My idea is for local storage, just like yours. The computer idea allows for remote access, though, which is why I think it's better for him than a non-computer solution.
> Although I suppose you could have a film camera in a
> device which would be ejected overboard and which would
> propel itself or hide for later pickup.
If you're going to do this, you'd be better off ejecting the traspassers overboard for later pickup.:D
> Life is short, don't waste time on religion. Instead of
> sitting in church on sunday, spend a couple hours thinking
> about being alive and what that means to you.
That's what sitting in church is for a lot of people, soldier. Geez, I'm and atheist, and I know this. Open your mind a little.
Agreed, but the advantage to the computer is that it can be hooked up to a phone (cell or otherwise, as is available to him) so that he can get the images without having to go to the boat. If the system is set up correctly, he can even have it email him images whenever it detects movement, so that if he notices anything he can call the police in short order instead of just trying to use the pictures as evidence afterward. It doesn't require 24/7 access to the 'Net, but it still works in real time. A film camera isn't as useful in this case.
Caution, Composer, or you run the risk of falling into the same hole as Bliss, to whom you replied. You're trying to apply the rules of knowledge workers to non-knowledge workers, which is as bad an idea as trying to apply the rules of non-knowledge workers to knowledge workers. These two sets don't play by the same rules at all. To take your points:
> 1. The majority of college sysadmins don't get paid
> shit compared to what they could make elsewhere, hence,
> one of the 'perks' for being ripped off is a
> 'relaxed' atmosphere.
You can't assume that all college admins are in these position by choice alone. Some are there due to inertia (which isn't in and of itself bad, but but can be), and some are there because they're either not smart enough or not motivated enough to "get out into the real world".
> 2. Capitalism isn't about working hard, it's about working smart.
This only applies to knowledge workers, Ace. Actually, capitalism is about both of these things, working hard where appropriate and working smart where appropriate. A ditch digger or dishwasher doesn't get paid for working smart, and there are very few situations where working four hours a day in such a job will make your employer satisfied, no matter how good you are at the job. This simple difference is why labor unions are necessary in some cases, and why as a general rule knowledge workers don't unionize. In the ditch digger's case, if the foreman says, "work for ten hours a day for the same pay, or I'll replace you with another ditch digger that will", the threat has teeth, because there are lots of well qualified ditch diggers out there. In the IT manager's case, the odds that they'll find someone who's just as qualified, but willing to work longer for less is much smaller, so they can't really do this lest all of their IT talent walks out the door.
So, while you're looking down your nose at union members and the "working class", remember that there are some very ambitious people in that class, and to deride them because they don't play by your rules of capitalism just shows your lack of understanding of how the two markets differ. If you spent a year as an auto worker or coal miner, I suspect your perspective would change, and your compassion would improve.
Defeating the local storage issue is as simple as physically securing the machine on which you're storing the pictures. The easy and obvious answer is to set up a computer and webcam, then secure the PC by locking it in a box, or bolting it down with lock bolts to prevent any thief from taking it. Make sure to secure the cam, too, if you can, to prevent its being stolen, too. Most thieves don't come prepared to destroy a metal box, and to defeat the system they'd have to unplug it before it captured the first shot. If you set the system up in the right place, that's not a problem. One of my co-workers has great luck with a regular old Pentium running Win95 and a program called SupervisionCam using a US$100.00 Kodak digital webcam (get on their web site and look at all of the offerings).
Actually, "amateur pr0n" is supposed to be amateur models, not amateur photographers. The amateur photos are usually labeled "boyfriend/girlfriend" photos, since that's usually who's in the picture. The Internet for the most part has destroyed the distinction, but the the pr0n connoisseur, there's a world of difference.
> Maybe your program won't mesh elegantly with their desktop
> environment choice, but it will be usable.
