He's a Nintendiot, according to his way of thinking anything that's not for a Nintendo console is, by definition, garbage. I agree that it's sad to see uninformed rhetoric getting modded up. This is the same garbage we've been seeing promoted on slashdot since the price of the PS3 was announced.
There's another issue that's hurting PS3 sales... There are still some good PS2 games coming out. I know there's a lot of PS2 owners who won't upgrade to the PS3 ever, but I suspect there's a lot who are waiting for the price drop, but are content to wait a year for that $100 drop because they can spend that time playing the good PS2 games that are still coming out, or the good one's that were previously released but haven't played yet.
It's not a matter of delaying six months of fun, unless you have no alternatives. It can be considered rearranging your fun to take advantage of an expected future event, rather than delaying it. I know I've got a couple of good computer games to play (Galactic Civilizations 2, Heroes of Might and Magic V), some good PS2 games (God of War, Disgaea 2, Final Fantasy XII, plus at least a half dozen others) before I start looking for a new console. Plus for me, the biggest reason to upgrade to a PS3 will probably be when the new Dynasty Empires for PS3 comes out. I love the co-op games. There's still the issue that the games I really want aren't on the PS3 yet. Dynasty Empires, Ratchet & Clank, FFXIII. So if my purchase comes after a price drop, I've saved a little money.
As for the 360? No thanks, I'll get more than my fill of Halo 3 from playing it at a friends place and even Blue Dragon doesn't interest me that much. For some reason, the game doesn't appeal to me, I suppose I grow tired of games featuring childish heroes. It's still the console of choice for FPS, which just isn't my cup of tea.
Actually, I've been messing with you. My first post was in agreement with you. But the whole I-hope-you-enjoy-dieing spiel was too silly to let pass. My point was that some other people (i.e. not you) believe that we should imprison people for minor crimes and that by ruining their lives we can thus improve them. It's very much like a scene out of Harrison Bergeron where a concerned group of citizens is campaigning for capital punishment for parking violations because "it's the only way they'll learn".
It's a contract, and there are penalties for breaking contracts, the point of the original article and the bill in front of Congress is upping the penalties for breaking copyright (the contract).
You realize that under contract law, you are not allowed to do that, right? You can't change the original contract without the consent of both parties? Of course, on the other hand, the democractically elected representatives of the people should have the authority to agree to to those changes, unfortunately those representatives have been corrupted by the very people who are asking for these changes. They are beholden to the people who want to change the contract and thus can no longer be considered impartial representatives of the people. It is clear this new law is not a good deal for the people, in fact, it would not be binding under contract law because no additional consideration is given to the people for the additional obligations placed upon them. Contracts are not allowed to be one-sided, one-sided contracts are just a legal means of slavery.
You realize that the RIAA already does collect fees from the radio stations for playing their music? So the radio station takes care of that RIAA usage fee.
That does not change the fact that the listeners are using the music without paying for it, which according to your stated opinions, is unethical and illegal. Hell, humming or singing to yourself a song you heard is just as illegal. You are using the music without paying for it. Jail time for you, Mr. should-have-known-better 9-year old! Happy Birthday is copyrighted!
My point is if you don't agree with the contract don't enter into it, i.e. don't use their product. Don't knowing go and break the contract and then try to use some lame excuse about them charging an unrealistic price for their product, the price is what the producer says it is.
I don't think you understand my point, maybe it's too outside the box for you. People aren't loosing faith because there is one thing that is priced too high, they are loosing faith because everything is priced too high. There are oligarchar price controls being used to extract monopoly rents from CDs and DVDs, prices remaining consistently high despite the ability to reproduce them dropping to a point that's near 0. You don't seem to understand that when people loose faith in copyright, they ignore it's existence entirely. Copyright is, at it's heart, an artificial limitation on the spread of information, if you no longer believe in the artificial limitation the only reason to respect it is the threat of legal punishment.
People don't rebel against an onerous system by simply not using some of it. At best they ignore it's entire existence, at worst they destroy the system and everyone who supports it. Essentially you are using the same ethical models as the South did when they told the rest of the world that if they believed slavery is unethical, they should pay their slaves a wage. You can't fight a corrupt system by adhering to it's artificial imposed limitations.
And their right, the consumer did break the contract first, the consumers are infringing on their copyrights, and not paying the producers what they feel their products are worth. The argument that they charge too much and hence they broke the contract first doesn't work, because it's their product and they can charge whatever they want for it.
Who broke the contract first is very much open to debate. For example, for decades the RIAA and it's member companies have been working to reduce the variety of music offered to
Actually it does matter, the whole "using a product without paying for it" isn't actually a law, you know. A bookstore can ask you to leave for reading a book without buying it, but the publisher can't garnish your wages for not buying the book even though you "used" it. The way you view the world, the RIAA would be entitled to collect money from every person who listened to a radio station.
