction of works. Society at large temporarily gives up its right to freely share in common cultural artifacts with the expectation that the profit gained from this monopoly will encourage yet more cultaral enrichment. It hasn't a damn thing to do with protecting minorities. Your comparison to segregation is insulting.
Except that nobody has to sign a contract to buy a CD in a store. They conveniently pursue "music is a license for 1 copy" or "music is the CD itself" depending on whether they want us to buy a separate CD for the house and the car (the former), or buy a new copy of the CD when the old one gets damaged (the latter). Frankly, unless they can produce a signature on a piece of paper wherein we agree to their terms, they can shove their contract theory up their collective asses. The only implied contract is the doctrine of first sale.
FWIW, the "big boys" know full well the implications of the "global market". That's why DVDs have region codes. They wanted to be able to exploit popular works in low income regions without having to wait for the "first world" to reach the point of saturation first. "Multi-region hackable" chinese DVD players and the weakness of CSS encryption have rendered this scheme largely irrelevant, though.
You're wasting your breath. The day I decided humanity was a lost cause in this regard was the day I read a book review on Amazon that basically said:
"This book wasn't long enough. For what I paid, I expected more pages. - 1 star"
Heh. You mean you don't read all posts on /. as if they're by the Comic Book Guy, like I do? You'd be amazed at how rarely the voice is not appropriate!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to change the mylar bags on my "X-Men" collection
Oh for cripes sake quit endlessly spouting speculation that conveniently supports your preferred view and go look it the fuck up. They use a weekly random national survey of 60,000 people. It hasn't got a goddamn thing to do with who is or is not colecting unemployment insurance.
Nice as it would be to have the source code, such a policy would be a step in the wrong direction. It'd require a Department of Source Code, with a byzantine set of regulations defining:
With an army of "regulators" crawling up everyone's ass with a microscope, checking your source trees, fining those who fail to file timely source updates, demanding reams of paperwork documenting everything, this sounds like a nightmare on par with the IRS. And all this just so a few basement-dwelling fat guys can diddle with a 20 year old version of "Hallmark Card Maker Pro"? Better to side with the "more freedom/less regulation" way. I vote no.Oh, that problem is easy to solve. Instead of using your actual eye, you can use a randomly generated computer rendering of an iris. Basically you'll have this picture of an eye at the end of a popsicle stick, and you hold that up to the reader. If it's compromised, you just throw it away and register a new popsicle stick! Biometric security without the hassle of unchangeable keys! (rolling eyes)
I have in mind a mental image of a guy at an ATM fumbling with a keyring of "eye-sticks", trying to remember which one he used for his bank account.
In soviet russia, that's how their army worked. That's not, however, how the US military works. It's always amusing when dumbasses like you presume to know what being in the US military is like. Of course, if they started up the draft and people like you started showing up in the ranks, it'd probably be just like you describe.
Not good enough. If someone accidentally zeros out that field in all the records, there's no obvious way to tell that you've essentially lost your opt-out list. With a separate opt-out list, if someone accidentally deletes the list it's going to be quite obvious to everyone, if not immediately, then the next time a "compare and purge" operation is done, that they need to go get the most recent backup.
PS: also the one that don't go to college or the military. I think this has more to do with being on one's own for the first time, and learning one's limitations. A cross section of all people age 18-22 is going to show a hefty portion of them partying more than one reasonably should.