The problem lies in the fact that this elegant integration with the desktop is familiar to Windows people (it's one of the few things going for Windows), and so they often define usability by the integration level. We've lost real customers to this lack of seamlessness, so you must be aware of how much business you may lose by discounting it, and whether the lost customers justifies the extra effort to fit them both tightly. Since that's not an issue in WinWorld, the KDE vs. Gnome situation is a problem. I agree that it's not as big a problem as MS would have us believe, but it is a problem.
> But it isn't the bully's fault that the kid got in trouble.
So, are you saying he'd have said what he said if the bully (or bullies) weren't there? Does causing the action excuse it? If not, what excused the bully's actions? If nothing, why isn't the bully suffering some sort of punishment? To extend the example to the real world, if I harassed someone to the point where they punched me in the nose, in more than 20 states I could not charge them with assault because I incited it. Why does this not apply to Sean? Why should this not apply to him? More importantly, why does Sean's particular response warrant a worse punishment (expulsion and placement in an alternative school) than if he'd "snapped" by physically attacking the bully (suspension, according to the school's own policy)? Does this not seem perverse to you?
It always amazes me in discussions like this that people say, "it's the kid's fault!" or, "it's the parent's fault!" and none of you seems to consider that it might be the bully's fault.
> Having been in both homeschool and public school,
> my opinion is that the quality of education you get from
> homeschooling is superior to public education. You get
> the personal attention you need, whereas in a public
> school the teacher's attention is split bettween 30 or more
> students. Not to mention you don't have all the
classroom
> clowns trying to ruin everyone else's learning experience.
Two grammatical errors and a typo in three sentences, and you say your education was superior?!?;)
But seriously, the point I want to make is that being one of the class clowns, we (as a group) don't usually try to ruin the class learning experience, although we sometimes do. It was usually a result of the sort of things that you claim (rightly so) are advantages of homeschooling, like an individualized learning pace. That said, homeschooling can work for just about every child, but you should not forget that homeschooling sometimes does not work for every parent. There are some people that are good at teaching, and some that aren't, and having learned from both, I can say that having a bad teacher (even one with the best intentions and sincere effort) can be a real impediment. It's a point to consider when you're trying to make the decision.
You try to force a distinction between taking real property and intellectual property by pointing up the difference between "theft" and "piracy" and then saying that piracy isn't stealing because the original user still has the information. Are you really trying to say that the dilution of this information does not take value away from it? Take your example to a logical extreme. Let's say I don't make one copy of a CD, but 600,000. How does it look now? Will you stand behind the idea that the original owner hasn't lost anything if I give away all of those CDs?
The right to control distribution of information allows the creator to create a supply deficit of the information, thereby driving up its value and enabling him/her to derive a return from it. This was the original intent of copyright law to begin with. Unauthorized distribution of the information takes away this value, such that the owner can no longer profit from it. If you think that's not a tangible loss, then I ask you to explain how writers make a living. If you think taking that profit potential isn't stealing just because it's unrealized, then you're mistaken.
By the way, if you copy my answers on a test because you didn't want to study, you get a better grade than you otherwise could. Since most teachers grade on a curve, you're biasing the curve, and I don't get points on the test that I would have gotten if you had been honest. But, hey, piracy is different, after all, since you didn't take anything from me. At least, nothing tangible...
> So if I meet you in the street and you light my cigarette,
> I've stolen the fire from match manufacturers?
Of course not. But I may have, if I stole the matches. Please tell me you were only being facetious to choose such a bad example as to compare physical property to intellectual property.
> Go pick up a CD or a video. Find the "license",
> and tell me what the terms of the license are.
That's easy. It's the part that says, "Copyright 2000. This Album may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher" and "...for private, non-commercial use only" and such. You own the CD and the jewel case (or the video cassette/DVD), not the content. You would have every right to take that tape home and record videos of yourself dancing around your bedroom on it, if you wished. You can use the CD as a blade in your circular saw, if that's what floats your boat. But (and the courts back me up on this), you can't reproduce the content except as allowed by fair use under the law.