I'm pointing out unlike life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, copyright is a privilege not a right. It's respected because it's in the best interest of everyone. However, increasingly people are deciding that is no longer in their best interests. Increasingly content monopolies are being used to buy the right to abuse the public and to recuse producers from living up their obligations. What I'm saying is that many people no longer believe that copyright is fair or worth respecting and it's morally reasonable for them to do so, even if I don't agree and even if it's illegal. Once one side of a contract has breached it, the other side is no longer bound by the terms of the agreement. Right now, the content corporations are trying to convince the world's governments that their customers broke the agreement first, without realizing in the end that it doesn't matter at all.
When the government lops off your legs for jaywalking, I hope you grin and say "Well I deserved that for breaking the law".
How about we try to make the punishment proportional to the crime. Suspending and permanently revoking licences for drinking and driving is reasonable, a lifetime ban on computer use for downloading a pirated movie is just excessive.
No, you haven't. The producer hasn't received those monies and has no guarantee of receiving those moneys (unless you charged someone else a price that is reasonably similar). What you have deprived them of is the exclusive control over the creation of copies of their product.
People are not developing "bad attittudes toward copyright", they not developing a more commercially profitable attitude toward copyrights. Copyright law didn't exist at all until 1662, internationally it didn't exist until 1887. So what we have is a system that is 120 years old, that has undergone rapid change in the last 30 years. It's a system that was prompted by technological change to address the creation of the printing press. It was never meant to apply to computers and somebodies grandmother, but rather to deal with printers who stole books, reprinted them without paying the authors and sold them on the streets. Up until that time it was common for people to copy anything they wanted in whatever way they wanted with the original producer having and expecting no say in what was done with their work.
Copyright is an artifical restriction that is bound in the good faith agreement between consumers and producers that the producers will charge reasonable prices and consumers will pay them. The changes to the copyright that allow corporation to hold copyrights for a period exceeding the average lifespan of the actual producer(s) has broken the faith. Increasingly it becomes obvious that producers regard consumers are mere cows to be force fed whatever the create and milked for whatever they can get. The social contract is breaking down because the cost of duplication has dropped dramatically and yet the producers choose not to share those savings with the consumers. The trust is gone and the agreement can not live on in the absence of trust. Increasingly producers rely on the threat of the law rather than fair dealing with consumers to keep the agreement alive. They don't seem to understand an agreement only lives as long as both parties benefit.
I'm on both sides of this issue because I both produce work that is copyrighted and consomer work which is copyrighted. Increasingly I find the major producers of copyrightten work are imposing an undue burden on their consumers in the pursuit of the most money possible. Of course, that's the problem inherent with allowing corporations to own copyrights. Corporations aren't people, they don't have consciences, they have shareholders who don't like anything that makes them less money than they could possibly be making.
Frankly the U.S. Government can not function as it currently exists. It's not just the people, it costs money to make your existence known. The people who control the mainstream media are complicit with the governing parties in locking our anyone not in those parties. The voting system itself punishes people for voting for anyone who's not in the top two positions (the spoiler effect). The short terms for congressional candidates (2 years) means they are constantly having to raise money for the next campaign, it's amazing that they have any time at all to do their actual jobs. Constantly having to beg donors for money for your campaign makes you vulnerable to special interests who bring lots of money easily to your campaign.
People may be stupid, but you can't blame the problems entirely on them. The Founding Fathers for all their high ideals and compromise were no experts at democracy. They made the best system they can think of, it's now severely outdated, and crufty. The system desperately needs to be completely overhauled to make it work again. However, the only people who can actually implement changes (barring an armed revolution) are the primary beneficiares of the status quo.
Well, everyone knows that only way to reform someone who's broken the law once is to deny him the right to ever earn an honest living again. It's the only way they'll learn not to break the law.
You need to look at from the point of view of the people who wrote it:
In this case the BIAA:
It increased the threat they can bring to bear on anyone who refuses to allow them to audit their software. The BIAA tells the hospital to let them check all of the software for licence violations. If the hospital refuses the BIAA tells the local newspaper that they refused the audit and mentions in passing that they're really concerned for the hospital because this could leave open to wrongful death lawsuits for anyone who died at the hospital in the past six months (or however long since the last inspection). The police investigate the hospital while the family of someone who died attempts to get rich quick of a wrongful death lawsuit. The BIAA markets itself to the remaining medical community as the only sure way to make sure this doesn't happen to them too.
It seems just like another avenue for extortion for the content conglomerates.
On the plus side, it could probably be used to sue Hamas for using Mickey Mouse to train children to be suicide bombers, if you can get Hamas into a U.S. court, that is...
I'm surprised there is any need for a law to cover specifically that instance. It sounds like somebody's playing a game so that they can claim that copyright infringement could land you in jail for life, mostly as a way to scare kids away from downloading pirated software, music and movies.
I'm pretty sure that if a hospital used pirated software that caused someone's death they'd already be liable for negligance causing death. It hardly seems like new laws are needed for that.
My god, this sounds like the "Corporate Ownership of Americans" act. I'm overreacting a little, but really, life in prison for copyright infringement? I thought that was reserved for real crimes.
Actually, if you scroll a couple of dozens posts up, you'll probably see half a dozen posts saying exactly that.
