In the end Jefferson supported both patents AND copyrights. Contrary to what "gimme something for nothing" people such as yourself want to think, Copyrights and Patents were created to ENCOURAGE the sharing of ideas.
No argument there -- copyrights and patents were meant to increase the sharing of ideas. The thinking was: if you got exclusive rights to an invention for a limited period of time, you'll be more likely to share it without worry that you won't profit from it. The problem is that this is now being used as an excuse to own ideas permanently. Want to read a book? Pay a publishing company, because they "own" the words. Not the author, but some corporation! A book is permanent property. Want to use a fairly obvious feature for your web site, like updating software over the web? Sorry, you can't, because some company "owns" the idea.
I'll say it one more time: I can't speak for any of the other posters here, but I am not a "gimme stuff for free" person. This issue has nothing to do with what I want for myself or for society; it's about the direct effect technology has on media. The fact is that when technology makes mass copying and perfect reproduction natural and reflexive, then trying to suppress that is pointless. You can do it for a while, but 20 years from now, we will laugh at the idea that you can maintain artificial scarcity.
The idea is not that artists and writers shouldn't make money, or that everything should be free. Technology always brings changes, usually large ones. This is a good example of that. The way people make money is going to change. We can fight it -- and we probably will -- and then eventually lose, or we can try and surf its waves rather than quell them.
Do you really think James Cameron would spend $200 million on another movie if everyone was just going to copy it?
Actually, I think he would. People will go to the theaters for the same reason they might go to see Hole, even though they can get the music for free. Seeing something in an audience is a unique experience. I could've gotten a copy of Planet of the Apes via the net, without a lot of trouble. But I didn't bother, because I wanted a crowd around me, a gigantic screen with better sound than I can afford, and good popcorn. I don't see that changing, unless we all start running our own private theaters and inviting 200 of our closest friends over for screenings.
If I writer can write a book, make $10 or so off it, and have everyone just give a copy away, why would he?
Hmm -- perhaps you should ask Moses, Plato, Socrates, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Emily Dickenson, Sappho, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, et al.
The thing all you "everything should be free" people don't seem to understand is that it takes an investment to create something
This isn't about what "should be", not at all. It's about what is. Artificial scarcity does not work. Don't want to believe me? Here's Jefferson:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
In the instance of publishing, people do not buy books they buy the pages and the right to read the thoughts conveyed through the ink.
You know why? Because you can't own a thought. You cannot "own" a book -- not even the author can. Those who set up copyright law -- the founding fathers of the US -- knew this, and wrote about it. They specifically set up copyright so that you, the original author, could have a sort of fake ownership for a limited time, in order to encourage authorship.
It was never intended for this -- it was intended to thwart things like big corporations owning ideas. Unfortunately, money buys law these days, even if the laws are clearly unconstitutional.
Maybe so, but if the founding fathers knew about high-tech zoom lens, and various other tools Paparazzi and General Press use they might have re-considered freedom of the press
That's a truly frightening thing you're saying, there. I hope you reconsider it. Freedom always has a price, and if that includes irritated celebrities, so be it. I'd rather be bothered and free than oppressed and "happy". Just ask Winston Smith.
200 years of people being able to support themselves solely as a writer or a musician we no longer have the liberty to change things
We aren't changing anything; the technology comes into existence, and its existence forces a rewriting of the rules. It's like suggesting that after hundreds of years of being able to make a living as a horse-care professional, the auto makes horses obsolete, but since that's not fair to the horse guys, we should all have to pay taxes to support them. Or we should all have to buy horses.
Nonsense. And by the way, people made money being musicians and writers long before copyright law -- even before recording and book-printing. It's how they make money that will change.
Can you honestly tell me that these people should have to earn less than their full potential and perform a job they hate because you DESERVE a free book?
Hmm -- see, there's no such thing as a free book. A person who writes a book culls reams of ideas and information from all of us. Yes, they put their own spins, their own observations on this, but no man is an island, and information does not live in a vacuum.
In truth, it's not a matter of whether anyone deserves "a free book." You cannot own your ideas; once they leave your brain, they're already free. What modicum of existence they have is not scarce.
Let me ask you this: if you write a book, and I commit it to memory, do you own the part of my brain that knows your book? Your ideas, for that matter, which you also claim to own? Isn't that slavery? Is it really worth it to get anywhere near that kind of situation, just so we can keep things the way they were 100 years ago? Has it occurred to you that if the ability to rampantly copy had existed 200 years ago, The Publishing Industry wouldn't have existed at all? Why is this a holy grail, anyway? What are we really protecting?