> There is a difference between an individual downloading
> a Brittney Spears song and a music pirate who
copies CDs/DVDs
> in bulk and sells them for profit. It has not been shown, and
> I do not believe that individuals downloading mp3s for their
> own use has harmed artists or the RIAA. First of all, it can
> not be proven that the individuals do not already have
> the cd or that they will not purchase the cd in the future.
> Secondly, and most importantly, it can not be proven that
> the individual would have ever bought the cd if the download
> wasn't available.
Sorry, but this argument kills itself. There are two stances when it comes to IP; that it's a real thing, or that it isn't. If you believe that IP is really property, then there is no difference between a person stealing one copy and a person stealing thousands of copies. If you think there is, try stealing only one CD from a record store, then tell the police, "I didn't steal every copy, so I didn't do anything wrong." Both your first and second points describe fair use, which only makes sense if you feel that IP is real property, so your argument dies.
> By confusing individuals with pirates, your helping
> spread RIAA/MPAA propaganda and contributing to their efforts
> to maintain their monopolies and in turn to harm consumers by
> charging artificially inflated prices.
Are you implying that individuals can't be pirates, or that pirates aren't individuals? Just because the RIAA charges artificially high prices does not make it any more right to steal from them. Again, this assumes that IP is real property, but if it isn't, it can't be stolen, so the term "pirate" is meaningless. The legal answer to overpricing is to buy elsewhere, or boycott. Neither of these is a good solution in the real world, which is why we have this mess in the first place, but those are your only legal options.
> Its sort of like the whole hacker/cracker debate.
Pardon me? No, it isn't. Hackers are those who jury-rig or recode stuff (the "Scottys" of the computer world) and crackers are people who break other people's systems or software for fun or profit. Pirates are just pirates.
> The bottom line is that the MPAA should not be going
> after individuals, the cost of doing so outweighs the
> benefits they receive from forcing that individual to
> buy a tape,cd,dvd or whatever.
Irrelevant. They can pursue anyone who steals their stuff, and if it costs them more than they get, then it's still their choice.
> I think they know this and are just trying to use intimidation
> to help maintain their monopoly. That's one of the reasons they're
> going after individuals, first, its much easier than tackling some
> overseas pirate operation and second, the profits they
> receive from being a monopoly are much greater than those they
> lose to pirates who are selling their movies/music.
If they feel that the deterrent effect is worth the cost, then that is also their right. Again, if you believe that IP is real property, then it's their real property, and the reason they enforce that property right is irrelevant to the discussion.
In a nutshell (I did promise that with my subject line), if IP is real property, then there's no difference between a person copying an MP3 of a song (that they don't own) and a pirate making thousands of copies, other than scale. They're both thieves. If IP isn't real property, then there's no difference between them other than scale, because neither is doing anything wrong. In either case, your argument needs rethinking.
I have to admit, "caveman" is appropriate nomenclature for your attitude about all of this. Let's address these points, shall we?
> You could say the same thing about street vendors
> giving out newspapers for free, when you can get them
> for free online, but then again, that would be ridiculous
> wouldn't it because of the cost to do so?
You are right in saying it's ridiculous, but it has nothing to do with cost. In your example, the vendor bought the papers from the publisher, and then sells them at a profit. If he chooses to give them away, the publisher won't care, because he already bought them. By the same token, the publisher assembles the web site with their own content, which they give away for free, assumably in the hopes that visitors will earn them ad revenue or whatever else they do to turn a profit. To match your (and the parent article's) example, this street vendor would have to steal the papers off of the loading dock of the publisher, then give them away. Or, in the case of first purchase, buy one paper, and run off a photocopy for anyone who wants one for free. There are few besides you who wouldn't think that was wrong.
> The fact remains, you would have to supply all the
> CD-R burners, buy all of the hundreds (thousands even)
> of records, then give up your entire day to give it all
> away for free.
See above. Just because I'm paying for the toner in the photocopier and that first paper doesn't make it right. I have a right to give away my time and materials, but no such right to give away their content.
> If the artists don't want there music to be copied,
> why not just do shows only? Oh yeah, they can't reach as
> many people.