Sorry, I didn't think I was responsible for what other people said. Shall I lambast you because of what other people said, too?
I suppose the phrase "nobody said" when defending one's own arguments could be misconstrued to mean "the entirety of humanity agrees with me." I mean, you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to think that, and it's honestly fairly clear I meant myself.
Actually, no it's not. If you mean "I never said that" then you should write "I never said that". Using "Nobody said that" is at best a transparent attempt to use deceptive language to imply there are a lot of other people who share your exact same beliefs. It's a dishonest argument tactic and one which does play much better than your being a fool who doesn't understand that people may legitimately disagree with you.
Yawn. Not by or for me. Exxon isn't paying me any money, and the data I'm reading comes from thermometers. It's kind of hard to bribe a thermometer. Or, didn't you know that weather balloons broadcast their data by radio, and thus couldn't be tainted? Or, has your paranoia gotten so bad that you actually believe the USGS is making faulty hardware to support corporate interests?
Ah, so anyone who disagrees with you must be paranoid and delusional? As far as I can tell you've only ever provided one source for your data. And that's one movie which was incorrectly sourced as "from the BBC" (a well respected organization) when it was from Channel 4 (a much less respected organization). You claim your information comes from thermometers and weather balloons, and we seem to agree on what both sources report. However, your interpretation of the data seems to be very, very different from the consensus opinion.
Again, this is only true if you ignore everything other than the last two hundred years. In the Holocene period we were well over 3500 PPM. In the Mesozoic we generally fluctuated between 1400 and 2100 PPM. You're freaking out over the difference between 295 and 380.
To be clear the Holocene period extends from 10,000 years ago to now. And according to what I've read "This record clearly shows that an atmospheric CO2 concentration from 260 to 280 ppmv was the rule during the preindustrial Holocene, including the early Holocene." http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/286/544 6/1815a
The information you might be looking at to get your information might include some ice core samples that were accidentally tainted during collection. Of course, those core samples report a level over 300 PPM not 3000 PPM. Of course, I don't know if you "obviously" meant 350 PPM and were just careless yet again with your arguments. It would certainly help if you ever bothered to link the sources for your outlandish claims.
Jesus god, man, get a sense of perspective. How many times do I have to tell you we're at the bottom of a valley before you quit screaming about how we're going to suffocate a hundred feet up the hill?
I see while you certainly complain loudly about being held to the truth of your own words, you're certainly not above shoving words down other people's throats. According to the charts I linked above, on the wikipedia climate page, we're are at a 140,000 year high, not a low.
The Mesozoic period is, of course, about 140 million to 240 million years ago. More commonly known as "the time of the dinosaurs". We didn't even exist as a species that long ago. Interesting enough there is some research, like this article that indicates high carbon dioxide levels may have ended the Mesozoic with a mass species extinction caused by global warming and CO2 levels. Additionally, there ar
1) The estimated rise in temperatures is between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius. 2) In theory, Africa as whole would receive slightly more rain, but that the desificating effect of increased temperatures would counteract the increased rainfall and still result in the loss of 5% to 8% of arable land, that's estimates based on no human intervention. In reality desertification is already happening in Africa as ecological mismanagement and population pressures are contributing to the destruction of arable land. 3) In practice, Africa has received below average rainfall every year in the last three decades as compared to the century long average amount of rainfall. Sure, it might not be related to the rise in CO2 levels and global warming, but then what is driving a severe and protracted drop in rain fall. 4) The Trade Winds are not caused the Coriolis effect, they are deflected by it. They are formed by semi-permanent high pressure areas. There is a complex relationship between the trade winds and ocean currents. And there is reason to believe that warming of the ocean (and the loss of glacial mass at the North Pole) may affect the trade winds. 5) In fact, some scientists are claiming that global warming is already affecting the trade winds. 6) Humans do in fact have fundamental data on the subject of global warming and whether it's good or bad. What we are lacking is the detailed information on how exactly the effects will break down by country, by region, by person. 7) In this case change is actually bad. Why? Because it's going to cost a hell of a lot of money and probably cost a lot of lives to adjust to the changes. There is some suggestion that the genocides in the Africa may be related to global warming and the persistent drought conditions that have been afflicting it. There's no proof that global warming is causation because we don't have a spare planet to test our falsifiable theories on. Some of us will be better off after the changes, but on average I doubt the changes will outweigh the cost of those changes. 8) According to the temperature records that I could find, the current average annual temperature is higher than it has been in the last 2000 years, and is higher than the temperature average determined by averageing the predictors together for the last 14,000 years.
You seem to be confused. Allow me to help you. Nobody said "humans aren't warming the earth." Nobody said "we have no part in global warming." Was was said was "our current climate models are so poor as to be unusable, and the international treaties we've made to stop this phenomenon are based on bad science." Actually, if you scroll a couple of dozens posts up, you'll probably see half a dozen posts saying exactly that. And claiming that these opinions are based on concrete scientific fact. There are quite a few people claiming it. There is a clear financial motive for most of the source of anti-global warming research, most of it is derived from the the companies most likely to be adversely affected by climate regulation. It doesn't mean they're wrong, you just have to be very careful with the information they present you, it's been tailored to help ensure they make the most money they can.