And btw, if the majority of people don't agree with me, why is this Idea Industry having such trouble with people constantly copying and giving away music, articles, and other Intellectual Property? Maybe they're a silent majority, instead.
Tomas Jefferson would just be smart enough to BUY the book as opposed to RENTING it
But what if Jefferson knew of a technology that naturally let a book be copied so quickly and easily that buying or renting would be obsolete? What would he say then?
We can only speculate, but if you read what he had to say on the subject of copyright and patent, it's easy to see that he'd say that the day of "purchased content" is over.
Somehow figure out how to read the content that I "purchased"? Hmmm. Does that mean that I should go back to the Hertz lot, find the car that I rented, then "somehow" find a way to drive it for a few more days?
You're mixing metaphors. "Content" is not anything like a car. "Content" means an expressed idea. What these people are trying to say is that the law allows them to "own" an idea, or at least the expression of an idea, as if it was a car.
That's silly, and all of us know it. Even the founding fathers of the US spoke directly to this point, saying that it's ridiculous and basically impossible to try and treat the intangible as if it was tangible.
If it is by nature infinitely plentiful, then trying to create an artificial scarcity is futile at best, and totalitarian at worst. (And unfortunately, these days we're leaning toward the totalitarian part.)
This is the thing I've never understood: reading the copyright law, I remember that it specifically says that making copies of a copyrighted work is allowed for educational purposes.
Why would that part of the law not apply here? Schools should not have to pay for more than one copy of software, and should be able to copy it for educational use, at will.
Of course, they'd all be better off using free software anyway, although we could do them a favor and learn that an interface means more than pretty pictures. But that's not the point.:)
Playing catch-up doesn't help set standards or even acquire market share
You're right. What I'm imagining is similar to what happened when the IBM PC BIOS was reverse-engineered: once we have very good compatibility, we can set the new standard. People (avg office-worker people) are sick of Word's Feature-itis anyway, and wouldn't it be compelling for a company to get to stop paying for Office entirely -- and just use, oh, AbiWord? Fast, efficient, does what you want it to, compatible with the Word everyone uses (95, 97), and free.
Not to mention: I really have doubts about companies wanting to store their documents on Microsoft servers across the internet, which is what MS is apparently planning.
Side note: never thought about this before, but just imagine: with the DMCA, reverse-engineering the IBM BIOS would be illegal, wouldn't it? No PC clones! I have to admit, sometimes I'm only inches from becoming a Libertarian.
why don't you just get off your ass and write what you want yourself
Who's bitching? I'm not saying worthy stuff isn't out there. My point is that with the right priorities, we can take microsoft out, or really weaken it. The problem is that you just read what you wanted to read.
And hell, if I wasn't so busy trying to feed myself, I probably would take it upon myself to write good filters for an office suite, develop a browser that's better than IE, and rework Gnome until it had an actual interface, instead of a group of pretty pictures.
Until I have that kind of time, constructive criticism never hurt anyone. Self-righteousness, however, just might.:)
I hate to inform you of this, but you are wrong..NET is an application framework
That's why I started with "If I understand correctly." But you're splitting hairs; the point is that it is Microsoft's intent to make most of its money using.NET to make subscription-based software.
there is an OSS browser that works very nicely and is the best that's out there right now (I starting using it probably before 95% of the/. crowd did) -- Konqueror from KDE
Hmm. I've tried it, and it just doesn't do even basic HTML correctly, muchless Flash or Java. I'm talking about a recent version (shipped with Mandrake 8.0), too. Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like an alpha to me.
Oh, I agree. They aren't guaranteed a win here, if we fight hard enough.
For instance: ".NET". If I understand correctly, this is a software subscription service.
Problem:
the only user-level software MS makes that anyone really wants to use is Office
no one really needs to upgrade to newer versions of Office. Most businesses, large and small, are still using Office 95 or 97.
Once it costs them more to use -- as in, you have to continue to pay -- then they'll stick with 95 or 97 forever until someone writes something that's truly compatible with the file format.
Then, fork. Remember IBM's MCA? And what the industry did instead (invent its own Buss)?
What we really need here is:
one of these desktop projects (Gnome, KDE, Ximian, whatever) to get a clue and learn enough about what interface means to really produce a useable Linux desktop (for the masses)
one of the free Office suites (Abiword + Gnumeric, KOffice, I don't care) to get off its ass and work diligently on complete import and export compatibility with MS Office
a modern browser that actually worked (with Flash and Java) would be nice
Give a company the option of using that stuff for free, or.NET for big $$$, and guess what it'll choose?