Completely irrelevant to the question of right versus wrong. To say that the artist has to tolerate stealing to get wider exposure is realistic to the real world, but only because thieves like yourself think that access to the information gives you some default right to do anything you like with it. It's stealing. It's stealing. It's stealing. All of the discussions you want to make about the ease of distribution via the Internet don't change this.
I find that most IP laws are heavily biased toward the content holder, and the whole thing is in sore need of review and change, but giving away something you didn't create just because you can is still wrong.
Buffoon. John Dvorak is usually a wise voice in the world of computing and technology. I don't know why he dropped the ball on this one, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, because he's been right on the money so often before.
> If the television stations are receiving their funding
> to broadcast through commercials, then why do we have to pay the
> cable companies?
To send you the signal, of course. Unless you get only local channels through your cable, you're paying them to get the signal to you. If you are only getting local channels, I have two words for you: television antenna.
> people tell me that the chinese are strict about what
> one can post on bulletin boards, etc. but can anyone stop the
> chinese people from posting on a US BBS?
Yes, they can. The signal has to leave China at some point to get to the U.S., and since the Chinese government controls the pipes out of the country, they could theoretically monitor anything that wasn't encrypted. What's more, if it is encrypted, they still know where (in China) the request came from, and so (again, in theory; I don't know if it's really done or not) they could just go to the person responsible and ask him what was in the message.
> re: your comments on gun-control and Australia's
> doctored crime rates - doctored or not, I can't
think
> of a single school in Australia that has a metal detector.
> Yep, that's right - not one.
Although I agree with the first part of your post, this comment comes from left field. Countries with lower crime rates than the U.S. (like Sweden) don't have them, and countries with higher crime rates (like Mexico) don't have them, and the school crime rate (or rather, the rate of decline in school crime rate) did not significantly change with the proliferation of metal detectors in schools. So, since they don't seem to have any effect on crime rates, and they don't seem to have any effect on the rate of change of crime rates, how do they apply to gun control in Australia? The answer is that they don't.
I leave the more obvious question of "since they don't seem to have any effect on crime rates, and they don't seem to have any effect on the rate of change of crime rates, why do we bother?" to others.
> Yeah, that would have worked, like, so much better than newspapers!!
It would, and it does. Newspapers require physical presence. You can't deliver a newspaper to someone without somebody handing it to them. Since Hitler's folks tended to kill dissenters, this made the job of delivery boy very hazardous. The Internet requires no such contact. You can host a site from Canada or the Philippines, and not be at risk for bullet or truncheon poisoning.
> The coast guard (plus a whole lotta other 3 letter
> agencies are also supposed to block other things,
> like drugs.
Fissive material is a little harder to move around than drugs, because drugs don't usually require shielding, nor do they tend to kill living things that get too close, nor do they mess up electronic devices in quite the same way. On the other hand, moving a pre-assembled bomb is even harder, since for the most part you'd need a crane to move it around.
> It doesn't *need* to cause alot of damage, or even
> successfully blow up. In a least case scenario,
> you have an area that is covered with
> fissionable material in an urban setting...
I have to argue that point. Since the original example puts the bomb on a tugboat off the coast of Long Island, if the bomb fails to explode, the radioactive material won't even reach the shoreline. The detonator has the explosive force of a six-pack of dynamite, which is sufficient to core out the boat, but won't throw material at all, since the force of the explosion is directed inward, to force the uranium together and thereby achieve critical density for the reaction. If it fails, the ball sinks to the bottom of the East River, from there to get swept out to sea. New Jersey would have more mutant sea life to contend with, but who would notice (grin)?
Slashdot Mirror
> Yes, I know the advantages of remote storage.
:D
My idea is for local storage, just like yours. The computer idea allows for remote access, though, which is why I think it's better for him than a non-computer solution.
> Although I suppose you could have a film camera in a
> device which would be ejected overboard and which would
> propel itself or hide for later pickup.
If you're going to do this, you'd be better off ejecting the traspassers overboard for later pickup.