Now, the issue about C02 levels not rising seem disingenous, current carbon dioxide levels seem to be significantly higher than historical ones. Higher than the historical maxima, and they're still rising. They've rising about 25% in the last 30 years. That seems like a significant amount.
I'd like to see more specific reasons why Kyoto and greenhouse gas curbing iniative are "bad science" than the vague claims you are giving and a reference to a documentary that's not very well respected even by the people who are in it.
And you base that on what, exactly? Humanity has less than 30 years of atmospheric data, so I'm rather skeptical. Don't waste my time by bringing up ice core samples; there is no correlation of ice core samples to global temperature which is accurate to less than ten years, and if you actually bother looking at the ice core record, you'll notice that the correlation that we've seen for more than ten million years is actually holding exactly where we would expect for it to.
Well you've managed to convince me that you're completely wrong. That little tirade about ice cores proves you're either disingenous, stupid or both. Ice core samples don't have to be accurate to less than ten years, you use ice core samples to estimate atmsopheric readings beyond the years we have atmospheric readings for. You can claim that's not the most accurate way to measure it, but frankly it's the most accurate measure we have.
According the information I've seen, for example This graph at wikipedia, it looks like CO2 levels are rising at rather dramatic rate. Of course, the scale looks overly dramatic because the scale on the right doesn't extend all the way down to 0. However, it looks like the CO2 levels have rising by almost 25% over the last 3 decades. That's a significant shift.
Also your claim that we have less than 30 years of atmospheric readings for CO2 seems very suspect, considering the chart I referenced above has over 40 years of atmospheric readings on it. So, are you just repeating verbatim the anti-global warming rhetoric from over a decade ago or what?
That's a catch-22 that they have to recognize. The "loss" of $300 per console includeds the amortized cost of development and research over the predicted number of sales. Selling fewer consoles drives the per console loss up, while selling more drives the per console loss down. Also they can't make back much money in game sales if they don't sell enough consoles to support those sales. A price cut before the release of some spectacular games is pretty much required from Sony now if they want to stay competitive.
I'd expect Sony to split any manufacturing savings between cost reductions and price cuts. I don't know exactly how they'll split it, but I expect it to be closer to 50%-50% (retail to savings) then 25%-75%.
This is true. The article is particularly annoying because it confuses cause and effect on a fundamental level. Linux is as popular with businesses and geeks because we make an effort to make it work the way we want it to. Closed source operating systems are designed based firstly on what the company thinks is in it's own best interest (DRM bribes), secondly on what they think will sell (Plays DRM music), and lastly on what the company's user design comittee decides that users want. At Microsoft in particular, the third group has been historically weak. Since the demise of OS/2 until the recent rise of SuSE and Ubuntu there just hasn't really been any choice for end users in desktop O/S. They could run Linux, but they'd have to learn something to do so, so they haven't. This means users have received almost nothing that they've asked for.
It seems like an obvious PR move to throw the blame for Microsoft not listening back to the people who bought the O/S. In a way, it is their fault for overwhelmingly buying Windows over any other O/S and creating the monopoly in the first place, but it's a little disingenuous to claim it's because they weren't telling Microsoft what they wanted. The truth is, Microsoft didn't have to listen so they didn't.
It's simple. The summary is quite obviously from a microsoft apologist. The author's just trotting out the old fallacy that "things couldn't be any different then they are now". While it is true that there is more to security than avoid Microsoft, there are very legitimate reasons to gripe about Microsoft's security. They've been told repeatedly before they did stupid, stupid things that they were creating security holes and leaving their customers vulnerable. They didn't care and now everyone else has to clean up their mess.
They've earned their damnation as the weakest link of security and if you eliminate the weakest link, the entire chain becomes stronger.
I believe the opposite is true, that when does a fetus become "alive" is a scientific answer that just isn't either interesting or pressing to scientists. The answer is simple, when the fetal brain can maintain thought patterns.
An interesting fact to note is that if life begins a conception then more than 50% of the human population on this planet dies in the womb. As I understand it, a small majority of fertalized eggs never implant and are spontaneously aborted. That means heaven (or hell if you believe in baptism) is filled with the souls of babies who were never born. That just doesn't make sense.
The definition I'm giving is just common sense. Without a functional brain, the body is just an inanimate pile of meat.
I think it's majorly in response to MS-NBCs behaviour where they imposed draconian conditions on the usage of the last democratic candidates debate.
Also, you are no longer required to explicitly claim copyright in the United States, so even though a televised speech may not claim copyright status, it is still automatically granted.
As for why copyright it? Because whoever recorded it expects to make money off it one way or another.
When did he act like an ass? That's easy, when he demanded money retroactively for his volunteer work, when he refused to cooperate with the people organizing the campaign he obstensibly supported and when he refused to turn the site over after acknowledging that he was neither willing nor capable of continuing to run the site. And most recently when he decided to make a big stink and post a "I'm so sorry for me" message on his blog about the whole situation.