They're not breaking the law. The copyright law says that an artist -- not a corporation who bought "rights" -- can receive limited protection for a limited amount of time. That limited time was short, like 7 years, not life of the author + 70 years.
I have to agree: the diaRIAA can try to sue ISPs (who are protected from responsibility for their users' actions by the DMCA, btw), and users, but there are 5 billion of us, and they can't sue us all.
As Princess Leia once said, the more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.
using the terms "brat", "idiots", "really slow", and using all caps are all extrememly rude
He's just a troll.
I agree copying copywritten works is illegal, and and not a right
Hmm, the Constitution of the US begs to differ. Copyright was meant to protect creative works for a limited time in order to encourage artists to create. Nowhere does it say or imply that copyright is meant as a tool so that corporations can "own" creative works, for extended periods.
You cannot own ideas, even if you think you invent them.
> Above.Net's network is, well, Above.Net's
> network. They are free to run their network as
> they see fit. Free to make bad desicions as
> well as good. If you dont like it, go elsewere.
> it is monumentally disrespectful to copy
> someone's work without just compensation
Think about how often you repeat someone else's words, use someone else's ideas, improve someone else's ideas, ad infinitum. If we're going to try and make property out of ideas, then we're going to bring human progress to a halt.
Bottom line: musicians will find a different way to make money; they always have. But ideas -- expressed as songs or as words -- cannot be property, and attempts to shoehorn them into becoming property will ultimately fail.
I think the analogy stands - in both cases, one is using a product for which the creator is not being compensated. Stealing is easily justified to oneself - but, as I'm seeing in this thread, very difficult to justify to others.
Huh? How is copying songs stealing? Stealing means, by definition, taking something away from someone else (when he doesn't want you to).
Making a perfect copy of something is not stealing -- the "owner" hasn't lost his original.
Really, don't get sucked into RIAA-think. Words like "pirating" and "stealing" -- they really don't mean anything when you're talking about copying something. It's just PR people dreaming.
I'm surprised they haven't tried this already. They could try to litigate Linux out of existence -- which would *really* create an us-vs-them rogue underground, straight out of science fiction.
Can you imagine? You seem to be leading two lives. In one, you write code for a "respectable" software company and help your landlady take out her garbage. In the other, you secretly help write illegal code using "patented" ideas. You're working on a non-sanctioned OS, and the Thought Police (lawyers, law enforcement, and mighty patent-owning corporations) are only one step behind you.
Slashdot Mirror
FIRST POST
In the end Jefferson supported both patents AND copyrights. Contrary to what "gimme something for nothing" people such as yourself want to think, Copyrights and Patents were created to ENCOURAGE the sharing of ideas.
No argument there -- copyrights and patents were meant to increase the sharing of ideas. The thinking was: if you got exclusive rights to an invention for a limited period of time, you'll be more likely to share it without worry that you won't profit from it. The problem is that this is now being used as an excuse to own ideas permanently. Want to read a book? Pay a publishing company, because they "own" the words. Not the author, but some corporation! A book is permanent property. Want to use a fairly obvious feature for your web site, like updating software over the web? Sorry, you can't, because some company "owns" the idea.
I'll say it one more time: I can't speak for any of the other posters here, but I am not a "gimme stuff for free" person. This issue has nothing to do with what I want for myself or for society; it's about the direct effect technology has on media. The fact is that when technology makes mass copying and perfect reproduction natural and reflexive, then trying to suppress that is pointless. You can do it for a while, but 20 years from now, we will laugh at the idea that you can maintain artificial scarcity.
The idea is not that artists and writers shouldn't make money, or that everything should be free. Technology always brings changes, usually large ones. This is a good example of that. The way people make money is going to change. We can fight it -- and we probably will -- and then eventually lose, or we can try and surf its waves rather than quell them.
Do you really think James Cameron would spend $200 million on another movie if everyone was just going to copy it?
Actually, I think he would. People will go to the theaters for the same reason they might go to see Hole, even though they can get the music for free. Seeing something in an audience is a unique experience. I could've gotten a copy of Planet of the Apes via the net, without a lot of trouble. But I didn't bother, because I wanted a crowd around me, a gigantic screen with better sound than I can afford, and good popcorn. I don't see that changing, unless we all start running our own private theaters and inviting 200 of our closest friends over for screenings.
If I writer can write a book, make $10 or so off it, and have everyone just give a copy away, why would he?
Hmm -- perhaps you should ask Moses, Plato, Socrates, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Emily Dickenson, Sappho, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, et al.