Virg
> Life is short, don't waste time on religion. Instead of
> sitting in church on sunday, spend a couple hours thinking
> about being alive and what that means to you.
That's what sitting in church is for a lot of people, soldier. Geez, I'm and atheist, and I know this. Open your mind a little.
Virg
Agreed, but the advantage to the computer is that it can be hooked up to a phone (cell or otherwise, as is available to him) so that he can get the images without having to go to the boat. If the system is set up correctly, he can even have it email him images whenever it detects movement, so that if he notices anything he can call the police in short order instead of just trying to use the pictures as evidence afterward. It doesn't require 24/7 access to the 'Net, but it still works in real time. A film camera isn't as useful in this case.
Virg
Caution, Composer, or you run the risk of falling into the same hole as Bliss, to whom you replied. You're trying to apply the rules of knowledge workers to non-knowledge workers, which is as bad an idea as trying to apply the rules of non-knowledge workers to knowledge workers. These two sets don't play by the same rules at all. To take your points:
> 1. The majority of college sysadmins don't get paid
> shit compared to what they could make elsewhere, hence,
> one of the 'perks' for being ripped off is a
> 'relaxed' atmosphere.
You can't assume that all college admins are in these position by choice alone. Some are there due to inertia (which isn't in and of itself bad, but but can be), and some are there because they're either not smart enough or not motivated enough to "get out into the real world".
> 2. Capitalism isn't about working hard, it's about working smart.
This only applies to knowledge workers, Ace. Actually, capitalism is about both of these things, working hard where appropriate and working smart where appropriate. A ditch digger or dishwasher doesn't get paid for working smart, and there are very few situations where working four hours a day in such a job will make your employer satisfied, no matter how good you are at the job. This simple difference is why labor unions are necessary in some cases, and why as a general rule knowledge workers don't unionize. In the ditch digger's case, if the foreman says, "work for ten hours a day for the same pay, or I'll replace you with another ditch digger that will", the threat has teeth, because there are lots of well qualified ditch diggers out there. In the IT manager's case, the odds that they'll find someone who's just as qualified, but willing to work longer for less is much smaller, so they can't really do this lest all of their IT talent walks out the door.
So, while you're looking down your nose at union members and the "working class", remember that there are some very ambitious people in that class, and to deride them because they don't play by your rules of capitalism just shows your lack of understanding of how the two markets differ. If you spent a year as an auto worker or coal miner, I suspect your perspective would change, and your compassion would improve.
Virg
Defeating the local storage issue is as simple as physically securing the machine on which you're storing the pictures. The easy and obvious answer is to set up a computer and webcam, then secure the PC by locking it in a box, or bolting it down with lock bolts to prevent any thief from taking it. Make sure to secure the cam, too, if you can, to prevent its being stolen, too. Most thieves don't come prepared to destroy a metal box, and to defeat the system they'd have to unplug it before it captured the first shot. If you set the system up in the right place, that's not a problem. One of my co-workers has great luck with a regular old Pentium running Win95 and a program called SupervisionCam using a US$100.00 Kodak digital webcam (get on their web site and look at all of the offerings).
Virg
Actually, "amateur pr0n" is supposed to be amateur models, not amateur photographers. The amateur photos are usually labeled "boyfriend/girlfriend" photos, since that's usually who's in the picture. The Internet for the most part has destroyed the distinction, but the the pr0n connoisseur, there's a world of difference.
Virg
> Maybe your program won't mesh elegantly with their desktop
> environment choice, but it will be usable.
The problem lies in the fact that this elegant integration with the desktop is familiar to Windows people (it's one of the few things going for Windows), and so they often define usability by the integration level. We've lost real customers to this lack of seamlessness, so you must be aware of how much business you may lose by discounting it, and whether the lost customers justifies the extra effort to fit them both tightly. Since that's not an issue in WinWorld, the KDE vs. Gnome situation is a problem. I agree that it's not as big a problem as MS would have us believe, but it is a problem.
Virg
> But it isn't the bully's fault that the kid got in trouble.