Issues like this are rarely as one-sided as the people involved would have you believe.
Slashdot Mirror
He's a Nintendiot, according to his way of thinking anything that's not for a Nintendo console is, by definition, garbage. I agree that it's sad to see uninformed rhetoric getting modded up. This is the same garbage we've been seeing promoted on slashdot since the price of the PS3 was announced.
There's another issue that's hurting PS3 sales... There are still some good PS2 games coming out. I know there's a lot of PS2 owners who won't upgrade to the PS3 ever, but I suspect there's a lot who are waiting for the price drop, but are content to wait a year for that $100 drop because they can spend that time playing the good PS2 games that are still coming out, or the good one's that were previously released but haven't played yet.
It's not a matter of delaying six months of fun, unless you have no alternatives. It can be considered rearranging your fun to take advantage of an expected future event, rather than delaying it. I know I've got a couple of good computer games to play (Galactic Civilizations 2, Heroes of Might and Magic V), some good PS2 games (God of War, Disgaea 2, Final Fantasy XII, plus at least a half dozen others) before I start looking for a new console. Plus for me, the biggest reason to upgrade to a PS3 will probably be when the new Dynasty Empires for PS3 comes out. I love the co-op games. There's still the issue that the games I really want aren't on the PS3 yet. Dynasty Empires, Ratchet & Clank, FFXIII. So if my purchase comes after a price drop, I've saved a little money.
As for the 360? No thanks, I'll get more than my fill of Halo 3 from playing it at a friends place and even Blue Dragon doesn't interest me that much. For some reason, the game doesn't appeal to me, I suppose I grow tired of games featuring childish heroes. It's still the console of choice for FPS, which just isn't my cup of tea.
Did you even look at the date that was posted? It's from December, so chances are it's not the list they announced yesterday.
Ha! Black!
Actually, I've been messing with you. My first post was in agreement with you. But the whole I-hope-you-enjoy-dieing spiel was too silly to let pass. My point was that some other people (i.e. not you) believe that we should imprison people for minor crimes and that by ruining their lives we can thus improve them. It's very much like a scene out of Harrison Bergeron where a concerned group of citizens is campaigning for capital punishment for parking violations because "it's the only way they'll learn".
It's a contract, and there are penalties for breaking contracts, the point of the original article and the bill in front of Congress is upping the penalties for breaking copyright (the contract).
You realize that under contract law, you are not allowed to do that, right? You can't change the original contract without the consent of both parties? Of course, on the other hand, the democractically elected representatives of the people should have the authority to agree to to those changes, unfortunately those representatives have been corrupted by the very people who are asking for these changes. They are beholden to the people who want to change the contract and thus can no longer be considered impartial representatives of the people. It is clear this new law is not a good deal for the people, in fact, it would not be binding under contract law because no additional consideration is given to the people for the additional obligations placed upon them. Contracts are not allowed to be one-sided, one-sided contracts are just a legal means of slavery.
You realize that the RIAA already does collect fees from the radio stations for playing their music? So the radio station takes care of that RIAA usage fee.
That does not change the fact that the listeners are using the music without paying for it, which according to your stated opinions, is unethical and illegal. Hell, humming or singing to yourself a song you heard is just as illegal. You are using the music without paying for it. Jail time for you, Mr. should-have-known-better 9-year old! Happy Birthday is copyrighted!
My point is if you don't agree with the contract don't enter into it, i.e. don't use their product. Don't knowing go and break the contract and then try to use some lame excuse about them charging an unrealistic price for their product, the price is what the producer says it is.
I don't think you understand my point, maybe it's too outside the box for you. People aren't loosing faith because there is one thing that is priced too high, they are loosing faith because everything is priced too high. There are oligarchar price controls being used to extract monopoly rents from CDs and DVDs, prices remaining consistently high despite the ability to reproduce them dropping to a point that's near 0. You don't seem to understand that when people loose faith in copyright, they ignore it's existence entirely. Copyright is, at it's heart, an artificial limitation on the spread of information, if you no longer believe in the artificial limitation the only reason to respect it is the threat of legal punishment.
People don't rebel against an onerous system by simply not using some of it. At best they ignore it's entire existence, at worst they destroy the system and everyone who supports it. Essentially you are using the same ethical models as the South did when they told the rest of the world that if they believed slavery is unethical, they should pay their slaves a wage. You can't fight a corrupt system by adhering to it's artificial imposed limitations.
And their right, the consumer did break the contract first, the consumers are infringing on their copyrights, and not paying the producers what they feel their products are worth. The argument that they charge too much and hence they broke the contract first doesn't work, because it's their product and they can charge whatever they want for it.
Payola
Price Fixing
Term Extension
Censorship
Technology Suppression
Who broke the contract first is very much open to debate. For example, for decades the RIAA and it's member companies have been working to reduce the variety of music offered to
Actually it does matter, the whole "using a product without paying for it" isn't actually a law, you know. A bookstore can ask you to leave for reading a book without buying it, but the publisher can't garnish your wages for not buying the book even though you "used" it. The way you view the world, the RIAA would be entitled to collect money from every person who listened to a radio station.