The thing all you "everything should be free" people don't seem to understand is that it takes an investment to create something
This isn't about what "should be", not at all. It's about what is. Artificial scarcity does not work. Don't want to believe me? Here's Jefferson:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
If you want a more modern take on the subject, try Jaron Lanier's essay on what is likely to happen when the government/courts attempt to permanently maintain the artificial scarcity.
You can't own what doesn't exist, son. It's fake property.
In the instance of publishing, people do not buy books they buy the pages and the right to read the thoughts conveyed through the ink.
You know why? Because you can't own a thought. You cannot "own" a book -- not even the author can. Those who set up copyright law -- the founding fathers of the US -- knew this, and wrote about it. They specifically set up copyright so that you, the original author, could have a sort of fake ownership for a limited time, in order to encourage authorship.
It was never intended for this -- it was intended to thwart things like big corporations owning ideas. Unfortunately, money buys law these days, even if the laws are clearly unconstitutional.
Maybe so, but if the founding fathers knew about high-tech zoom lens, and various other tools Paparazzi and General Press use they might have re-considered freedom of the press
That's a truly frightening thing you're saying, there. I hope you reconsider it. Freedom always has a price, and if that includes irritated celebrities, so be it. I'd rather be bothered and free than oppressed and "happy". Just ask Winston Smith.
200 years of people being able to support themselves solely as a writer or a musician we no longer have the liberty to change things
We aren't changing anything; the technology comes into existence, and its existence forces a rewriting of the rules. It's like suggesting that after hundreds of years of being able to make a living as a horse-care professional, the auto makes horses obsolete, but since that's not fair to the horse guys, we should all have to pay taxes to support them. Or we should all have to buy horses.
Nonsense. And by the way, people made money being musicians and writers long before copyright law -- even before recording and book-printing. It's how they make money that will change.
Can you honestly tell me that these people should have to earn less than their full potential and perform a job they hate because you DESERVE a free book?
Hmm -- see, there's no such thing as a free book. A person who writes a book culls reams of ideas and information from all of us. Yes, they put their own spins, their own observations on this, but no man is an island, and information does not live in a vacuum.
In truth, it's not a matter of whether anyone deserves "a free book." You cannot own your ideas; once they leave your brain, they're already free. What modicum of existence they have is not scarce.
Let me ask you this: if you write a book, and I commit it to memory, do you own the part of my brain that knows your book? Your ideas, for that matter, which you also claim to own? Isn't that slavery? Is it really worth it to get anywhere near that kind of situation, just so we can keep things the way they were 100 years ago? Has it occurred to you that if the ability to rampantly copy had existed 200 years ago, The Publishing Industry wouldn't have existed at all? Why is this a holy grail, anyway? What are we really protecting?
And btw, if the majority of people don't agree with me, why is this Idea Industry having such trouble with people constantly copying and giving away music, articles, and other Intellectual Property? Maybe they're a silent majority, instead.
Tomas Jefferson would just be smart enough to BUY the book as opposed to RENTING it
But what if Jefferson knew of a technology that naturally let a book be copied so quickly and easily that buying or renting would be obsolete? What would he say then?
We can only speculate, but if you read what he had to say on the subject of copyright and patent, it's easy to see that he'd say that the day of "purchased content" is over.
Somehow figure out how to read the content that I "purchased"? Hmmm. Does that mean that I should go back to the Hertz lot, find the car that I rented, then "somehow" find a way to drive it for a few more days?
You're mixing metaphors. "Content" is not anything like a car. "Content" means an expressed idea. What these people are trying to say is that the law allows them to "own" an idea, or at least the expression of an idea, as if it was a car.
That's silly, and all of us know it. Even the founding fathers of the US spoke directly to this point, saying that it's ridiculous and basically impossible to try and treat the intangible as if it was tangible.
If it is by nature infinitely plentiful, then trying to create an artificial scarcity is futile at best, and totalitarian at worst. (And unfortunately, these days we're leaning toward the totalitarian part.)
A "TCP/MS" protocol, with extra stuff in the header, won't route without explicit cooperation from MS-hating net admins. So there.
This is the thing I've never understood: reading the copyright law, I remember that it specifically says that making copies of a copyrighted work is allowed for educational purposes.
Why would that part of the law not apply here? Schools should not have to pay for more than one copy of software, and should be able to copy it for educational use, at will.