So, are you saying he'd have said what he said if the bully (or bullies) weren't there? Does causing the action excuse it? If not, what excused the bully's actions? If nothing, why isn't the bully suffering some sort of punishment? To extend the example to the real world, if I harassed someone to the point where they punched me in the nose, in more than 20 states I could not charge them with assault because I incited it. Why does this not apply to Sean? Why should this not apply to him? More importantly, why does Sean's particular response warrant a worse punishment (expulsion and placement in an alternative school) than if he'd "snapped" by physically attacking the bully (suspension, according to the school's own policy)? Does this not seem perverse to you?
Virg
It always amazes me in discussions like this that people say, "it's the kid's fault!" or, "it's the parent's fault!" and none of you seems to consider that it might be the bully's fault.
Ponder on that for a while.
Virg
> I hate Alexandria. I hate the Midwest, actually.
> Please tell me it's better somewhere else...
Well, I've lived in Kansas myself. I can tell you, it's better everywhere else.
Virg
> Having been in both homeschool and public school,
;)
> my opinion is that the quality of education you get from
> homeschooling is superior to public education. You get
> the personal attention you need, whereas in a public
> school the teacher's attention is split bettween 30 or more
> students. Not to mention you don't have all the classroom
> clowns trying to ruin everyone else's learning experience.
Two grammatical errors and a typo in three sentences, and you say your education was superior?!?
But seriously, the point I want to make is that being one of the class clowns, we (as a group) don't usually try to ruin the class learning experience, although we sometimes do. It was usually a result of the sort of things that you claim (rightly so) are advantages of homeschooling, like an individualized learning pace. That said, homeschooling can work for just about every child, but you should not forget that homeschooling sometimes does not work for every parent. There are some people that are good at teaching, and some that aren't, and having learned from both, I can say that having a bad teacher (even one with the best intentions and sincere effort) can be a real impediment. It's a point to consider when you're trying to make the decision.
Virg
> You said:
"...and the music and movie owners licence movies, they don't sell them."
A minor point, but I didn't say that. I wasn't the author of the grandparent to my post.
Virg
You try to force a distinction between taking real property and intellectual property by pointing up the difference between "theft" and "piracy" and then saying that piracy isn't stealing because the original user still has the information. Are you really trying to say that the dilution of this information does not take value away from it? Take your example to a logical extreme. Let's say I don't make one copy of a CD, but 600,000. How does it look now? Will you stand behind the idea that the original owner hasn't lost anything if I give away all of those CDs?
The right to control distribution of information allows the creator to create a supply deficit of the information, thereby driving up its value and enabling him/her to derive a return from it. This was the original intent of copyright law to begin with. Unauthorized distribution of the information takes away this value, such that the owner can no longer profit from it. If you think that's not a tangible loss, then I ask you to explain how writers make a living. If you think taking that profit potential isn't stealing just because it's unrealized, then you're mistaken.
By the way, if you copy my answers on a test because you didn't want to study, you get a better grade than you otherwise could. Since most teachers grade on a curve, you're biasing the curve, and I don't get points on the test that I would have gotten if you had been honest. But, hey, piracy is different, after all, since you didn't take anything from me. At least, nothing tangible...
Virg
> So if I meet you in the street and you light my cigarette,
> I've stolen the fire from match manufacturers?
Of course not. But I may have, if I stole the matches. Please tell me you were only being facetious to choose such a bad example as to compare physical property to intellectual property.
Virg
> Go pick up a CD or a video. Find the "license",
> and tell me what the terms of the license are.
That's easy. It's the part that says, "Copyright 2000. This Album may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher" and "...for private, non-commercial use only" and such. You own the CD and the jewel case (or the video cassette/DVD), not the content. You would have every right to take that tape home and record videos of yourself dancing around your bedroom on it, if you wished. You can use the CD as a blade in your circular saw, if that's what floats your boat. But (and the courts back me up on this), you can't reproduce the content except as allowed by fair use under the law.