I'm pointing out unlike life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, copyright is a privilege not a right. It's respected because it's in the best interest of everyone. However, increasingly people are deciding that is no longer in their best interests. Increasingly content monopolies are being used to buy the right to abuse the public and to recuse producers from living up their obligations. What I'm saying is that many people no longer believe that copyright is fair or worth respecting and it's morally reasonable for them to do so, even if I don't agree and even if it's illegal. Once one side of a contract has breached it, the other side is no longer bound by the terms of the agreement. Right now, the content corporations are trying to convince the world's governments that their customers broke the agreement first, without realizing in the end that it doesn't matter at all.
When the government lops off your legs for jaywalking, I hope you grin and say "Well I deserved that for breaking the law".
How about we try to make the punishment proportional to the crime. Suspending and permanently revoking licences for drinking and driving is reasonable, a lifetime ban on computer use for downloading a pirated movie is just excessive.
No, you haven't. The producer hasn't received those monies and has no guarantee of receiving those moneys (unless you charged someone else a price that is reasonably similar). What you have deprived them of is the exclusive control over the creation of copies of their product.
People are not developing "bad attittudes toward copyright", they not developing a more commercially profitable attitude toward copyrights. Copyright law didn't exist at all until 1662, internationally it didn't exist until 1887. So what we have is a system that is 120 years old, that has undergone rapid change in the last 30 years. It's a system that was prompted by technological change to address the creation of the printing press. It was never meant to apply to computers and somebodies grandmother, but rather to deal with printers who stole books, reprinted them without paying the authors and sold them on the streets. Up until that time it was common for people to copy anything they wanted in whatever way they wanted with the original producer having and expecting no say in what was done with their work.
Copyright is an artifical restriction that is bound in the good faith agreement between consumers and producers that the producers will charge reasonable prices and consumers will pay them. The changes to the copyright that allow corporation to hold copyrights for a period exceeding the average lifespan of the actual producer(s) has broken the faith. Increasingly it becomes obvious that producers regard consumers are mere cows to be force fed whatever the create and milked for whatever they can get. The social contract is breaking down because the cost of duplication has dropped dramatically and yet the producers choose not to share those savings with the consumers. The trust is gone and the agreement can not live on in the absence of trust. Increasingly producers rely on the threat of the law rather than fair dealing with consumers to keep the agreement alive. They don't seem to understand an agreement only lives as long as both parties benefit.
I'm on both sides of this issue because I both produce work that is copyrighted and consomer work which is copyrighted. Increasingly I find the major producers of copyrightten work are imposing an undue burden on their consumers in the pursuit of the most money possible. Of course, that's the problem inherent with allowing corporations to own copyrights. Corporations aren't people, they don't have consciences, they have shareholders who don't like anything that makes them less money than they could possibly be making.
Frankly the U.S. Government can not function as it currently exists. It's not just the people, it costs money to make your existence known. The people who control the mainstream media are complicit with the governing parties in locking our anyone not in those parties. The voting system itself punishes people for voting for anyone who's not in the top two positions (the spoiler effect). The short terms for congressional candidates (2 years) means they are constantly having to raise money for the next campaign, it's amazing that they have any time at all to do their actual jobs. Constantly having to beg donors for money for your campaign makes you vulnerable to special interests who bring lots of money easily to your campaign.
People may be stupid, but you can't blame the problems entirely on them. The Founding Fathers for all their high ideals and compromise were no experts at democracy. They made the best system they can think of, it's now severely outdated, and crufty. The system desperately needs to be completely overhauled to make it work again. However, the only people who can actually implement changes (barring an armed revolution) are the primary beneficiares of the status quo.
Well, everyone knows that only way to reform someone who's broken the law once is to deny him the right to ever earn an honest living again. It's the only way they'll learn not to break the law.
You need to look at from the point of view of the people who wrote it:
In this case the BIAA:
It increased the threat they can bring to bear on anyone who refuses to allow them to audit their software. The BIAA tells the hospital to let them check all of the software for licence violations. If the hospital refuses the BIAA tells the local newspaper that they refused the audit and mentions in passing that they're really concerned for the hospital because this could leave open to wrongful death lawsuits for anyone who died at the hospital in the past six months (or however long since the last inspection). The police investigate the hospital while the family of someone who died attempts to get rich quick of a wrongful death lawsuit. The BIAA markets itself to the remaining medical community as the only sure way to make sure this doesn't happen to them too.
It seems just like another avenue for extortion for the content conglomerates.
On the plus side, it could probably be used to sue Hamas for using Mickey Mouse to train children to be suicide bombers, if you can get Hamas into a U.S. court, that is...
I'm surprised there is any need for a law to cover specifically that instance. It sounds like somebody's playing a game so that they can claim that copyright infringement could land you in jail for life, mostly as a way to scare kids away from downloading pirated software, music and movies.