Of course, they'd all be better off using free software anyway, although we could do them a favor and learn that an interface means more than pretty pictures. But that's not the point. :)
---
Playing catch-up doesn't help set standards or even acquire market share
You're right. What I'm imagining is similar to what happened when the IBM PC BIOS was reverse-engineered: once we have very good compatibility, we can set the new standard. People (avg office-worker people) are sick of Word's Feature-itis anyway, and wouldn't it be compelling for a company to get to stop paying for Office entirely -- and just use, oh, AbiWord? Fast, efficient, does what you want it to, compatible with the Word everyone uses (95, 97), and free.
Not to mention: I really have doubts about companies wanting to store their documents on Microsoft servers across the internet, which is what MS is apparently planning.
Side note: never thought about this before, but just imagine: with the DMCA, reverse-engineering the IBM BIOS would be illegal, wouldn't it? No PC clones! I have to admit, sometimes I'm only inches from becoming a Libertarian.
---
You're not paying attention. Maybe they can do that, but it is Microsoft's intention to use
---
All of them already have some form of import/export. The problem is: they all suck.
But imagine the threat to Microsoft if any of them -- muchless all of them -- could import and export MS Word documents perfectly.
What a world it could be, Microsoft-free.
---
why don't you just get off your ass and write what you want yourself
Who's bitching? I'm not saying worthy stuff isn't out there. My point is that with the right priorities, we can take microsoft out, or really weaken it. The problem is that you just read what you wanted to read.
And hell, if I wasn't so busy trying to feed myself, I probably would take it upon myself to write good filters for an office suite, develop a browser that's better than IE, and rework Gnome until it had an actual interface, instead of a group of pretty pictures.
Until I have that kind of time, constructive criticism never hurt anyone. Self-righteousness, however, just might. :)
---
That's why I started with "If I understand correctly." But you're splitting hairs; the point is that it is Microsoft's intent to make most of its money using .NET to make subscription-based software.
---
there is an OSS browser that works very nicely and is the best that's out there right now (I starting using it probably before 95% of the
Hmm. I've tried it, and it just doesn't do even basic HTML correctly, muchless Flash or Java. I'm talking about a recent version (shipped with Mandrake 8.0), too. Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like an alpha to me.
---
Oh, I agree. They aren't guaranteed a win here, if we fight hard enough.
For instance: ".NET". If I understand correctly, this is a software subscription service.
Problem:
What we really need here is:
Give a company the option of using that stuff for free, or
---
It's all obvious enough, even to the general public. After all, it's not a Linux company that was called on the carpet 3+ times by the Justice Dept.
---
They're not breaking the law. The copyright law says that an artist -- not a corporation who bought "rights" -- can receive limited protection for a limited amount of time. That limited time was short, like 7 years, not life of the author + 70 years.
All use is fair use.
---
I have to agree: the diaRIAA can try to sue ISPs (who are protected from responsibility for their users' actions by the DMCA, btw), and users, but there are 5 billion of us, and they can't sue us all.
As Princess Leia once said, the more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.
---
He's just a troll.
I agree copying copywritten works is illegal, and and not a right
Hmm, the Constitution of the US begs to differ. Copyright was meant to protect creative works for a limited time in order to encourage artists to create. Nowhere does it say or imply that copyright is meant as a tool so that corporations can "own" creative works, for extended periods.
You cannot own ideas, even if you think you invent them.
---
> Above.Net's network is, well, Above.Net's
> network. They are free to run their network as
> they see fit. Free to make bad desicions as
> well as good. If you dont like it, go elsewere.
Not really true. No ISP is an island.
> it is monumentally disrespectful to copy
> someone's work without just compensation
Think about how often you repeat someone else's words, use someone else's ideas, improve someone else's ideas, ad infinitum. If we're going to try and make property out of ideas, then we're going to bring human progress to a halt.
Bottom line: musicians will find a different way to make money; they always have. But ideas -- expressed as songs or as words -- cannot be property, and attempts to shoehorn them into becoming property will ultimately fail.
Huh? How is copying songs stealing? Stealing means, by definition, taking something away from someone else (when he doesn't want you to).
Making a perfect copy of something is not stealing -- the "owner" hasn't lost his original.
Really, don't get sucked into RIAA-think. Words like "pirating" and "stealing" -- they really don't mean anything when you're talking about copying something. It's just PR people dreaming.
Can you imagine? You seem to be leading two lives. In one, you write code for a "respectable" software company and help your landlady take out her garbage. In the other, you secretly help write illegal code using "patented" ideas. You're working on a non-sanctioned OS, and the Thought Police (lawyers, law enforcement, and mighty patent-owning corporations) are only one step behind you.
It's just too probable to be anything but scary.