Virg
> There is a difference between an individual downloading
> a Brittney Spears song and a music pirate who copies CDs/DVDs
> in bulk and sells them for profit. It has not been shown, and
> I do not believe that individuals downloading mp3s for their
> own use has harmed artists or the RIAA. First of all, it can
> not be proven that the individuals do not already have
> the cd or that they will not purchase the cd in the future.
> Secondly, and most importantly, it can not be proven that
> the individual would have ever bought the cd if the download
> wasn't available.
Sorry, but this argument kills itself. There are two stances when it comes to IP; that it's a real thing, or that it isn't. If you believe that IP is really property, then there is no difference between a person stealing one copy and a person stealing thousands of copies. If you think there is, try stealing only one CD from a record store, then tell the police, "I didn't steal every copy, so I didn't do anything wrong." Both your first and second points describe fair use, which only makes sense if you feel that IP is real property, so your argument dies.
> By confusing individuals with pirates, your helping
> spread RIAA/MPAA propaganda and contributing to their efforts
> to maintain their monopolies and in turn to harm consumers by
> charging artificially inflated prices.
Are you implying that individuals can't be pirates, or that pirates aren't individuals? Just because the RIAA charges artificially high prices does not make it any more right to steal from them. Again, this assumes that IP is real property, but if it isn't, it can't be stolen, so the term "pirate" is meaningless. The legal answer to overpricing is to buy elsewhere, or boycott. Neither of these is a good solution in the real world, which is why we have this mess in the first place, but those are your only legal options.
> Its sort of like the whole hacker/cracker debate.
Pardon me? No, it isn't. Hackers are those who jury-rig or recode stuff (the "Scottys" of the computer world) and crackers are people who break other people's systems or software for fun or profit. Pirates are just pirates.
> The bottom line is that the MPAA should not be going
> after individuals, the cost of doing so outweighs the
> benefits they receive from forcing that individual to
> buy a tape,cd,dvd or whatever.
Irrelevant. They can pursue anyone who steals their stuff, and if it costs them more than they get, then it's still their choice.
> I think they know this and are just trying to use intimidation
> to help maintain their monopoly. That's one of the reasons they're
> going after individuals, first, its much easier than tackling some
> overseas pirate operation and second, the profits they
> receive from being a monopoly are much greater than those they
> lose to pirates who are selling their movies/music.
If they feel that the deterrent effect is worth the cost, then that is also their right. Again, if you believe that IP is real property, then it's their real property, and the reason they enforce that property right is irrelevant to the discussion.
In a nutshell (I did promise that with my subject line), if IP is real property, then there's no difference between a person copying an MP3 of a song (that they don't own) and a pirate making thousands of copies, other than scale. They're both thieves. If IP isn't real property, then there's no difference between them other than scale, because neither is doing anything wrong. In either case, your argument needs rethinking.
Virg
I have to admit, "caveman" is appropriate nomenclature for your attitude about all of this. Let's address these points, shall we?
> You could say the same thing about street vendors
> giving out newspapers for free, when you can get them
> for free online, but then again, that would be ridiculous
> wouldn't it because of the cost to do so?
You are right in saying it's ridiculous, but it has nothing to do with cost. In your example, the vendor bought the papers from the publisher, and then sells them at a profit. If he chooses to give them away, the publisher won't care, because he already bought them. By the same token, the publisher assembles the web site with their own content, which they give away for free, assumably in the hopes that visitors will earn them ad revenue or whatever else they do to turn a profit. To match your (and the parent article's) example, this street vendor would have to steal the papers off of the loading dock of the publisher, then give them away. Or, in the case of first purchase, buy one paper, and run off a photocopy for anyone who wants one for free. There are few besides you who wouldn't think that was wrong.
> The fact remains, you would have to supply all the
> CD-R burners, buy all of the hundreds (thousands even)
> of records, then give up your entire day to give it all
> away for free.
See above. Just because I'm paying for the toner in the photocopier and that first paper doesn't make it right. I have a right to give away my time and materials, but no such right to give away their content.