I'm pretty sure that if a hospital used pirated software that caused someone's death they'd already be liable for negligance causing death. It hardly seems like new laws are needed for that.
My god, this sounds like the "Corporate Ownership of Americans" act. I'm overreacting a little, but really, life in prison for copyright infringement? I thought that was reserved for real crimes.
Sorry, I didn't think I was responsible for what other people said. Shall I lambast you because of what other people said, too?
I suppose the phrase "nobody said" when defending one's own arguments could be misconstrued to mean "the entirety of humanity agrees with me." I mean, you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to think that, and it's honestly fairly clear I meant myself.
Actually, no it's not. If you mean "I never said that" then you should write "I never said that". Using "Nobody said that" is at best a transparent attempt to use deceptive language to imply there are a lot of other people who share your exact same beliefs. It's a dishonest argument tactic and one which does play much better than your being a fool who doesn't understand that people may legitimately disagree with you.
Yawn. Not by or for me. Exxon isn't paying me any money, and the data I'm reading comes from thermometers. It's kind of hard to bribe a thermometer. Or, didn't you know that weather balloons broadcast their data by radio, and thus couldn't be tainted? Or, has your paranoia gotten so bad that you actually believe the USGS is making faulty hardware to support corporate interests?
Ah, so anyone who disagrees with you must be paranoid and delusional? As far as I can tell you've only ever provided one source for your data. And that's one movie which was incorrectly sourced as "from the BBC" (a well respected organization) when it was from Channel 4 (a much less respected organization). You claim your information comes from thermometers and weather balloons, and we seem to agree on what both sources report. However, your interpretation of the data seems to be very, very different from the consensus opinion.
Again, this is only true if you ignore everything other than the last two hundred years. In the Holocene period we were well over 3500 PPM. In the Mesozoic we generally fluctuated between 1400 and 2100 PPM. You're freaking out over the difference between 295 and 380.
To be clear the Holocene period extends from 10,000 years ago to now. And according to what I've read "This record clearly shows that an atmospheric CO2 concentration from 260 to 280 ppmv was the rule during the preindustrial Holocene, including the early Holocene." http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/286/544 6/1815a
The information you might be looking at to get your information might include some ice core samples that were accidentally tainted during collection. Of course, those core samples report a level over 300 PPM not 3000 PPM. Of course, I don't know if you "obviously" meant 350 PPM and were just careless yet again with your arguments. It would certainly help if you ever bothered to link the sources for your outlandish claims.
Jesus god, man, get a sense of perspective. How many times do I have to tell you we're at the bottom of a valley before you quit screaming about how we're going to suffocate a hundred feet up the hill?
I see while you certainly complain loudly about being held to the truth of your own words, you're certainly not above shoving words down other people's throats. According to the charts I linked above, on the wikipedia climate page, we're are at a 140,000 year high, not a low.
The Mesozoic period is, of course, about 140 million to 240 million years ago. More commonly known as "the time of the dinosaurs". We didn't even exist as a species that long ago. Interesting enough there is some research, like this article that indicates high carbon dioxide levels may have ended the Mesozoic with a mass species extinction caused by global warming and CO2 levels. Additionally, there ar
Do you have any source for these claims?
Because as I understand it:
1) The estimated rise in temperatures is between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius.
2) In theory, Africa as whole would receive slightly more rain, but that the desificating effect of increased temperatures would counteract the increased rainfall and still result in the loss of 5% to 8% of arable land, that's estimates based on no human intervention. In reality desertification is already happening in Africa as ecological mismanagement and population pressures are contributing to the destruction of arable land.
3) In practice, Africa has received below average rainfall every year in the last three decades as compared to the century long average amount of rainfall. Sure, it might not be related to the rise in CO2 levels and global warming, but then what is driving a severe and protracted drop in rain fall.
4) The Trade Winds are not caused the Coriolis effect, they are deflected by it. They are formed by semi-permanent high pressure areas. There is a complex relationship between the trade winds and ocean currents. And there is reason to believe that warming of the ocean (and the loss of glacial mass at the North Pole) may affect the trade winds.
5) In fact, some scientists are claiming that global warming is already affecting the trade winds.
6) Humans do in fact have fundamental data on the subject of global warming and whether it's good or bad. What we are lacking is the detailed information on how exactly the effects will break down by country, by region, by person.
7) In this case change is actually bad. Why? Because it's going to cost a hell of a lot of money and probably cost a lot of lives to adjust to the changes. There is some suggestion that the genocides in the Africa may be related to global warming and the persistent drought conditions that have been afflicting it. There's no proof that global warming is causation because we don't have a spare planet to test our falsifiable theories on. Some of us will be better off after the changes, but on average I doubt the changes will outweigh the cost of those changes.
8) According to the temperature records that I could find, the current average annual temperature is higher than it has been in the last 2000 years, and is higher than the temperature average determined by averageing the predictors together for the last 14,000 years.
Now, the issue about C02 levels not rising seem disingenous, current carbon dioxide levels seem to be significantly higher than historical ones. Higher than the historical maxima, and they're still rising. They've rising about 25% in the last 30 years. That seems like a significant amount.