> If the artists don't want there music to be copied,
> why not just do shows only? Oh yeah, they can't reach as
> many people.
Completely irrelevant to the question of right versus wrong. To say that the artist has to tolerate stealing to get wider exposure is realistic to the real world, but only because thieves like yourself think that access to the information gives you some default right to do anything you like with it. It's stealing. It's stealing. It's stealing. All of the discussions you want to make about the ease of distribution via the Internet don't change this.
I find that most IP laws are heavily biased toward the content holder, and the whole thing is in sore need of review and change, but giving away something you didn't create just because you can is still wrong.
Virg
Big woman, nitwit.
Virg
Buffoon. John Dvorak is usually a wise voice in the world of computing and technology. I don't know why he dropped the ball on this one, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, because he's been right on the money so often before.
Virg
> If the television stations are receiving their funding
> to broadcast through commercials, then why do we have to pay the
> cable companies?
To send you the signal, of course. Unless you get only local channels through your cable, you're paying them to get the signal to you. If you are only getting local channels, I have two words for you: television antenna.
Virg
> people tell me that the chinese are strict about what
> one can post on bulletin boards, etc. but can anyone stop the
> chinese people from posting on a US BBS?
Yes, they can. The signal has to leave China at some point to get to the U.S., and since the Chinese government controls the pipes out of the country, they could theoretically monitor anything that wasn't encrypted. What's more, if it is encrypted, they still know where (in China) the request came from, and so (again, in theory; I don't know if it's really done or not) they could just go to the person responsible and ask him what was in the message.
Virg
> re: your comments on gun-control and Australia's
> doctored crime rates - doctored or not, I can't think
> of a single school in Australia that has a metal detector.
> Yep, that's right - not one.
Although I agree with the first part of your post, this comment comes from left field. Countries with lower crime rates than the U.S. (like Sweden) don't have them, and countries with higher crime rates (like Mexico) don't have them, and the school crime rate (or rather, the rate of decline in school crime rate) did not significantly change with the proliferation of metal detectors in schools. So, since they don't seem to have any effect on crime rates, and they don't seem to have any effect on the rate of change of crime rates, how do they apply to gun control in Australia? The answer is that they don't.
I leave the more obvious question of "since they don't seem to have any effect on crime rates, and they don't seem to have any effect on the rate of change of crime rates, why do we bother?" to others.
Virg
There are some discussions in which bringing up Hitler is appropriate. The use of a propaganda engine is most certainly one of them.
Virg
> Yeah, that would have worked, like, so much better than newspapers!!
It would, and it does. Newspapers require physical presence. You can't deliver a newspaper to someone without somebody handing it to them. Since Hitler's folks tended to kill dissenters, this made the job of delivery boy very hazardous. The Internet requires no such contact. You can host a site from Canada or the Philippines, and not be at risk for bullet or truncheon poisoning.
Virg
In response to your response:
> The coast guard (plus a whole lotta other 3 letter
> agencies are also supposed to block other things,
> like drugs.
Fissive material is a little harder to move around than drugs, because drugs don't usually require shielding, nor do they tend to kill living things that get too close, nor do they mess up electronic devices in quite the same way. On the other hand, moving a pre-assembled bomb is even harder, since for the most part you'd need a crane to move it around.
> It doesn't *need* to cause alot of damage, or even
> successfully blow up. In a least case scenario,
> you have an area that is covered with
> fissionable material in an urban setting...
I have to argue that point. Since the original example puts the bomb on a tugboat off the coast of Long Island, if the bomb fails to explode, the radioactive material won't even reach the shoreline. The detonator has the explosive force of a six-pack of dynamite, which is sufficient to core out the boat, but won't throw material at all, since the force of the explosion is directed inward, to force the uranium together and thereby achieve critical density for the reaction. If it fails, the ball sinks to the bottom of the East River, from there to get swept out to sea. New Jersey would have more mutant sea life to contend with, but who would notice (grin)?
Virg