I'd like to see more specific reasons why Kyoto and greenhouse gas curbing iniative are "bad science" than the vague claims you are giving and a reference to a documentary that's not very well respected even by the people who are in it.
And you base that on what, exactly? Humanity has less than 30 years of atmospheric data, so I'm rather skeptical. Don't waste my time by bringing up ice core samples; there is no correlation of ice core samples to global temperature which is accurate to less than ten years, and if you actually bother looking at the ice core record, you'll notice that the correlation that we've seen for more than ten million years is actually holding exactly where we would expect for it to.
Well you've managed to convince me that you're completely wrong. That little tirade about ice cores proves you're either disingenous, stupid or both. Ice core samples don't have to be accurate to less than ten years, you use ice core samples to estimate atmsopheric readings beyond the years we have atmospheric readings for. You can claim that's not the most accurate way to measure it, but frankly it's the most accurate measure we have.According the information I've seen, for example This graph at wikipedia, it looks like CO2 levels are rising at rather dramatic rate. Of course, the scale looks overly dramatic because the scale on the right doesn't extend all the way down to 0. However, it looks like the CO2 levels have rising by almost 25% over the last 3 decades. That's a significant shift.
Also your claim that we have less than 30 years of atmospheric readings for CO2 seems very suspect, considering the chart I referenced above has over 40 years of atmospheric readings on it. So, are you just repeating verbatim the anti-global warming rhetoric from over a decade ago or what?
No, if it the screening audiences hate it, then they double the advertising budget.
That's a catch-22 that they have to recognize. The "loss" of $300 per console includeds the amortized cost of development and research over the predicted number of sales. Selling fewer consoles drives the per console loss up, while selling more drives the per console loss down. Also they can't make back much money in game sales if they don't sell enough consoles to support those sales. A price cut before the release of some spectacular games is pretty much required from Sony now if they want to stay competitive.
I'd expect Sony to split any manufacturing savings between cost reductions and price cuts. I don't know exactly how they'll split it, but I expect it to be closer to 50%-50% (retail to savings) then 25%-75%.
This is true. The article is particularly annoying because it confuses cause and effect on a fundamental level. Linux is as popular with businesses and geeks because we make an effort to make it work the way we want it to. Closed source operating systems are designed based firstly on what the company thinks is in it's own best interest (DRM bribes), secondly on what they think will sell (Plays DRM music), and lastly on what the company's user design comittee decides that users want. At Microsoft in particular, the third group has been historically weak. Since the demise of OS/2 until the recent rise of SuSE and Ubuntu there just hasn't really been any choice for end users in desktop O/S. They could run Linux, but they'd have to learn something to do so, so they haven't. This means users have received almost nothing that they've asked for.
It seems like an obvious PR move to throw the blame for Microsoft not listening back to the people who bought the O/S. In a way, it is their fault for overwhelmingly buying Windows over any other O/S and creating the monopoly in the first place, but it's a little disingenuous to claim it's because they weren't telling Microsoft what they wanted. The truth is, Microsoft didn't have to listen so they didn't.
It's simple. The summary is quite obviously from a microsoft apologist. The author's just trotting out the old fallacy that "things couldn't be any different then they are now". While it is true that there is more to security than avoid Microsoft, there are very legitimate reasons to gripe about Microsoft's security. They've been told repeatedly before they did stupid, stupid things that they were creating security holes and leaving their customers vulnerable. They didn't care and now everyone else has to clean up their mess.
They've earned their damnation as the weakest link of security and if you eliminate the weakest link, the entire chain becomes stronger.
I believe the opposite is true, that when does a fetus become "alive" is a scientific answer that just isn't either interesting or pressing to scientists. The answer is simple, when the fetal brain can maintain thought patterns.
An interesting fact to note is that if life begins a conception then more than 50% of the human population on this planet dies in the womb. As I understand it, a small majority of fertalized eggs never implant and are spontaneously aborted. That means heaven (or hell if you believe in baptism) is filled with the souls of babies who were never born. That just doesn't make sense.
The definition I'm giving is just common sense. Without a functional brain, the body is just an inanimate pile of meat.
I think it's majorly in response to MS-NBCs behaviour where they imposed draconian conditions on the usage of the last democratic candidates debate.
Also, you are no longer required to explicitly claim copyright in the United States, so even though a televised speech may not claim copyright status, it is still automatically granted.
As for why copyright it? Because whoever recorded it expects to make money off it one way or another.
I don't know if you want the long or the short answer, but the short one is:
If you wouldn't want your action to be applied to yourself, then it's a bad action.
The long answer is called ethics.
When did he act like an ass? That's easy, when he demanded money retroactively for his volunteer work, when he refused to cooperate with the people organizing the campaign he obstensibly supported and when he refused to turn the site over after acknowledging that he was neither willing nor capable of continuing to run the site. And most recently when he decided to make a big stink and post a "I'm so sorry for me" message on his blog about the whole situation.
Issues like this are rarely as one-sided as the people involved would have you believe.